The Democrats fight back Trump-style in Maine… but have they messed up?

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0:17The United States is about to mark its 250th anniversary. And so on the Global Story podcast from the BBC, we're telling surprising tales of American influence on the world stage and in ordinary people's lives all across the globe. We have this ability to export our story and a lot of people have bought it. I feel like the American dream is alive, but not well. From the BBC, it's the United States at 250. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, it's Anthony, and you're about to hear AmeriCast. And we're delighted to have you with us. And if you enjoy what you hear, please do consider subscribing to the podcast.

0:58That way, you'll never miss an episode. Now, on with today. Have the Democrats messed up or have they just played a master stroke? The state of Maine in the northeast of America, the far northeast bordering Canada, is at the centre of a fierce debate within the party, the consequences of which are potentially seismic. Democrats looking to win back control of the Senate in this November's midterms need to win Maine. But can they do it with the candidate they have picked? Graham Plattner, an oyster fisherman from Maine. no political experience, multiple allegations about his conduct and his behaviour, particularly towards women in his past.

1:38He says he's changed. I've made mistakes in my life, mistakes that I regret, that I live with, and that I continue to learn from. And I'm still far from perfect. But every day I wake up and I try to be a little bit better and a little bit kinder than I was the day before. Everyone agrees he's not a typical candidate for the Democrats, and Graham Plattner is going to be running against the Republicans' longest-serving female senator. So will the Democrats' massive gamble pay off, or have they potentially messed up their chances of taking back the Senate? Welcome to AmeriCast. AmeriCast. AmeriCast from BBC News.

2:19You hear that sound? Oh, I think when I hear that sound, it reminds me of money. We didn't start this war, but under President Trump, we are finishing it. This is a big cover-up, and this administration is engaged in it. This guy has Trump derangement syndrome. I have four words for you. Turn the volume up!

2:43Hello, it's Anthony, and I'm here in the BBC Bureau in Washington, D.C., but that's not where I started my day. I woke up at the crack of dawn this morning in Bangor, Maine. And it's just in the worldwide headquarters of AmeriCast in London, England. And the time in Britain is just 10 past three or so in the afternoon on Wednesday. And Anthony, what a trip and what a time to go there because, oh, my goodness, you've witnessed history in the making and something that let's be blunt about it. This could be enormously influential what you've just seen and experienced when it comes to November and the Democrats chances.

3:19Yeah, we've talked about this race before. Of course, it's the Graham Plattner race to become the Senate Democratic nominee to take on Susan Collins, the incumbent who has served in the Senate for 30 years now. This is the high stakes race in the upcoming midterms. This is a state that could decide which party controls the Senate after November's midterm elections. And that's because this is the one state that Kamala Harris won in 2024 that a Republican senator is up for reelection. In fact, a Republican hasn't won for president statewide, won the state of Maine since 1988. So this has been a state that has been on Democrats' target for quite some time.

4:03And Susan Collins keeps defying gravity, but they think that this is the year. And if they can get Maine to flip, then it'll make it much easier to find the three other states, Republican states, they need to flip to take back control of the Senate. And just set the Maine scene, because you've got a fantastic time of year, haven't you? And I mean, it's not all politics, is it, to put it mildly, which is kind of quite important, actually, for what we're going to be talking about. But it's just such an amazing place. It's mostly my memory of it. It's got a lot of sea and then Canada, pretty much.

4:32And it's hardly attached to the rest of the United States. The northeastern tip of the United States. And it's very rural and it's bigger, I think, than a lot of people imagine geographically, but still very small as far as the population goes. 1.4 million people, I think, spread out over the state. A lot of them are around Portland and the western portions of the state that are essentially suburbs of Boston. I flew into Portland on Sunday night. It's an artsy kind of town, a really cool, hip place. They have a lot of breweries, good little lobster roll places if you're a lobster fan and live music and things.

5:09And then you drive out east, which is just where the state stretches on, and you get out about a three-hour drive from Portland. That's where I was last night in Blue Hill, Maine, which is Graham Plattner's birthplace. It's a tiny little town on the coast. And I think Plattner picked that as the site of his election night watch party. It's a big YMCA gymnasium there because he wanted to emphasize the fact that he comes from rural Maine. In fact, that's what he says time and time again. He's a product of Maine, a product of rural Maine. And these are the people that he wants to give a voice to, not just the blue haired hipsters in Portland.

5:53Yeah. And it seemed like such a good idea. and they seem to be absolutely to have fixed on something, the Democrats, that not only they were so proud of in Maine, but they were saying, actually, this is a way to do it right around in other places as well because we found someone who isn't a politician, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And as you say, he's oyster farmer. He's done, what, four tours of duty, hasn't he, as a Marine and as a soldier as well in Afghanistan and Iraq. Rough, tough guy, et cetera, et cetera. but um beset with allegations about his past conduct and i want to sort of divide it up because there's loads of stuff that was already known he's got this tattoo this nazi tattoo which he then had covered up didn't he and he got when he was a uh in in the forces he's also got all sorts of social media posts in the past that in a sense everyone kind of accepted didn't they and And on both sides, they had it out and he was still very much the guy and he very much was always going to win the primary.

6:59But it's fair to say, isn't it, Anthony, that in recent days, things have got worse for him and worse potentially for the Democrats. Yeah, just in the last week and a half or so, there's been a one-two punch from major media outlets. Punch one was a Wall Street Journal report where we heard revelations that Plattner had been sending text messages after he married Amy, his wife, to a woman over a dating app. And the wife actually found out about these and she told the campaign about it. And the campaign, a campaign advisor who has since had a falling out with Plattner, took those stories to the Wall Street Journal and they published them.

7:37So it was more recent, certainly, than some of these Reddit posts we've talked about and certainly more recent than the Nazi tattoos. So it re-aired some of these concerns about Plattner and his personal behavior. That was the Wall Street Journal. That was punch number one. Punch number two came from The New York Times. And that was the New York Times went back and talked to a bunch of Plattner's ex-girlfriends in the 2000 teens and thereabouts, including one who is now a Republican operative. But it was a girlfriend of his at the time in Washington, D.C., that said that he was sometimes threatening towards her, that he sometimes grabbed her by the shoulders, that he one time pulled her out of the car by her wrist enough that it bruised her.

8:21She felt intimidated and threatened. Other of his exes said that he was sometimes a little problematic, sometimes a little sketchy, and not always the best boyfriend and someone who has had a problem with alcohol and could be verbally intimidating. So that was what came out, and that put him on MS Now, the liberal network here in the U.S., trying to explain away all of this and saying that that's not who he is now and that he has changed. And there's another allegation, isn't there, in the New York Times, that this tattoo that he had, the so-called Nazi tattoo, that he has said, oh, I didn't know what it was when I first had it, et cetera, et cetera.

9:04And when I found out, when I was told, I covered it up. Actually, he's got a girlfriend now who's saying that he did know because he used to refer to it as my Totenkopf, which is the name of the tattoo, the symbol. And that, I mean, in a way, alongside the other allegations, but in a sense, more seriously, it does suggest that he was properly dishonest then about this tattoo. And in a way that is actually causing him some difficulty now with people saying not only that he's got a past, but that he's properly tried to cover it up. Right. And the girlfriend shared messages that she sent other people talking about the tattoo and saying he had a Nazi tattoo, which corroborated at least the fact that she knew it was a Nazi tattoo well before Plattner admitted or said that he found out about it.

9:56So Plattner's response is that, well, he had this tattoo and he wore it. The reason it became revealed is he took off his shirt at a friend's Jewish wedding or a family Jewish wedding, and he never would have been cavorting about with a Nazi symbol on his chest if he knew that. But yeah, it undercuts his believability on this. And your honesty and your reputation when you're trying to knock down these kind of stories is the best defense. And if that gets undercut, then you could be in real trouble. Well, let's hear what he says about all of this now, because he's hit back in the past and he's defended himself and defended himself, it should be said, pretty successfully because he's got this far.

10:38But he did his victory speech, didn't he? Redemption is not just some simple or easy destination. It's a journey. I've made mistakes in my life, mistakes that I regret, that I live with and that I continue to learn from. and I'm still far from perfect. But every day I wake up and I try to be a little bit better and a little bit kinder than I was the day before. And if you give me the chance, I will be a senator for the people who cannot afford to buy a senator. Now the national pundits, the political establishment, they keep looking for that one story, that one headline, that one moment in my life that they can define the campaign by but in trying so hard to understand me they failed to understand that this is not about me at all now the truth is Susan Collins doesn't serve us she serves Donald Trump she serves the Epstein class she serves her corporate donors and the corrupt political system that has rigged the economy against us she does not serve us and so we will defeat Susan Collins

11:59so Justin that was Platner's victory speech at that YMCA that I attended last night and he looked a little different actually during that speech he was He's wearing business slacks like suit pants and a white collared shirt. He did have his sleeves rolled up so you could still see the tattoos. And he was also reading off a teleprompter. But I think listening to that, it sounded like a pretty well-delivered speech. And it hit the notes that he wanted to. This, you know, it's not about me, it's about us thing. Who does that remind you of? A recent unconventional politician who was dogged by scandals and managed to shake them off.

12:36Yeah. Yeah, I mean, there's a wider reason, isn't there, why Democrats, some Democrats, and we'll talk a bit about the split that there is in a second, but why some Democrats, including people like Bernie Sanders, left-wing senator, very much a fan of Plattner, and absolutely saying he's sticking by him, and just making the point that he's not a perfect guy, but he's going for the billionaire class, exactly the point that Plattner just made. And that put me in mind of supporters of Donald Trump, because you and I have both met them all around the state, haven't we, Anthony? And people say to you, yeah, he's and they quite often use quite rude words about him, don't they?

13:15But he's going to do what we want to do. And, you know, back in 2016, it was about people who wanted to reduce abortion rights, wasn't it? And thought he's not a perfect vessel for us, but we're going to go for him anyway. And in the other elections as well, people have found reasons to vote for Donald Trump in spite of who he is. And I think that there is certainly a view, isn't there, among many Democrats that for Plattner, it's going to be the same. It will be in spite of who he is or who he was. Right. And you could hear early in that clip we played what he's trying to do there, which is to try to paint a redemption arc that he had problems that he came back from.

13:53Which it has to be said, Donald Trump's never done. Yeah, I've never done. So I mean, he's trying a slightly different twist on this, I suppose. But you know, this redemption arc and that he has changed. He's a changed man. He's trying to be better. If we can change politics in this country, then you have to believe that we can, that a person can change too. And he actually, we didn't hear in the clip, but he attributed the force for that change. The person who has helped him realize that change was Amy, his wife we brought up on stage and had kissed, must have five or six times on stage at various different times.

14:25I also believe that people can change.

14:33And the reason I believe that is because I have lived it. And the reason that I have lived it is because of my wife.

14:56I talked to someone, someone, Amanda Littman, who her job is to recruit novice political candidates for office, people who may not think about politics, people who haven't run for office before and to run for local, state, federal elections. And she says, you know, a lot of the people that she brings in, they have skeletons in their closet. They're not perfect. They never thought they were going to run for office, so they may have made mistakes in their lives. And she said that the thing that was most important was for them to be honest about it, for them to paint this kind of redemption arc. They learned from their lessons.

15:30They're a new person now. And the thing that is most dangerous is if after you do that and more stuff comes out, Then it starts feeling like you're just making excuses that this is not an authentic kind of acknowledgement of your past, but something you're throwing out there to get the media off your scent. And she wasn't thrilled with Plattner. She thought there should have been more choices running for Senate besides Plattner and Janet Mills, the governor. But she is grudgingly saying this is the candidate the Democrats have picked. And she feels like she has to support him ultimately to beat Susan Collins.

16:05There's another problem, though, running against Susan Collins, isn't there? So he said in that clip we were just listening to, the truth is Susan Collins doesn't serve us. She serves Donald Trump. Well, not only Donald Trump would say that, would he? And the record shows that she doesn't always serve Donald Trump and quite often doesn't. I mean, genuinely doesn't. And she's known for anything in the U.S. And she is quite a well-known senator, isn't she? It's because she's independent minded. So they're trying to portray her as a sort of Trump tool and suggest that independent-minded voters should vote for Plattner.

16:44But it just seems to me that there is a potential issue that they have that Susan Collins simply does seem like the moderate. And independent-minded voters in Maine who have voted for her again and again and again and again might go the same way in November. Yeah, that's going to be the challenge with trying to unseat her. She voted to convict Donald Trump after he was impeached in 2021. And interestingly enough, the Trump people haven't come after her for it the way they came after, say, Bill Cassidy, the Louisiana Republican senator who just got voted out of office in that state's primary because Trump backed someone to knock him out.

17:22I think that's an acknowledgement of the tenuous situation that Collins finds herself in in Maine. So when you weren't eating oysters or basking in the sun, did you have a moment to talk to anyone, any real people, as we used to say on the BBC? I don't think we do anymore, quite rightly. But did you give us a sense, a flavor of what people are saying about all these things we've just been talking about? I got out and talked to a bunch of main voters, first at a Platner town hall event on Sunday night. That's where I spoke with Kevin, the first person you'll listen to. And then I went to a polling place in Portland and started grabbing voters who were coming out.

18:00And these were all Plattner supporters, but you can hear in these various clips some of the trepidation, some of the concern they have. And I will add, I do my own audio here. I'm not an audio technician, so I apologize for the quality of some of these. I'm a writer. I do the best I can. Everybody wants him to lose because he isn't the established Democrat. He isn't 75 years old. He didn't grow up in politics. He hasn't been groomed right from... Some of these guys go in there at 23 and stay until they're 88. He is not that person. And the stuff in the news recently, that doesn't really... Yes, it concerns me.

18:41But what concerns me more is Susan Hollins going back to Washington. Hi, my name is Julia. I'm a nurse at Main Medical Center and I voted for Graham Plattner to... the Haubar fight for universal healthcare. I mean, we've definitely seen some more, like, under-the-nose issues coming from Plattner, like, rising up, but I still think that it really is, like, there is no one else at this point. Yeah, and the issues that you see in this stuff about his personal life, does that affect you or concern you at all going into November? I think it's unfortunate because I believe that her, out that his wife came out with a statement saying that like we're working through this privately.

19:26I do not want like more public pieces about this so I'm glad that they are working through that. My name is Fiona Coleman. I'm 24. I'm from Portland, Maine. I voted for Graham Plattner. I saw him speak multiple times and I really appreciated his commitment to the working class as well as as well as immigrants and people of color in Maine. Have any of the reports that come out recently in major media that concerned you at all, the things about his past girlfriends or anything like that? Yes, definitely. And I've had to think about that a lot and had discussions with family. I don't want anyone to think that I'm okay with any of the things that he's been accused of.

20:14I'm just very anti Susan Collins and I will take anybody that isn't her. So, again, absolutely not OK with anything that he's been accused of. It's really striking listening to that, Anthony. I mean, that is what Trump people said again and again. I'm not OK with the things that he did. I don't like the way he's treated women, et cetera, et cetera. But, you know, we're electing a president, et cetera, et cetera. And there is a kind of there are some Democrats, aren't there, who are worried about the hypocrisy potentially or the accusation of hypocrisy here, that people are very, very upset about Donald Trump and the things that he has said and done in the past and facing now.

20:58It's not the same stuff. And you could argue convincingly, I think it's not the same level of stuff. But nonetheless, it's stuff and it's a double standard potentially. Yeah. And there were people I talked to, some who did not want to be quoted on the record, who said they were Mills supporters, the governor. They did not like Plattner. They were very worried that he was not going to be able to beat Collins and also worried about what it says about Democrats that they would, like you say, still support someone who cuts against a lot of the things they say are reprehensible in personal behavior and in politics.

21:36So I also talked to a woman named Maureen who was an independent, and she said she knew Susan Collins. She had met Susan Collins before, that she generally supports her. But what she said was she didn't know enough about Plattner to make up her mind yet, and that she's going to have to do some research. She barely pronounced his name right. And I think that shows what's going to happen over the next month and two. It's going to be a real battle by the Republicans, by Susan Collins, by all these groups that are going to be pouring negative ads into Maine to try to define Plattner before he is able to define himself and to paint this redemption story and to try to explain all of these other things that have come out.

22:18And if he can do that, then he has a chance. If he is just swept away in a sea of money and people make up their minds that this guy is someone they don't want to send to replace Susan Collins in the Senate, then he's going to be in real trouble. Or if something else comes out. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that was the thing. Plattner was here last week, here in D.C. last week, and he spoke with Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer and Elizabeth Warren, kind of a high-level strategy session with the top senators, Democratic senators here. And one of the things, according to reports, they all asked him was, is this it?

22:54Is there anything else that's going to come out? Are there any allegations of domestic violence? And he assured them no, that this is it. There's nothing, that he's going to be attacked and people are going to pick through things he said, but that there's nothing that could be a fatal blow to his campaign. So I think there are a lot of Democrats here in Washington that are going OK and they're crossing their fingers and they're hoping for the best. But, you know, we've heard that before from different politicians and it doesn't always work out that way. It's fascinating, isn't it, how someone is picked as well, because, I mean, obviously there was some degree of vetting, but we'll listen in a second to the people who who were sort of in charge of the vetting.

23:42And it's an extraordinary interview, actually, that they gave to the Wall Street Journal. But just before we get to that, Anthony, because it's not clear in my mind, do you have to be, well, what do you have to be in order to run as a Democrat in a state primary? Or does it vary from state to state? If I want to put myself forward, what do I have to convince people apart from that I've got the money to do it? Well, you know, typically you have to convince the party officials. You don't have to get them to sign off on it, but getting their support, getting the party's support, building relationships, whether it's a local race or a statewide race, that is the key.

24:23Oftentimes, the national party, which has committees like the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Senate Leadership Committee, they will go out and actively recruit people. They think this is someone, an ex-veteran, for instance, or someone who has won locally and has a following or someone who kind of fits their idea of what a winning candidate could look like. They go off and encourage them to run. I mean, that's what the Senate leadership did with Janet Mills, the governor of Maine, in this race. They twisted her arm, told her to run. I don't think she really wanted to, but they said, you know, we're going to clear the field for you.

24:55Everyone except this Plattner guy. And you should be able to get the nomination and a walk. That's the way it often works. The way it has worked more now and what some people within the progressive left of the Democratic Party and in the Tea Party on the right as well are trying to do is bypass those institutions, those kind of centers of power and find their own candidates, convince them to run, help fund them through a national donation network and social media and elevate their status and then get them to try to win a seat. even if the party doesn't have their back in the initial days. Well, let's listen to these two people who apparently got him to run.

25:38So they're not from Maine themselves. Daniel Moraf and his fiance, Liane Fan, were impressed, they said, of a video of Graham Plattner rallying against a proposed Norwegian salmon farm in Maine. Big local issue. Apparently he did it very well. He argued it would devastate the local economy, etc. So last July, they drove to his house unannounced, they said, to convince him to run. So this is the Wall Street Journal's interview with them or a clip of the Wall Street Journal's interview with them about the kind of vetting process that they then went through for Graham Plattner. How did you go about vetting him?