MTracey podcast - What advice would I give Graham Platner?

Episode Date: July 10, 2026

Somehow I unwittingly got roped into doing four separate podcast/TV appearances today, so that’s dominated my itinerary. I figured I would re-post to Substack the livestream I did earlier this evening on the Platner affair. You’ve likely heard that he announced he “intends” to withdraw his Senate candidacy — although as of this afternoon, he had not yet formally done so. And who knows, “intentions” can be fickle. But should the coerced withdrawal be finalized, this will go down as perhaps the most ruthless (and shameless) defenestration in recent US political history.Why do I say the hit has been manufactured? Why use that particular word? Because literally, it’s been openly divulged that the “rape accusation” rollout was facilitated by a specific individual, Cheyenne Hunt, who had openly declared her mission to take out Platner, following what she boasts was her integral role in vaporizing Eric Swalwell several months before. After which, she had joined with Democratic House members, including Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Debbie Dingell, Rashida Tlaib, and Becca Balint, to announce the formation of a new pressure outfit, “Reckoning Action,” and likewise announce that the next target on her list was Graham Platner. She then made good on these threats, and was openly credited for engineering the POLITICO article that spurred the denunciatory mob this week, in concert with a CNN interview of the alleged victim. It would defy reason to not also suspect that she could have been “behind” the accuser’s accusations escalating so radically since June 4, when the accuser had merely told the New York Times that she perceived Platner’s behavior to be “reckless” and “unsettling.” Then by July 6, the allegation morphs into full-blown rape. Go figure. “Rape” — the magic word everyone knows would send the Democratic Party hurtling into a frantic tailspin. So there’s just no question Platner’s neutralization was manufactured. It’s not being hidden! It doesn’t require any wild speculation. It’s being openly bragged about!“Manufactured” is also an apt word because the initial POLITICO article was clearly framed to convey to casual news consumers — the vast majority of whom will not forensically read it, of course, and only absorb the headline takeaway — that rock-solid corroboration had been uncovered that made the accusation supremely credible, and should be assumed unassailably true. But… there is no corroboration whatsoever presented in the article for the claim that Graham Platner raped Jenny Racicot in 2021. None. And yet, even news consumers whom you’d think might be a bit more sophisticated, like Nate Silver, falsely described the article as containing precisely the corroborative evidence it did not contain. The literal opening sentences of Nate’s post on the matter featured two egregious falsehoods. I wrote a Substack Note yesterday (tagging Nate) that explained these errors in detail, and never received a response, nor has there been any correction made to Nate’s post:So if this “rape accusation” rollout could have succeeded at getting Nate Silver to falsely proclaim “corroborating materials” had been produced — and thus every right-minded citizen should agree it’s been proven that Platner committed rape — that’s a phenomenal PR masterstroke. Bravo. Even though Nate himself was already primed to believe any “accusation” that might be flung Platner’s way, since he’d already been arguing for weeks/months that Platner was a big political liability for Dems, and Maine primary voters were extremely un-savvy to support him. Sensing vindication for his thesis had arrived, Nate confirmation-biased his way to the most damning interpretation of a single POLITICO article — that’s all it took — and announced the rape claim was “well-supported,” because the accuser provided “corroborating materials” such as “communications about the assault with her therapist and with a friend.” Yet it’s 100% false that any “communications” provided to POLITICO had “corroborated” that an assault or rape took place in 2021. The “communications” POLITICO cites, with both the therapist and the “friend,” corroborate no such thing. See the Substack Note for further details. The point here is that someone such as Nate, who styles himself a highly discerning media aficionado, bought into the idea that dispositive proof of Platner’s raping had been revealed — a testament to the shrewdness of the PR-manufactured initiative.I was asked on the stream tonight how I would theoretically advise Platner to proceed. Well, I know what I wouldn’t do — I wouldn’t pull a Morris Katz, the boy-wonder strategist reputed to be some brilliant political thinker, and tell Platner he ought to instantly capitulate to a raving mob, which had formed its implacable consensus in a matter of minutes on Monday. PLATNER MUST GO. Because if there’s anything we can be reasonably certain of with mobs, it’s that the furious insta-verdicts they proclaim do not tend to reflect a rational evaluation of the facts and evidence. It would therefore be foolish for Platner to bow to the mob, as a hostage to the moment, because it’s reasonably likely the fire-and-brimstone uproar will subside soon enough, and perhaps at least a smidgeon of rational thinking can eventually be introduced.What’s the alternative? Bowing to the mob is functionally the same as Platner agreeing to be branded “rapist.” Because 99% of people who ever hear about this story will never hear about any exculpatory facts or evidence that might emerge weeks, months, or years down the line. They will instead have heard that Platner was accused of rape, and that he seemingly validated this accusation by withdrawing on the spot. Even though he had just received more Democratic primary votes than any Maine senate candidate in history. So for him to terminate his candidacy even under those circumstances must mean he really did do something horrible and rapey. Purely from the standpoint of his own personal self-interest, and self-preservation, I can’t imagine telling Platner to assist in the nuking of his own reputation.But on top of that, anyone who’d claim they know for certain that Platner couldn’t possibly win in November is blowing smoke out their ass. You absolutely do not know, one way or another. Have people really not gotten wise to the folly of over-confident pundit-like projections of future electoral outcomes? Almost certainly, 2026 is going to be a sizable pro-Democrat wave year — which means even “flawed” Dem candidates will be lifted to victory by national trends. Dems and Dem-aligned independents are inevitably going to consolidate around the Dem nominee to some extent, as always happens in October/November when most people’s minds get concentrated on the general election stakes. Unlike in, say, July. But even if we stipulate that Platner’s chances of beating Susan Collins have diminished by virtue of the latest “accusations” — regardless of whether they’re credible or true — how far could his odds have really fallen? Let’s go with a harsh estimate and say he’s now only got a 30% chance of winning. That’s… not so bad? Plenty of candidates have contested plenty of elections facing far longer odds, and a 30% chance of becoming the junior Senator from Maine is a gamble plenty of political operators wouldn’t think twice about taking. Plus, I doubt the odds have even gotten that low. Sure, you can imagine some subset of voters now saying they won’t vote for Platner who otherwise would have — a percentage of older liberal women, perhaps. But I don’t buy that hardcore Democratic partisans in Maine are going to decide en masse that they’d rather have Republicans control the Senate for the second half of Trump’s term, than have a Democratic senator with some “accusations” trailing him — however appalled these voters might now purport to be in the immediate wake of the Accusation Train leaving the station.Further, Platner is adamant that the accusations are not just false, but blatantly fabricated. Why preclude that he could be vindicated on this score? The rape claim has already fallen apart to a large extent, and it’s only been like three days. Who’s to say it couldn’t be wholly disproven, or at least widely discounted for non-credibility, in the next several months? This could be accomplished, for instance, by demanding that if rape is going to be alleged, let the alleging party go and file a police report, since a rape offense that allegedly took place in 2021 is well within the Maine statute of limitations. It’s not a crazily far-fetched proposition that the claim could soon be investigated through some official government channel, and be found to lack merit. Again: what’s the alternative? Just comply with your own destruction? That would pretty much be Platner raping himself.Part of the reasoning Platner cited in the video he put out yesterday for why he “intends” to withdraw — despite maintaining that the accusations are patently, 100% false — is that national Democratic power-brokers were going to deprive him of the resources necessary to mount his campaign. Meaning, they were going to cut off his funding from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and also deny him access to the DNC voter file. So in light of these newly-imposed roadblocks, he needed to withdraw.But hold up a sec. Sure, those would be legitimate hindrances. But he could still raise money on his own, through his own campaign organization. No national entity controls that. He doesn’t have to rely on infusions from any national party vehicles to stay afloat. And he could probably raise a lot of money on his own, were he to actually be defiant, and refuse to back down in the face of what he’s declaring (with good reason) is a manufactured political and media class snowjob. He could still hold rallies, he could still hold town halls. Maine isn’t a huge state, so he could probably even run plenty of TV ads.In addition to all the stuff he could continue doing on his own, when these Dem bigwigs dramatically claim they’re going to withhold national funding, or prevent him from accessing the voter file… yeah, OK, that’s what they’re saying in July. How much you wanna bet they’d have a miraculous change of heart by the fall? (What are they gonna do — forfeit the race to Collins?) This is what they’re threatening right now in order to force Platner out. I’d wager it’s actually more likely than not they would conveniently forget about all these boisterous threats by the time September/October rolls around, and unlock the national resources as though nothing happened.So that’s what I would advise Platner. But I’m not an overhyped, overrated, and overpaid consultant, so what do I know. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mtracey.net/subscribe

I am here because Washington needs fighters and Graham Platner is the fighter we need. You bet. I said to myself, that's my kind of man because that is a man who not only has the values, but a man who believes in accountability. And we need a little accountability coming out of Washington right now. We need Graham Platner to come in and get rid of the corruption in Washington, time for new laws. He was heavily intoxicated, had intentions with me, and wasn't listening when I said, no.

And you were saying, no, don't, no, don't, over and over. I remember, you know, obviously I've had to recall a lot of this. This is something that I tried for many years to forget. And so small details. you know, might get past me, but yes, I remember very specifically saying, I'm not into this. I remember that the most, sort of saying that the most firmly. I remember specifically him, like, grabbing at my chest and I, like, hit his hand, and I said, don't touch me.

And I remember that during the altercation specifically. And then he kept going. Yeah. I know that you have been very reluctant to tell this story. Very reluctant. Yeah. I'm actually surprised you're here. I'm thrown up three times today.

Is that right? Yeah. Why did you ultimately decide to do it? Why come forward? A few reasons. One of the biggest ones is that I think that there are a lot of men in this world relying on the silence of women. I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me.

Any accusation of non-consensual behavior is categorically false. Hey, everyone. It's a cramplatner here. I think as many of you know, over the past couple days, I have faced some very serious allegations, and I just want to make it clear. This is all false. The things that have been claimed did not happen.

It's not real. We believe that for the movement to continue, it can't be made. And for that reason, We are suspending campaign operations. This is incredibly difficult because I know that some will think it's an admission of guilt, and it most certainly is not. We're not doing it because of the allegations.

We're doing it because of the structures that are being taken away from us by those in power. We banded together. We did it the way that we were told we are supposed to make change, and we won. And now they are not going to let us have it. Yeah, baby, it's episode 90 of the winers on July 9th, 2026. Jeff Norman and Ryan Milton with you as we always are on Thursday nights. Morgan is out tonight, but we're joined by our special guest, Michael Tracy, the great independent journalist.

And he will be in New York City on July 14th doing a debate, sponsored by the Soho Forum at a venue called the Sheen Center. What is that all about, Michael? That is a debate. I was asked to participate in several months ago now by the organizers of the Soho Forum or the people who run it, which is a regular debate series in New York City. And after the uproar of the Epstein files, apparently they had wanted to do a, Epstein-thene-themed debate, or at least Gene Epstein, no relation, the guy who's in charge of it, wanted to do that. And I was actually doubtful that they would even find anybody who would be

willing to debate me, because I had informally sought to debate or even just converse with anybody who takes a contrary position to me on the Epstein thing for quite some time. Intermediary areas had even tried to set up debates with people who take a differing perspective and almost invariably where it was unsuccessful. But evidently they found this individual to debate me, who I gather is a professor at Pace University. So yeah, July 14th Bastille Day, feel free to come out if you happen to be in the area. I wish I was going to be in that area.

That sounds great. I live in North Carolina and Ryan's in Austin. So maybe we'll have an opportunity to see a video of it if we're lucky. Yeah, I think it should be streamed or on video someplace. That's good. Well, here on the winers, we sip wine while we chat. And tonight, in honor of Michael's supermodel status, I'm drinking hot to trot wine made by 14 hands.

It's a Washington state wine. I know that. It's a nice blend, you know it? Yeah, nice. Condon de Merlot, Surrah. Very good. And what are you drinking tonight, Ryan? So typically chardonnays are considered the MSG of wine.

But the French ones tend to be a little bit different. And I'm much more of a fan of this one. It has more acidic qualities. It's a little bit more, I don't know, what do they say? It's the terroix, right? All the different techniques that go into that. But it doesn't have all. of the extra chemistry that American chardonnays have. So it's very tasty, cost a little more than

years. I highly recommend it, though. All right. Don't even mention the price. It's too intimidating for us normal people. I'm sticking with water for now. Sorry to be lame, but there you have. At least you owned the lameness. Thank you. Yes. Yeah, before we came on, Michael, Ryan and I were talking about whether or not you drink. And I told him, I don't know if you remember, we hung out for a bit at the, I think it was called the Peace Ball in Washington, D.C. Do you remember that? Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, I remember. Yeah, I hadn't put that together for some reason, but yes, I remember, you know. Yeah, you were with that nice young woman who I guess it was your camera operator for the field reporting that you used to do for Glenn Greenwald. Yeah. So we chatted for a while, but I can't remember if you had a drink in your hand. I'm sure I did. That would have been the only way to get through that event.

I do drink. I mean, I don't tend to drink kind of just on my own day to day. Like, but if not some function or some social event, yeah, I will typically drink. Got it. It's probably the best way to do it. Yeah, yeah. I mean, nothing against people who kind of like just drink on their own on like a workday or something. But.

Oh, good. It's not, that's not my habit at least yet. Although sometimes I think I should become an alcoholic or something because I probably make my life more exciting. Well, maybe a little less stressful. I'd like to see a documentary sometime of a day in the life of Michael Tracy. It would not be that interesting of a documentary. No, maybe it's all in the head.

It would be a lot of me sitting on a laptop. Yeah, I guess so. Maybe a documentary of what's going on inside your mind. You tweeted up a storm today, that's for sure. A lot going on. It's very chaotic times that we live in. And about the only relief we have is to try to. get rich with precious metals. What's the latest on that, Ryan? Well, I wouldn't say try to get rich.

I'm not sure that that's possible for us, lowly citizens, but I was just thinking about all of these different things, right? You still have, oh, everything was solved in the Middle East. Now it's not solved. Again, instability there and in Europe. Cryptocurrency, I was looking at that. Man, you have to have ice in your veins to get into that. Now they're talking more about a correction because you have to use those terms so people don't get nervous with the AI bubble in the West while China is basically just soaring with their deep seek and things like that. I was looking at the strategic patrol and reserve because the president had been saying about 20 days ago, we're four weeks away. So we apparently have about 16 days of oil. So anyway, everything is just continuing instability. So maybe

the alcoholism is a good idea or gold. If we're going to run out of oil in 16 days. I mean, the thing is, the question is, we're not going to run out of wine though in 16 days. That's right. That's right. So, and I stockpile wine and I don't stockpile gold, but central bank stockpile of gold. And again, it's because it's not tied to the variance of inflation. It's considered gold, silver, even assets, which will increase in value over time. Precious metals serve as a steadying force to avert risk. So our beloved audience should go to winers.com. I I hope you're showing it there on the screen you are to learn more about Gold Co and diversifying their retirement with physical gold and silver. That's what I've done.

And also how they can roll over their existing funds into a precious metal IRA, Jeff. As I say, they're very professional. They're not pushy. I went through that whole undercover investigation of them. And they were pretty legit. So, you know, we are partners with them. And whiners. Dot gold.

That's where people should go. All right, very good. All right, Michael, let's get to it. You were talking about Jeffrey Epstein before and having a hard time getting people to debate you, but a lot of people have been giving you grief over it, calling you a misogynist and things along those lines. And now you are weathering the storm yet again with regard to Graham Platner. People are, oh, surprised. Look at Michael Tracy. Look at what position he's taking. And I just want to say that I love the way. you just don't care and you withstand it all. They call you a contrarian. I don't know how you feel about that label. It's sort of, I guess, may have the connotation that you're trying to be disagreeable. I don't like that connotation because I think you're quite sincere about it.

How does it feel to be weathering the storm that you get from all this? Yeah, I've never cared for the term contrarian just because it canoen connotes some sort of arbitrariness in why it is that I might say a certain thing or take a certain angle on a subject journalistically and also kind of implies a certain level of like, you know, insincerity or just wanting to provoke for for its own sake. You know, those are not motives that I've ever able to consciously locate in my own head. Not that I could, be maybe fairly accused of having some maybe disagreeable personality traits. But yeah, I never do or say anything, you know, in terms of my public hot presentation

that I can't give some kind of sincere argumentation for. And my argumentation for why I've taken this tack with Plattner is that, you know, I personally never even had any particular political affinity with Platner. but although, you know, it is sort of notable, let's say, that he was able to become the nominee for one of the two major parties in like the Marquis Senate race in the country that could decide control of the chamber. So that alone is kind of like. And it was a landslide too, right? Not only that. It was so, his lead was so overwhelming or his command over the Democratic.

primary electorate was so overwhelming that the candidate who had been fielded by Schumer to potentially stop him, Janet Mills, who was the incumbent governor, incumbent Democratic governor, she aborted her candidacy like at least a month or two in advance. So yeah, it was overwhelming. And she was still on the ballot, as you could see. But his political strength by the spring to early summer of 2006 was so insurmountable that it was seen as a lost cause for any, quote, establishment Democrat to even hope to beat him. So that is notable, right? And I don't know that I necessarily would therefore have an affinity with him because of that, but I at least would have some recognition of some of the feat that he had been able to accomplish politically, which

would not have been something that you might have foreseen. Well, let me ask you a quick question. Let me ask you a quick question there because, I mean, before we get into all of these other scandals, I mean, you know that everybody knew everything that's come out before even that primary happened. So the question is, you know, why are these things timed in the way that they are? Let me give you a reason why I bring it up. My mother ran for Congress in Arizona back in the early 90s and won the Democratic primary. hands down against the establishment candidate in a very wild and big campaign. And then the Democratic Party played a role in sabotaging her campaign because she did not align with the establishment.

And that was back then when people didn't think that happened. So I don't get it still why these things weren't even addressed beforehand because they were with her. well to my knowledge until monday there had been no claim made in the public arena that he had actually committed rape or had no there was no outright rape allegation right this woman who was thrust into this big PR offensive like it was choreographed literally she had been in the public domain a month before in the New York Times article on June 4th, that was much vaguer in terms of what was even being alleged.

It was hard to define, if you go back and read that article, if anything was being alleged at all in terms of some kind of concrete misconduct, right? It was instead kind of like imputations to Platner about events or relationship dynamics from 10 or 15 years in the past in some cases. You're talking about just so people understand. You're talking about Jenny Rassikot, if that's how to pronounce her name. The woman we saw in the opening video who said she threw up three times before she did the CNN interview. Who wouldn't throw up three times before going on CNN?

I might I'm at the hope out of just like disgust rather than nervousness. But yeah, I think it's pronounced Rasko actually. I think it's like a French maybe origin surname. I'm not 100% sure. And that's part of the orchestration is what you're saying with the New York Times, the beginning of an orchestration. I'm kind of making a more narrow point, right? In that the reason why this claim emerged on Monday afternoon is that there was a concerted

and openly declared, openly disclosed PR campaign undertaken by a particular person, Cheyenne Hunt, who is named in the political article where the story was quote unquote broken because she fed them the story, meaning fed them the vic. or the alleged victim who was going to debut this newly intensified version of her supposed victimization. And then also that was kind of coordinated with the interview that she did on CNN with Jake Tapper. So again, this isn't hidden. It's not even something we have to speculate. It's in the article as to what the origin of this allegation was. So over the past month, since this woman first leveled some kind of public allegations against Platterner,

she had then begun to work with or be in the sort of milieu of or like had been in collaboration with this entity of this woman, Cheyenne Hunt and this new organization that she had founded in May, which she kind of pompously calls reckoning action that she founded in, with the involvement to one degree or another with Democratic Party politicians, so the Democratic Women's Caucus members of it, like Debbie Wasterman Schultz, Debbie Dingell, Rashida Talib, and some others, they were on hand in Washington, D.C. at some kind of press event when she announced the formation of this new organization,

which she founded, because of her great triumph that she was declaring for herself, having been behind the orchestration of the ouster of Eric Swalwell in April. Now, I've been asking, okay, if this woman's involvement in defenestrating Eric Swalwell is supposed to have a doubt her with this like historic importance such that she felt it was her prerogative to found a new group, number one, who would like then pick additional targets, end up picking Platner. Right?

So number one, who's funding the group? Nobody knows. Number two, who does the group coordinate with? Does it coordinate with any of these members of Congress? What is the function of this group other than just like a PR portal for Cheyenne Hunt who thinks is described as some like groundbreaking, you know, 29-year-old influencer or something? It's like a business thing, basically. Yeah, at number three, well, I don't know.

I mean, it would be nice to know a little bit more about their financials. Number three, in the three months or so, since the Eric Swalwell ordeal happened, has the evidence that was promised would emerge to substantiate allegations of assault and or rape against Swalwell, has it emerged? Now, that story has been mostly memory holds, right? Because, you know, who wants, it happened in April, so it might as well, like, been before the crucifixion of Christ. But no, in fact, the evidence that was promised would be marshaled to show Swabell's Guild has not emerged.

There's been virtually no follow-up on any of those allegations, right? But they did that. That's a fair point, Michael. But correct me, if I'm wrong, isn't Eric Swalwell or wasn't he basically liked by the powers that being the Democratic Party? Weren't his positions in alignment with them, whereas Platoners maybe weren't? Is that a... Well, I mean, probably to some degree, yes, because, you know, Swallow was kind of a protege of

Nancy Pelosi. He was sort of like, you know, in good standing with the Democratic leadership in the House. He was the leading candidate in terms of the polls, not by a huge margin, but still leading for the Democratic gubernatorial primary in California. That's sort of what prompted this effort to nuke him. But I don't think it was... It's not, I don't think it's right to say that in order to predict whether somebody might be faced with this kind of onslaught, they would have to be antagonistic toward any kind of, any particular faction in the Democratic Party.

Because what the evidence has shown, what the record now, I think, indisputably demonstrates for us is that there really is no ideal. demarcation within the spectrum of the Democratic Party as to what heterosexual male candidate or figure could be in for this kind of deluge of accusations and then like the instantaneous repudiation and and and almost like at warp speed they're forced to capitulate and and and resign or withdraw um so michael that that makes sense like if You know, you're saying if a controversy arrived, if accusations surface, you're saying they'll pay attention to the accusations, regardless of whether or not the politicians' positions are in alignment with the powers that be. But it's something else if the powers that be are the ones that were in cahoots and set it up to begin with. And I think it was your substack post.

You detailed like the precise timing, like as soon as the controversy broke, a few minutes later, this policy. politician was ready to condemn it. It looked, you know, and then the media was, too, the interview was all set. It looked like it was very coordinated with the powers that be. In terms of the politicians and the, and these Democratic Party entities, rushing out to denounce Platner and demand his withdrawal, I don't know that that was co-mordinated in any kind of top-down effort, right? Like, it's not that difficult to, quote, like, you know, or have things appear organically coordinated when, like, you're using social

media or, like, internet statements on websites if they happen at the same time, because, like, what happens? I mean, people get group, people around, like, group chats or, like, people hear the breaking news, and they, especially with an issue that is so salient for the Democratic Party coalition has anything to do with rape or sexual assault. Yeah, especially nationally ambitious democratic So you see it as opportunism? I see it as a calculation

that it's in the political self-interest of the people who issued those rapid fire denunciations that they have to like make sure that they're out front as quickly as possible showing that

to put themselves on record calling for the termination of with Platner's campaign because you know the way that I put it in the substack was that you know so you have Rubin Gallego who's a senator from Arizona and then Roe-Connor

Congressman both are in a phase now where they're kind of gearing up to potentially run for president they haven't made a firm decision probably but they're in like a pre-campaign phase where they're kind of like getting their ducks in a row and like thinking what the message will be and who the endorsements will be like what what may be

quadrant of the party they might appeal to in a primary race, etc. And so they're kind of thus in like an implicit race against one another to show who could be most like demonstrative of their sensitivity toward issues like this, which are incredibly potent within the Democratic Party coalition in particular and can become an issue down the line if an opponent of yours says, hey, you were not at all prompt enough in recognizing the gravity of these allegations and calling on Flattner to resign, you didn't show enough leadership. Like it can become a political point of contention, right? So what do they do? They rush out as quickly as possible to get their statements out.

I don't think it was like some decree came down from Chuck Schumer or Barack Obama or something, right? I think it's a little bit more organic than that that really does stem from the unique salience, unlike virtually any other issue, that allegations of rape holds for the party coalition for the Democrats such that like it's the only thing really, as I sort of argue in the substack, that can stimulate the party kind of coalitional infrastructure into this ruthless and decisive action because otherwise you can hardly get the Democrats to like, you know, screwing a light bulb in any particular. expeditious period of time. That's true. That's true. Actually, Michael, I was thinking about this because

of one of the comments that I saw on X, right, they were, and this is going back to an article about Platner, you know, saying, okay, it's a Tottenkof tattoo. He was a PMC in Iraq. He was a shit poster on Reddit. All of these things that basically made him a right-wing guy and this. So then some people are saying, well, why didn't he come out like Donald Trump and basically just blow past all of this. And I think that potentially this, like you say, the last straw that you can rally people around is rape is because, you know, he could have been one of these people that mobilized various independents, say, independent layers in the population who say, you know, well, Trump's populism makes sense, but I also agree with the Democrats on this kind of thing.

because if you listen to him, you know, he's not really that wild and crazy. But if you put all those things in an article and line that litany up to, you're like, oh, my God, you know, if you're a Democrat, right? This is a Trump guy. Why do we want him? Yeah. I mean, what made him sort of a distinctive political figure in the American political scene, let's say, is that he did something he was, he had an unusual archetype.

in that he is probably more right-coded in terms of his cultural sensibilities. Right. From, for example, military service, which is heavily, let's say a heavily masculine-coded, more so than right necessarily, but masculine-coded in terms of his cultural background and maybe proclivities, you know, he's like a, he's a fisherman of some sort or an oyster farmer, which is heavily male-coded. the military service obviously and

just kind of like the kind of ruggedness and just his manner. He's not DSA, let's put it that way. Well, but the thing is not in terms of what he projects culturally, but then what makes him unique is that even though he's projecting this more

kind of quintessentially right coded orientation, he still has the quote unquote DSA style policy views in the main where he could run as a DSA candidate someplace, right? But it's just that he uniquely kind of fuses these things, these sort of these sensibilities together in a way that doesn't typically get fused. And that manifested a bit, I guess, in terms of his policy views.

Like he had more of a permissive attitude in terms of his policy, stated policy preferences toward gun ownership, Second Amendment that might be typical for an average Democrat. So that's one way that it showed itself in terms of the policy platform. But by and large, I mean, he kind of just, he kind of was a,

he was like a Bernie Sanders sort of, a mini Bernie, but more or less. Well, except that he was a conservative. I said, I think that kind of spoke to, in part anyway, how it is that he galvanized the political stature that he did because he had this unique dual image of, number one, being left wing and kind of even like rancorously left wing in the policy prescriptions he was promoting while also coupling that with the more kind of typically right wing coded or

masculine coded cultural identifiers, that the Democrats in particular have, recognized that they needed to do do the work to like make themselves more in in affinity with like remember after the 2024 election like there was this internal party discussion that you know obviously played out in the media as well what can Democrats do to bring back young white men right or young men in general like should we go on the podcast or what do we need to do because it was it was understood and this was true was born out in the data that you know trump did particularly well amongst young men writ large in his 2024 campaign and democrats were kind of like uh shedding support in that demographic and kind of grand plan or maybe could be an answer to that

question um at least in the minds of like how people are perceiving it right um so i i i didn't want to make a quick i want to make you to go yeah i want to make a quick point just just generally, just like generally and contextually because you asked me, you know, how it felt to be in a position where people are obviously flinging, you know, lots of stones and arrows at me for getting involved with this story. Don't die on the Epstein Hill. Yeah. I mean, but, you know, I think, I, I think there's a, there's a reason. There's, I think it's actually very necessary to do. And it's necessary for somebody to do if they are sort of, um, unique.

immunized from being cowed like mobs or giving into pressure from like the social media firing squads because there's actually some really significant underlying principles let's take. It's not just like due process or whatever. It's just that if nobody challenges any of this stuff

whomever it really affects, whether it's Eric Swalwell who's on a different sort of part of the Democratic Party coalition or even Andrew Cuomo. Like Andrew Cuomo and Claren Plattner don't have a lot of common ideologically in terms of where they would be situated within the Democratic Party coalition, right? But you still had these machinations that were successfully employed against them as a stand-in from actually challenging them politically or electorally. And so I think just validating these tactics. and everybody being just so paralyzed from engaging rationally in like an evidence-based examination of what's being alleged and like, is it credible and whatever, it's pernicious for the political culture, for sure,

but also society at real large in ways that I think are not fully understood or appreciated. And I would have similar logic in terms of why I got so immersed in the Epstein thing as well. Okay, so let me address that right there because I think that you're starting to get at the real core of this thing, which is one, you have this kind of stuff that we've seen, and I think also with Epstein, but it's slightly different on that, tends to drive regular people who are interested in bread and butter, economy, my job, you know, my health care, my retirement, all of these very mundane, but, you know, it's a question of if I'm on the street, or not kind of questions. It drives them away. They're like, well, I never get to hear what the guy actually is for or what are any of these people actually going to do to change the course of the so it's cynicism. People just become cynical and they're like, I'm, I'm out of here. I'm not even going to vote. So that means that you have fewer and fewer people with more and more money making the decision. So that's one thing. On Epstein, it's the same thing in a slightly different

way. And I want to get your view on this, which is that the real scandal is not so much everything we've heard, but actually the money that is, you know, moving to shape policy and keep people out of it in this country. In other words, we have sort of a token democracy going on here where people think voting is it and everybody to vote for is kind of a slime ball on some level. I'm not sure I would. No leadership for policy. I'm not sure I would totally agree with. that interpretation of Epstein or like the function of the Epstein saga in terms of how people conceptualize their political preferences or conceive of what their interests are. Because for one thing, no one would never know the name Jeffrey Epstein except for the

sexual or even pedophilic connotations that it carried, which is how it became such a thing to begin with. It wasn't just because the guy happened to be wealthy, right? I mean, because he would be a dime a dozen in terms of that or that he used as well to exert political influence. So I'm saying those things are also you know, it's of course,

political insofar as we're talking about it, but there's also the issue itself which is sexual abuse or alleged sexual abuse, especially if it involves minors or younger women. Because you know, you've got the Kavanaugh thing, which I guess that's, he wasn't a politician, but that

was political. But then you have people like Woody Allen and Roman Polanski. And people are just irrational about this topic, whether or not. Well, it's salacious, though. That's the thing. People just get totally dragged into the salacious thing. And they forget about the things that are actually in their best interest. Here's the way I would put it in terms of the effect on, let's say, quote unquote, ordinary people and why that should be one of the reasons to resolve to interrogate these kinds of issues critically rather than just giving in to the raving mobs. On Epstein, right, you know, there's this kind of common perception that, oh, if you are at all skeptical about anything to do with Epstein, you're just kind of like running cover for elites,

right? Because the people who had to resign from things or apologize or whatever for having an association with Epstein, they tended to be people who were in. in high positions of high society to one degree or another, whether in finance or academia or the political world, et cetera. And that is true. I mean, that was one of the repercussions of the Epstein story in the past year or so. But the reverberations go well beyond that. I've been, you know, doing FOIA requests to school districts around the country where there was this mass mania in February and March where schools across the United States, States canceled their school picture day because of rumors that had been flooding TikTok and

things that the one of the one of the big school photography companies had been exposed as in the Epstein files and therefore parents were convinced that their child school photographs were being transmitted into a giant pedophile database okay so it caused all this tumult at these schools where they were like canceling contracts and like for 2020. like there's no school pictures for some kids and stuff. So it's just crazy. And like that crazy making stuff is affecting ordinary people. And also when you inculcate quote unquote norms that tend to erode civil liberties,

that does affect average people who are not wealthy. Well, that's a perfect example of what I mean. It's not just. If the state comes after them, then would people like an Epstein or others in his circles who can, like, hire really good defense attorneys. Like Joe Schmo can't do that. Well, that's a perfect example of what I mean. It has nothing to do with politics.

It's just this sexual element. What do you think is, I have a couple of theories, but let me ask you first before I pontiff. And also, sorry, one more thing with Platner, right, in terms of ordinary people being affected. Platner on June 9th, just won the highest vote total of any Democratic Senate candidate in the history of the state of Maine. So, yeah, there were a lot of quote,

ordinary people who voted for Plattenor, liked him on some level, or liked him enough to vote for him in many way. And now what's happened is this like insider push where as a result of him withdrawing, which he hasn't formally done by the way, he says he's going to do it on Monday like that's the literal deadline. So who knows. But now now these party chieftains can gather in some unspeclave type process to install their own preferred nominee. But I think that's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying.

Well, if you were asked to counsel Platner, I'm not saying you would be, but let's just pretend you were asked. What would you counsel him to do? Would you have counseled him to not announce that he's dropping out previously? And now that he's announced it, would you counsel him to pull some stunt or however you want to put it and not necessarily give the official withdrawal notification on Monday? Well, you know, longer term, it's difficult or impossible to know what the political ramifications would be in terms of his chances to win the Senate race in November against Susan Collins. Like, it's conceivable that there's some segment of the electorate he would otherwise need to court, let's say, older liberal women who might feel as though they can not vote for him as a result of the allegations, however credible they may or may or may. not be. So it could be the case that he has been damaged enough that his chances of winning that race have been severely lowered. But I don't think they're at zero. I don't think they're even at like 20 or 30. I think it's a democratic wave year in all likelihood and probably likely to be a

rather substantial democratic wave where even a quote flawed candidate might be buoyed by the national political environment to win in a particular race. So this idea that it's a lost cause completely, I think is stupid. Well, there's one thing. He knows something that the rest of us don't know, which is he knows to what extent these accusations are true. And he's adamant that they are false and in fact that they are fabricated. Well, I know, but he's saying that, and maybe they are false.

but what I'm saying is he knows whether or not they're false and we don't know. Now, you, let me ask what you think because I don't want to overinterpret one word that you have in your headline because it's clear that you don't think, and it's, well, nobody should doubt that there's not any evidence or hardly any evidence. But from this word manufacture, manufacture a sex crime, it looks like you go beyond that and you think he's innocent. Am I interpreting that headline correctly? Well, I'm saying that the allegations have been manufactured. in that, again, as I sketched out before, they were literally seated two media outlets

by this woman and her new, you know, shady entity that is, you know, triumphant having ousted Swalwell. And then they openly declared, that Platner was next for her because she had, this woman, Cheyenne Hunt, had initially endorsed Platterner in October when she was running some other dopey, you know, progressive NGO thing.

And then she rescinded her, after the New York Times article on June 4th, and she said, okay, next in the crossair is is Grant Platner. So like, it's not a secret here, okay? And why do I say manufacture? Well, the Politico article was kind of structured in such a way that it gave the impression to a casual viewer or so maybe somebody who just glanced at the headline or sees the reaction to it that they found all this dispositive corroboration for the claim, right? So it was a rock solid claim. That's just false. Okay, there is no corroboration whatsoever for the claim. In fact, there's anti-corroboration or there's grounds for doubting that corroboration could even exist because they're citing her correspondences with her therapist, who they don't name, and suggesting that it's corroborative that in one of an email, sometime in the past month, she wrote this like shorthand reference in like an email body, S-A-slash-rape to the therapist.

that's not contemporaneous corroboration. This supposedly took place in 2021, meaning the alleged rape. And then the therapist refuses to speak to the reporter, even though presumably this woman would have authorized the therapist to speak to the reporter to provide any corroboration that the therapist could provide, right? So that's grounds for doubt, and yet the article was framed in such a way

as to make it seem like the allegation was bulletproof. How about one of the two co-authors on the article, Alex Wren of Politico, somehow not having a single second thought about this woman claiming that after the alleged rape, an undetermined time after, I think she suggested maybe even weeks afterwards, she sent messages over Instagram DM to Platner in which she claims that she described his conduct as non-consensual in some form. And then mysterious, so what would any journalists do if they're told that these messages exist? Ask her to provide them.

Mysteriously, they vanished without explanation. So, like, that doesn't give you, like, at all pause. So the way that this was framed, kind of conveyed just an entirely different impression than what the actual strength that the evidence should have conveyed. And number two, it was, again, coordinated with this CNN interview where you know, she's talking about how she believed herself to be in a, quote, situation ship with Platner. I mean, really, if a woman is raped by someone, would she, like, casually described to her herself as being in a, quote, situationhip with them? I mean, that alone doesn't prove anything.

It's just like one data point. She says that when he shows up, she allows him to sleep in her bed for the night after the purported rape. She, in turn, herself sleeps in bed with her purported rapist. And the following morning, she's confused because he doesn't have a conversation with her. He just gets up and leaves. Okay. So I don't know. And in the Facebook messages that I put in a political article, she says, oh, he's a, he's a great guy.

He's decently intelligent. He's not all bad. And yet I had this issue with him. Charming. Charming and funny. Yeah. No, no baking and funny. Charming and funny rapists.

Like a charming and funny guy. As rapists go, he's top of the line. So that's why I say manufactured because it was manufactured by an organ run by this woman who has unknown connections that we don't know in full detail with elements of the Democratic Party

who then expressly planted the story on a particular day. Right. Well, I didn't mean to suggest you... Like five days before the statutory deadline in Maine for the nominee to be replaced on the ballot. I didn't mean to suggest you shouldn't have put it that way. I just want to know whether or not you believe he's innocent. So obviously you believe there's a good chance.

In the American system, okay, you don't prove anybody's innocence. Their guilt must be proven. Okay. So here's what I would say. I'm not going to declare anybody innocent of something. I'm going to say that the evidence presented in no way could support the utter certainty that we saw agreed upon as like the unshakable consensus within a matter of minutes on Monday when this stuff broke.

To me, there is no way that could be rationally justified by what's been presented thus far. So can I, can I, can I outright declare him innocent? No, I guess that's not really how it works. It's has any, any even modicum of a burden to prove him meant to create even like a tentative confidence that he committed rape? Right. No, I would say. So how do you think he should use his leverage at this point? Well, you ask like what I would advise him to do.

Does he have leverage at this point? Yeah, he has leverage because if he doesn't withdraw, then they're in trouble. And he wants to be participate in choosing who runs and so forth. He wants to have input in that. Number one. I mean, you ask like what advice I would give. I would say, look, anybody who tries to claim in July of 2026 that in November of 26, you would have a 0% chance in a Democratic wave year of defeating Susan Collins,

they're talking out of their, you know what, okay? I would say even if the chances have gone down to some extent, they can't be lower than like 30%. So he has a 30% chance of being the junior Democratic senator from Maine. You know, that's a gamble that most people would probably take, because especially if the alternative is to capitulate, withdraw, and implicitly brand yourself now as somebody who is in fact a rapist, no matter what, because no matter what transpires factually or evidentially in the months and years that follow,

people, 99% of people who have heard about this controversy will never hear about it. What they will have heard is you resigned after allegations that you committed rape, okay? And number two, look, I mean, I think we can't really forecast with any certainty. I hate when pundits kind of like can pretend as though they have certain certainty as to what a future electoral outcome would be. But here's one thing I can be certain of. It can't possibly be rational to simply give in to a sputtering mob circus within the span of like 24 hours. Because mobs don't tend to exhibit like flawless rationality for the most part. It's like a consensus that just congeals out of nowhere based on some moralistic panic that breaks out.

And once people like maybe have two seconds to think about things, then they have this. But they have this deadline to, you know, to have his name removed from the ballot, which is Monday. That's kind of the wrinkle in it. And there's, and there's also. Talk about capitulation. This guy, Al Franken, capitulated over absolutely, very, very close to nothing. And I think you mentioned that in one of your articles, Michael. Yeah, well, I mean, what happened with Franken?

I don't know if you recalls that basically the Democratic leadership of the Senate at the urging or demand of Kirsten Gillibrand called on Franken to resign or I don't mean I might that have a clue. I might not have that 100% right. But there was like, there was capitulate, instant capitulation that was instigated by Kirsten Gillibrand. And then it just like became believed, including by pro-democratic pundits. Like I remember Michelle Goldberg at the New York Times was saying that, like, look, Nick, we love foul frank and he's doing a great job. Maybe he didn't even really do anything wrong.

But for the sake of the party, for the sake of our moral standing in this age of me, too, and to show we're better than the republic. Republicans, nevertheless, he must go. And then Michelle Goldberg later on would say she regrets doing that. She regrets calling for Franken's ouster. And like from her purchase of the New York Times, she does have an impact in whether that happens because the Democrats are highly responsive to elite media, unlike Republicans. I think Franken was a pussy for giving him because, see, unlike Platiner has to worry about, you know, the funding being withdrawn for campaigning and all the, you know, machinery that goes along with it, whereas Franken was already in office. He could have just told them to fuck off.

Yeah, you know, I think that's right. And then, you know, they have this whole theory, oh, we're going to replace them with a woman. So that's going to, like, satisfy anybody in terms of our sensitivity to me too. I mean, it was so silly. But, yeah, I mean, Platner's in a different position because, like, you ask, like, why wouldn't Trump do something like this? Well, I mean, Trump would have been in charge.

Trump is a presidential candidate, right? Or is a president. Is effectively in charge of his own financial operation, meaning fundraising, donors, expenditures, etc. because it's a presidential campaign. He's basically the CEO of the campaign. And Platner's not. Right.

So Plattner alone can't control with the Democratic Senatorial campaign committee chooses whether they choose to disperse his share of like the national financing pool to his candidacy. Now, I think even that set or like one of the other, part of his other, another part of his reasoning that he laid out in that video yesterday was that they're going to deprive him of access to the voter file.

So like the DNs, like the central party organs, both parties have this like centralized voter file that they give access to under certain, you know, conditions to candidates running in the name of a Democrat or Republican. And he's saying that they're going to cut his campaign off from that voter file. So they can't do just the basics of campaigning with, you know, canvassing and so forth, phone banking. Now, that may be true. But like, okay, nothing is set in stone on July, you know, eighth when he dropped out or he said he was going to be intended to withdraw.

Like, could you, is it really that difficult to fathom that like by late September, like when the midterm, people's minds are more concentrated on the midterms and, you know, we're going down to the wire in terms of who's going to control the Senate for the second half of Trump's term that Democrats are going to say, look, I mean, yeah, maybe the guy has some issues, but like we got to beat Susan Collins. So give them the voter file. Give them the funding that you said you were going to cut off. That's not inconceivable to me at all. In fact, it might even be likely. So I would say don't be like hostage to the moment so much. Well, again, that depends on, that depends, I think, a lot on like I said before. You got the most votes of any primary candidate in the history of Maine.

It's like, doesn't account for something? And probably those people all are not watching all of these scandals. So actually, somebody in the audience that's watching made a, interesting point because you were talking about Trump controlling things for his campaign versus Platner. He said, why then must Trump pay $5.3 million to this Carol woman? Because he lost the case. That's got nothing to do with Trump's campaign expenditures. That's a civil judgment that came about through litigation brought by here. Here's a better question from the same guy. This is Somerville, John, watching us on Rumble. And he calls you Mr. Tracy. So he's showing you respect here, Michael.

Do the people of Maine understand that Plattner is 100% disabled or has that been hidden from them? Is he 100% disabled? I think he receives veterans benefits on the ground that he can assert 100% disability. But to say that a veteran is disabled where they can qualify for certain veterans benefits doesn't mean that they're literally disabled in the sense of being like bed bound or that they can't function, right? It's like a desication. You can have asthma. Well, he had PTSD, I think, is his issue.

In fact, I think that was one of his excuses for why he, you know, behaved as he did in the past. Yeah, you know, I think his his explanations for his behavior were not always the most convincing, like, you know, the infamous not quote unquote Nazi tattoo. Like, the explanations didn't like ring true for some people because I don't know. I think I tend to think, and I wrote about this. you know, about a month ago, I tend to think if you gave him truth serum, right, and asked, why did you get the,

why did you get that tattoo when you were on leave with the Marines in Croatia in 2005? He might have, he probably could have had some awareness that the tattoo was like, aesthetically evocative of what kind of aesthetics might have been used in Nazi Germany, right?

Because, Considering that there are a lot of Nazis historically in Croatia, by the way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, but, and so he could have had like some notion that there was some maybe a providence to this tattoo that had something to do with like, I don't know, the German Nazi party, whatever. But that's a bit, that's totally different from him having gotten a tattoo because he intended to signify some kind of political affinity with German, the national socialism or Hitler. or something, right? Which I, you know, he almost certainly did not, which would be the significant thing if he had done so. But like, that's not an explanation that you can like crisply give if you're when you're under the national spotlight and like a highly contested and nationally consequential Senate race.

So instead he comes up, he comes up with the rationalization that he just didn't know. And, you know, which probably might not be 100% true, even though it might be the only thing he can like, really. realistically say at that moment. But, and so like invoking PTSD, right? In terms of like why he still say he had said, I would have been, he acknowledged he had been a bad boyfriend in the past, right? Or maybe he hadn't treated some of the women he was involved with particularly well. And I'll chalk that up to the PTSD.

I mean, I do think that routine gets a little trite too. I mean, it's like a little bit too much of a excuse making, like not everybody who had undergone some kind of, let's say, traumatic event and can be, get a PTSD diagnosis, is therefore going to, like, do something that could be like violative of a woman, right? So it's almost like trying to. It's got to say something. Deflect from his agency or something in a way that I don't really. But the thing is, like, he was just almost like between a rock and a hard place with this

stuff. Because, I mean, I mean, he really, I would like him to say, so what? Because a lot of this stuff, even though it's very bad behavior in names. cases, it doesn't really have a direct relationship to how they're going to be a public servant. Like, remember Ted Kennedy, many people, I don't know what happened for sure at Chappaquittick, but the fact is many people think he left a woman to drown. Well, that's a terrible thing. Let's assume he did that. But the voters in Massachusetts kept voting for him for many years. And it's like, well, how are you going to argue that what happened to Chappaquitic is even relevant

when you see what he's doing as a center? He takes this position or that. position. He votes this way. He votes that way. This bad behavior isn't even relevant. I don't know. I mean, Ted, I mean, what happened with Chappaquittic, if memory serves, is that Ted Kennedy was driving in a car late at night with a young woman

who was, I don't remember if he was married technically at the time, but like a young woman who was basically like his date or like had to company to him somewhere. And he drives over a bridge. His car sinks into the water. He's able to escape. And the woman died.

and then he leaves the scene of he leaves the scene right or he doesn't call for help until long past the time where the woman could have even been potentially saved right and then i do think he was charged with a crime i think actually pleaded guilty to some criminal offense if i'm not mistaken i have to go check so like so so that does speak to some kind something about his just judgment or that i mean that you could see voters reasonably taking into account when they're assessing somebody to vote for. But with Platner, there's nothing even in the same universe. I mean, you're asking what advice I would give? I would say, how about just saying, this is none of your business? I mean, they're talking about just like the New York Times story that set this

whole thing into motion, right? On June 4th, those allegations in the main are basically these women whom he had dated in what they call on and off relationships, right? So I don't know, casual dating or how you characterize it exactly. Being asked by the New York Times to kind of emotionally reframe things that occurred years in the past

and then characterize his behavior. So we get words like toxic or this thing, a Republican operative woman who was quoted and is now like still, you know, being interviewed by CNN and stuff. Lindsay Fifthfield.

She says he was was contemptuous of women's emotions. What does that mean? They're talking about consenting adult relationships that maybe did not end as these women would have wanted or that they look back on with some degree of regret or that were even maybe negatively experienced

to some extent by them at the time. And then framing it as something that should bear directly upon this, political candidate that in no way ought to do so in any rational universe. You know what people should instead want, at least I would argue, in a rational universe, is that there has to be some like cone of privacy for people. Yes, even including

those who choose to maybe seek elected office where, you know, within reason, right, even if you do have some kind of like tumult, let's say in a past relationship, but it's like nonetheless between consenting adults, like, that's not something that necessarily has to be litigated by the entire nation. Like you've made somebody feel bad or somebody didn't like something and they've been thinking, you know, like that's something that, like, I think we have to allow consenting adults to like. Yeah.

In other words, bad behavior is bad behavior isn't necessarily a public matter. Well, we don't even. How bad was his behavior? I don't know. I mean, like he hasn't got opportunity to go point by point. Well, let's, maybe this, I mean, this woman, Lindsay seems like a psycho. So maybe she was in the wrong. Let's let's go back.

Oh, yeah, we didn't even talk about her. She's the second accuser who says that he had, he sneakily took off his condom while having sex repeatedly, right? Repeatedly. Am I right? Yeah. Yeah, she was also quoted in the New York Times story, right? I mean, if you notice. It's like pedestrian salacious stuff that has nothing to do with actually governing a country.

That's the thing to me. Because it goes back to what you were saying earlier, Michael, after 2024, Democrats said, well, you know, what are we going to do to start winning elections? Are we going to have some retrospective and think about how we don't do anything that actually will reach out to the population? It wasn't, by the way, just young men. It was everything. I mean, it was the whole country policy, every, everything. And it seems like, you know, they were involved just as much as CNN,

the establishment in whatever came out with platinum. to scuttle his campaign because they still haven't decided that they're going to provide any real leadership in a policy way for the American people as an alternative to Donald Trump. And that's not saying anything about Trump. I think that's really what's going on here.

And it's just like a lot of noise over the fact that these guys still don't have a clue as to how to govern the country. Yeah, I do think there are circumstances in which a candidate's private, life and even romantic history, quote unquote, could be considered relevant in terms of how voters might assess them as being fit or not for public service or elected office. Like, for example, if somebody actually is just a chronic, pathological abuser of women,

right? And, you know, has a trail of, like, let's say credible accusations against him. If they get elected to office, like, that could potentially mean. that, you know, they have to run a staff. They have to meet people. They're representing the United States abroad potentially. Like, what if they do something and some kind of foreign trip? You know, there's grounds why somebody might take into account, like, evidence of their wrongful personal behavior in assessing whether this is somebody that you want to put in a position of public trust.

And, like, look, let's take Bill Clinton. I mean, when he was running in 1992, there was, there were room. Like he eventually had to come out in a dress. I think it was Jennifer Flowers or something who had made claims against him. He went on 60 Minot with Hillary. It was like this Tammy Wynette moment standby. Your man, whatever. And, you know, sure enough, I mean, it did come to pass that Bill Clinton had an affair

with an intern in the Oval Office, more or less. And even if it was consensual, it still created a huge distraction. It's still like White House resources poured to managing the fallout from this stupid thing rather than doing something that could advance the public interest in any way. Or look at Donald Trump. I mean, people I think were pretty cognizant of Donald Trump's

proclivities when he was running in 2016, which is why when the Access Hollywood thing comes out, all the pundits assume that must have doomed his would doom his candidacy. Has no impact, right? But, you know, he gets into office and what does he do? He brings the CEO of the National Inquirer to the White House so he can strategize with him.

David Pecker as to how best to handle a story having to do with somebody that Trump seemingly admitted that he did have an affair with, who was a Playboy playmate, and didn't even like really allegedly any wrongdoing on his part, but it was like out there. It was something that like he had to devote. Like a president only has finite mental energy, political resources. There's only so much time of the day, right? So if he's dealing with, okay, how are we going to handle the playboy playmate who like the National Enquirer is trying to contain the.

story around. Like that's something that a voter could take into consideration in sense of whether they want to vote for somebody. So, but, but in terms of, and even like you could make a, like a less severe judgment about Platner, which is that, I don't know, I mean, he did see, how many people can, how many women can somebody date? I mean, I don't know, like how many, it seems like, you know, everybody in their mother has dated Platterner. I use on like a million apps. It's just like, I don't know. I mean, there's a little, maybe a little bit more. Yeah, I don't have the energy. I don't have the, there might be a little, you, you could reasonably, infer that maybe his personal life is a little bit too chaotic to have confidence would be, you know,

stable enough where like it wouldn't become a distraction if he became a center. Like, that's reasonable. But it's not reasonable to say, oh, he's a rapist. Like, that is not reasonable. Okay. So there are gradations here in terms of what judge. And there's also a separation to be made between a bad behavior in one's personal life and in a work environment. Trump has a lot of allegations against him. But it was all in the personal domain. There's never been any allegations in his businesses that he was abusing his employees. And there's been no allegations of him, you know, of any kind of sexual harassment. No sexual harassment in the White House or anything like that. Not quite because like, well, I mean, he was a beauty pageant proprietor, right? So he ran Missed

USA. And there was like one of the allegation that got a lot of attention at the time in 2016 was that there was an occasion where he just. let himself into the changing room for the beauty pageant contestants while they were like naked or half naked. And they're like, oh, look, Mr. Trump. Oh, we're covering. So like that was a, that was like, that was something. You're right. That was a work situation.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, there was like somebody from. What else? What else? No, there were also allegations going back, uh, that he wouldn't pay his workers on time or. Yeah, but we're talking about the sexual harassment stuff. Oh, yeah.

But you said business too. Oh, so. Yeah. I always actually, labor settlements. Speaking of that, like, I remember there was a cabinet maker or something in Atlantic City who gave furnishings for one of Trump's,

because, you know, whom he was alleged to have never paid. Yeah, I always thought that should be more, that kind of stuff should be more focused on. He basically just screwed over this like, $1 million in labor settlements that he had to pay out.

Yeah, but there were also accusations. I mean, I'm not saying these accusations were necessarily credible. I actually think though this one wasn't, but some contested on the apprentice alleged that something happened over course of the TV show, right? That one I actually don't think is credible,

but like there was an allegation of something to do with Trump that took place in what you might call a work environment. But again, I mean, so, so again, I'm not saying like, again, I'm not saying anybody has to therefore not vote for Trump on account of those accusations. I'm just saying, you know, people can make consider judgments about things. But voters just mean, no, that's fine. So maybe he's not, maybe his record isn't totally prestige in the,

in the work arena, but I think that's a consideration to be made. You know, does whatever bad behavior is being alleged is that really have relevance to being a public servant? Like the Kavanaugh thing, that woman who came at the 11th hour, what's her name, Christine Blasey Ford, something that allegedly happened when Kavanaugh was a teenager is not really the thing to go on when you have a guy who's been a judge for like 25, 30 years and you have all the evidence, whether good or bad, of how he treated his workers and how he, how he conducted himself as a judge. That's what to go by, not some personal thing that happened a long time ago.

Yeah, I agree. But in terms of like a presidential candidate, right, or candidate for some federal or even state office, any office, you know, voters are entitled to make whatever judgment they want for better or worse. Like they're not required to say, oh, it's especially bad or, or it's only really of relevance to me in terms of my voting decision if it took place in some kind of employment setting like they can make whatever judgment they want that's the freedom of America right

so like if stuff is going to be out there I'm just yeah I said the it's still bread and circuses either way that you put it it's still bread and circuses I know but you got to you got to I mean if you think that voters making decisions about the character of a candidate right like based on their sexual history

or whether they were a good or bad boyfriend or something like that's something you got to take up with the voters if they're allowing that to inform their decision, right? I agree. But that's also, but also CNN and these other media companies who supposedly are informing the population, they're insisting that is what, they're insisting you have to think only about that.

But that's why I say it was manufactured, right? Because they manufacture basically on false pretence is a thing about, like there could, you could imagine, you can imagine it an alternate timeline here where like there is a, there's a rational way to evaluate and form, judgments about Latner's personal

proclivities that didn't then that didn't then result in this insane escalation that is not grounded in any credible evidence that it must be rape.

That's another thing that I think also affects ordinary people as or is another reason why there needs to be a rational intervention to correctly kind of interrogate this stuff

when it, when it, when it explodes in the way it did this week, which is that, like, look at the pattern here. So June 4th, we have a New York Times story that got the whole thing in motion where, like, it's incredibly vague what he's even alleged to have done wrong. They're like kind of just characterizing stuff as a toxic

or unsettling or whatever. And all of a sudden, within a matter of months, like some of these, like, behind the scenes, operators get together and we get escalation, accusation, where now it becomes rape. So like, I don't know. I mean, I just think that, you know, there are people who don't have resources. Yeah.

Well, look at the, look at the mission of this organization of that woman that started reckoning action. They're confronting misogyny. Rape, at least, is a specific action that we can all say is repulsive, wrong, illegal, and so forth. But misogyny is so vague and broad. It's culture war. Yeah. Yeah, you know, I don't think it's quite Me Too. People have asked me about that.

as I've been thinking about it. I think the Me Too era as such actually has closed in that we're not in the same we're not in the throes of the same kind of dynamics as would have been the case in like November 2017 or even into 2018

when you may call peak Me Too with Harvey Weinstein and then you get like a cascade of other men in media or various fields who were accused of things and then like you know they're all resigning or what have you. I do think that there is like a pretty widespread awareness across the spectrum to a large extent that of some of the pitfalls or the excesses of me to. Things that are reconsidered or like, you know, regret for not being maybe being a little bit more circumspect before just taking things to be true or like how the media can shape perceptions and whatnot.

So I don't think it's quite right to say that we're in Me Too still or like it's another phase of Me Too. It's like something else. It's something distinct to whatever we're in the middle of right now in 20206. One of my hypotheses is that I kind of like earlier today on X, kind of like half jokingly said, instead of the Me Too era, you could say that in 2020s, we're in something that you might call like the zombie Epstein era. Because like we have just gone through a year, right, where we've been suffuse with all these kind of like wild and grandiose claims and theories. and speculations around some kind of like all pervasive child sex trafficking pedophilia scandal of crisis that is supposed to like cause this giant reckoning and like has all these other all these spillover effects and you know it's part of the reason why I would offer that a the

Democrats who came out Democratic figures who came out so urgently to call on Platner to withdraw as quickly as humanly possible part of this because they've been like you know you know, trying to leverage the Epstein story against Trump and the Republicans for the past year, you know, whether it's called rally against the Epstein class. So like guys like John Osoff who might run for president or Rokaneh, you know, clearly you're running. They have to, or Ruben Gallego, they have to, they have to insulate themselves from potential exposure to hypocrisy charges, even if it's not quite the same issue, like we're not talking about anything, pedophilic or whatever. But it's still like in the realm of something sexually abusive, right?

where you can imagine one of their political opponents saying, you were so gung-ho about denouncing the Epstein class and saying Trump is implicated in something or other because of Epstein, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And yet, you somehow were suspiciously late or quiet about rooting this kind of stuff out in your own party. That could be the line, right? So I don't know, in terms of like how to just kind of

generally classify what era we're in now. I think it's not quite me too. It's like a, it's something else. I think it's floundering. I think it's floundering. There are now eight Democrats who are vying to take his position and run in the, in the, as the Democratic candidate. And at least three or four of them have already lost and dropped out from other races in the past. So that doesn't seem like that's that exciting. Michael, do you feel like there's a boy who cried wolf syndrome here, meaning that it's part of the reason you're so riled up about these accusations of pedophilia and rape because you really realize how terrible rape and pedophilia is.

And when there's all these false accusations going around, it diminishes the likelihood that when there's legitimate accusation to be made, that people will pay attention. Is that part of what motivates you to speak out? Well, I mean, I obviously agree that rape, I mean, rape is a serious crime. Like, the thing is, there's been such concept creep around it, or it's been so expanded beyond recognition in terms of like what we're supposed to concede agree is rape. Same with pedophilia, right? Like, pedophilia now, I guess, is like anybody who, anybody who somebody thinks is like too young of a woman for somebody to be. be interested in. Like, it's not, no, you know, forget that, forget the clinical definition that you can go and

read in the DSM, which is like illicit sexual attraction to that's what I mean. With pre-pubescent children, like, that's why the term pedophilia was coined. No, forget it. That's been obliterated definitionally and like pedophilia is like in the eye of the beholder in terms of what people want to denounce moralistically. So I think, yeah, I mean, I think it is, it's, it's bad if like now, like, we've just invented huge, hugely expansive new categories of people. who could be tarnished with the label of pedophilia or with or have or as having committed rape I mean look in the main criminal code as to what

the crime of I think it's gross sexual assault of them not mistaken you know basically whatever the equivalent of rape would be for statutory purposes like what that crime is punishable by up to 30 years in prison lifetime registration on the sex offender registry and then also that doesn't even take into account all the social, reputational, professional

repercussions that would flow from somebody being convicted or even charged with a crime like that. So I think if people are just so blasé about it and think it's like no big deal if it gets like operationalized because the deadline to replace a Senate candidate is coming up in six days, I mean, that's kind of craven, isn't it? That's not something you necessarily want to encourage the, quote, normalization of.

Otherwise, like you're just, again, I think allowing just kind of unchallenged sort of mob behavior like this to go on without anybody stop pausing for a second to contemplate anything. Is it self-damaging? Like, I mean, the Epstein thing unleashed, unbelievable, unfathomable quantities of just pure hysteria in the population that it's going to have impact that are difficult to kind of like quite, quantify for for ages. The school picture day thing is just like one example, right? Yeah, that's crazy. Forget like actually legal changes that have been on the books where like now they've expanded the contours of what kind of sex trafficking is.

So that like, you know, I don't want to get down that that rabbit hole. But like basically they're supposedly the big remedy for this, the injustice of Epstein is to enable prosecutors to charge a greater expense of offenses under the rubric of trafficking. in other words, throw more people in prison more easily and have less of a burden of proof. It's like in Arizona, for example, in June, they passed the law, signed by Katie Hobbs, where anybody who engages in or attempts to solicit a quote-unquote commercial sex act in any way, it's a classic prostitution thing, right? Now they're essentially being labeled traffickers,

meaning that they're victimizing a sex trafficking victim. And also their instance, it's an instance felony record. And they have to pay money into a human, like a trafficking prevention fund, as though they've been found guilty of trafficking for basically as little as going on to like an escort service website and offering to pay for a particular sex act. I'm not condoning that or endorsing it necessarily. But you're saying whether or not they knew that the young woman had been trafficked. Whether or not somebody has been trafficked is so amorphous. It's so open to interpretation that you can basically just claim it.

But it doesn't even matter because whether or not, whether or not there is like a somebody, whether or not the person from whom you're soliciting the Sex Act, the Commercial Sex Act is claiming to be a trafficking victim, it doesn't matter. Even if it's a woman who says, I'm not traffic, I'm just an escort. No, if caught and convicted for the offense, you still have to pay money into a fund set up by the state of Arizona for trafficking awareness. So what does that therefore carry the connotation of that you did something that you have to atone for in terms of like trafficking, right? So this is just like what was one of many examples I could give of how the Epstein sort of mania that, you know, in some sense ties into this platter stuff or swallow or whatever. has all these legal, political, and social downstream consequences that are not perceptible to the average person when they're giving themselves over to these frenzies because they think it's, oh, just about achieving some narrow political objective of getting somebody else on the ballot before July 13th or whatever. All right, and you'll be discussing these issues in person on July 14th at the Sheen Center in New York.

Do you know the format of the debate or you're just going to show up and swing? Yeah, I mean, it's an Oxford style debate. So it's a model on the classic Oxford style where, you know, there's moderator, a lot of time for like opening statements and then rebuttal and so forth. And then the audience votes afterwards, meaning the audience comes in. They initially, they ret record who they would tend to agree with more going into it. And then whoever moves a greater percentage of the audience to their side at the end is the winner. All right. And if people want to keep up with your work, the best place is your substack, mtracy.net.

That's tracy within e. mtracy.net and on x they can follow you at m Tracy and you occasionally write for other publications too like right here unheard yeah there we go i mean that i was asked to do an emergency platinum thing after the new york times article um yeah occasionally for other places but like yeah the best place to get it all uh is i'm tracy dot net very importantly with the e so thanks for mentioning that and uh twitter x and then you know youtube by which um i don't update quite as much, but it's him Tracy there as well. All right, great. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Michael. We've been hoping to get you on for a while. You're an interesting guy,

and you're welcome anytime. Thanks. All right. Thanks. I enjoyed it. Take care. All right. Glad. And thanks to you, Ryan, and to our beloved audience. We'll see you all next week at the usual time. Good night, everybody.