Do the Dems Need More Graham Platners?
What Next | Daily News and Analysis
Slate Podcasts
4.3 • 2.4K Ratings
🗓️ 4 June 2026
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Graham Platner has a lot of things in his favor as he runs for a US Senate seat in Maine: it’s an off-election year, the president’s approval rating is slumping and dragging down the whole GOP. Should be a breeze as soon as Platner gets through this latest scandal.
Guests:
Danielle Kurtzleben, White House Correspondent for NPR and “Masculinity politics expert.”
Ken Klippenstein, independent journalist covering national security and U.S. politics.
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Podcast production by Evan Campbell, Madeline Ducharme, Patrick Fort, Rob Gunther and Paige Osburn.
This conversation took place on June 3 and does not reflect new reporting in the New York Times from June 4.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey everyone. Heads up here at the top. We're going to be talking about Maine Senate candidate |
| 0:04.4 | Graham Platner's many scandals. But we recorded this conversation before the most recent allegations |
| 0:12.4 | surfaced in the New York Times. These are stories from a few of Platner's ex-girlfriends who said |
| 0:18.3 | he made them uneasy, but they said that in very graphic and specific |
| 0:22.5 | terms. In any case, this episode is Frank about sex. If you've got little ears nearby, |
| 0:28.8 | you've been warned. |
| 0:34.5 | Ken Klippenstein, Daniel Kurtzleben, I've called you both here for what I am calling a family meeting. |
| 0:42.9 | Welcome. |
| 0:44.6 | Hello. |
| 0:45.2 | Ooh, this feels serious. |
| 0:48.1 | Danielle and Ken are both writers I follow online. |
| 0:51.4 | Ken publishes independently on Substack. |
| 0:56.9 | Danielle reports over at NPR. They break interesting stories. They can be funny. Here's what I want to know from both of you. This past weekend, |
| 1:04.3 | when news broke about another scandal from Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner, what kind of texts did you start to get? |
| 1:14.0 | The first ones I got were another one, |
| 1:16.3 | as in like another scandal, another road bump for this guy. |
| 1:20.1 | And then it became, how big of a deal is this going to be? |
| 1:24.8 | Ken, what about you? |
| 1:26.5 | I heard some cynicism, things along the lines of, oh, |
| 1:29.7 | they really don't want him to win, that kind of thing. Oh, that's so interesting, who is the they |
| 1:34.8 | in that statement? Well, in that case, it'd probably be like the idea that the media is focusing |
| 1:40.8 | on this. They'd probably say something like, well, half of Congress is doing |
... |
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