Political Gabfest - Man-Child Graham Platner
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Slate
3.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 4 June 2026
⏱️ 63 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss whether Graham Platner's accumulating self-inflicted wounds will cost Democrats their best shot at Senate control, how Trump's evolving plans for America's semiquincentennial are giving us all a real time lesson in what the Founders were trying to avoid, and the political and social dimensions of being an American World Cup soccer fan.
For this week’s Slate Plus bonus episode, Emily, John, and David discuss consuming escapist vs. difficult art and the turmoil of modern marriage through The Drama and Beef Season 2.
In the latest Gabfest Reads, John Dickerson talks with Bloomberg columnist Adrian Wooldridge about his new book The Revolutionary Center: The Lost Genius of Liberalism. In a moment when American democracy is under assault from authoritarian populists and dogmatic progressives, Wooldridge argues that liberalism itself offers the most resilient framework for pluralistic, self-correcting societies.
Email your chatters, questions, and comments to gabfest@slate.com. (Messages may be referenced by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)
Podcast production by Nina Porzucki
Research by Emily Ditto
You can find the full Political Gabfest show pages here.
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Find out more about David Plotz's monthly tours of Ft. DeRussy, the secret Civil War fort hidden in Rock Creek Park.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | All right. Here we go. |
| 0:05.2 | Hello and welcome to the Slate Political Gab Fest. |
| 0:16.2 | June 4th, 2026, Man Child Graham Platner edition. |
| 0:22.2 | I'm David Plotz of CityCast in Washington, D.C.C. |
| 0:24.1 | Just one month out from the semi-Quincennial. |
| 0:27.9 | I cannot wait. |
| 0:29.4 | I really am so excited. |
| 0:31.3 | Are you performing? |
| 0:32.4 | Are you one of the bands? |
| 0:33.7 | I am performing. |
| 0:34.6 | I agree. |
| 0:35.1 | I stepped in when Millie Vanilli stepped out. |
| 0:38.2 | Lotsie vanazzi. I mean, it's sitting because it's all 90s act. So you're kind of thinking about your hair is the same. They got old slate. Old slate will be performing. That is Emily Bazelon of the New York Times Magazine and Yale University Law School from New Haven. Hello, Emily. Hello, hello. And then a man who I imagine is not missing CBS News, his old employer this |
| 0:57.8 | week, John Dickerson. Hello, John. Hi, how you doing? Do you think, did you ever consider |
| 1:06.0 | writing a kind of incendiary letter on your way out? |
| 1:13.2 | It's not really your style, a la Scott Pelly. |
| 1:15.5 | Well, different circumstances. |
| 1:22.2 | So, of course everyone considers such things. |
| 1:24.4 | Everyone writes letters in their heads. |
| 1:25.2 | Right, right. |
| 1:31.0 | Yeah, no, his circumstances were more, uh, more acute than mine. So I, I, uh, will not engage with the premise of the question. Uh, this week on the |
| 1:38.1 | Gab Fest, Nazi tattoo wearing, rape excusing, now sexting, will Graham Platner of Maine shake off yet another scandal and still go on to win the main Senate seat held by Susan Collins. |
... |
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