The latest revelation about Maine’s Democratic Senate nominee Graham Platner is certainly a political sex scandal, but also a media scandal. And over the past few days, the liberal media have desperately tried to cover their tracks and claim innocence, to the point that some have shifted the blame to other news outlets, including those ideologically aligned with them. That’s exactly what MS NOW’s Lawrence O’Donnell attempted on Tuesday’s episode of The Last Word, as he painted himself as a longtime Platner skeptic.
“We've been very careful about what campaigns we have focused on here,” O’Donnell began his grueling, nearly 30-minute-long coverage. He talked about Platner longer than he talked about Trump, which was probably the first time in a while that the orange-skinned boogeyman has managed to avoid O’Donnell’s squinty glare for longer than five minutes.
“And the reason that this program never once covered the Graham Platner campaign for Senate in Maine is that those other stories are more important, and that that candidate did not appear to me to be the kind of candidate who could make it all the way to November,” O’Donnell explained.
He then went on to boast about his clairvoyance in sussing out Platner’s real nature through is early scandals:
I, for one, did not find any of Graham Platner's answers to questions about a Nazi tattoo or previous sexist social media comments or accusations by women who had relationships with him, all of which he denied, to be credible at all. I didn't think any of his answers were credible . . . I don't know what happened, but I know, and I've always known, that I cannot believe him. And saying that I never believed Graham Platner is simply a statement about his own credibility as he addressed these controversies. But his credibility problem for me was always much wider ranging than all of that scandal detail in the reporting about him.
It wasn’t a particularly unpopular stance, to not find Platner’s past defenses or denials satisfactory, but the question then remains - why didn’t O’Donnell say anything until now?
He claimed that he “found it very, very difficult to take Graham Platner's claims about himself seriously,” after learning about his family’s money and business dealings, but he still refused to ring the alarm. He didn’t speak out when Platner’s sexting scandal broke, nor when the New York Times released Lyndsey Fifield’s allegations of domestic violence.
He, like the rest of the Democratic media, withheld the firestorm until this week, when they were finally allowed to unload on Platner and sink his campaign after the polls started to turn.
And it was that rest of the “news media” that O’Donnell blamed for hyping up Platner in the first place:
The image created by him and by the eager news media was of a humble, roughly educated oyster farmer in Maine who decided he was just mad as hell and couldn't take it anymore, and he was going to step up and save Maine from Donald Trump and Susan Collins.
O’Donnell’s own network was partially responsible for glorifying Platner’s image, including his fellow hosts Joe Scarborough, along with Jen Psaki, with whom O’Donnell always chats very amicably during the show handoff.
This blinding hypocrisy was, unfortunately, to be expected from the elitist media, who only bark when directed by their DNC handlers.
The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read:
MS NOW's The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell
7/7/26
10:22:00 p.m. EasternLAWRENCE O'DONNELL: This hour of television obviously does not have enough time to cover the details of every political campaign this season and this year. And so we've been very careful about what campaigns we have focused on here.
And the reason that this program never once covered the Graham Platner campaign for Senate in Maine is that those other stories are more important, and that that candidate did not appear to me to be the kind of candidate who could make it all the way to November. And so I didn't want to waste this audience's attention on a candidate who might not even be there on election day.
And at the same time, the Platner campaign was getting a tremendous amount of coverage everywhere else. And so it didn't really matter in the least whether we covered that campaign here or not. And no one noticed that we didn't.
Whenever a new, unknown candidate who has never been vetted in any way suddenly surges and creates pundit excitement, I always, from experience, just stay quiet and wait for the vetting. And I knew, with a candidacy like Graham Platner, that the vetting would come from the news media. And so it has. And every stage of that vetting, every stage of it has been disturbing.
I, for one, did not find any of Graham Platner's answers to questions about a Nazi tattoo or previous sexist social media comments or accusations by women who had relationships with him, all of which he denied to be credible, at all. I didn't think any of his answers were credible.
And I'm in no position to say who is telling the truth in stories now told about Graham Platner by people who knew him, women who were alone in a room with him. I don't know what happened, but I know, and I've always known that I cannot believe him.
And saying that I never believed Graham Platner is simply a statement about his own credibility as he addressed these controversies. But his credibility problem for me was always much wider ranging than all of that scandal detail in the reporting about him.
The image created by him and by the eager news media was of a humble, roughly educated oyster farmer in Maine who decided he was just mad as hell and couldn't take it anymore, and he was going to step up and save Maine from Donald Trump and Susan Collins. And he could do it because he knew the struggles of the working people of Maine who were being ignored by the Republican policies of Susan Collins and Donald Trump.
But he didn't. He's never known those struggles. His most obvious credibility problem to me from the start was saying, "I'm a working class guy that lives a working class life." He also said, "I've never been close to money and power," and that was a lie.He's a graduate of a private high school, and his father is a rich lawyer, rich enough to give the maximum contribution to a Democratic Senator, Ruben Gallego, who endorsed Graham Platner, and who has now retracted that endorsement, like every other Senator who endorsed Graham Platner.
Platner's grandfather was Warren Platner, who the New York Times describes as "A celebrated architect who designed the dining room of Windows on the World., the storied restaurant atop the World Trade Center, and offices for the Ford Foundation building. Before Mr. Platner was born, his grandfather also designed an expansive family estate in Connecticut that he said was inspired by 'a chateau in the Loire Valley' of France. Warren Platner is best known for a namesake line of furniture, including mid-century modern easy chairs that today are priced starting at 15,000 dollars."
And the oyster farmer thing is true, but it's not exactly the struggling version of oyster farmer. His mother owns a restaurant and is the biggest customer for his oysters.
And here's what Graham Platner knows about the affordability of housing; The New York Times reports, "Property and tax records show he bought the home for 205,000 dollars and received a 200,000 dollar mortgage loan from his father." So, his father bought him a house, and his mother buys his oysters.
I found it very, very difficult to take Graham Platner's claims about himself seriously after reading those facts about him, publicly available facts.
But the enthusiasm kept building and building. And when the New York Times reported that he was really a rich kid, the image of honest oyster farmers somehow just miraculously held.
Then came the women accusing him of being abusive, and they were ignored by the Platner supporters and endorsers because Graham Platner denied the accusations.
Then Monday, a woman offered detail of an encounter with Graham Platner that she said was non-consensual, and yesterday that woman told Politico about a night in 2021, when Graham Platner was "Deeply intoxicated and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual. 'I remember him grabbing my pelvis and being really forceful of me,' she said. 'I remember the specific moment where I thought to myself, like, this is no longer my choice.'"
And that did it. That report in Politico, using the woman's name, was the breaking point in this story.
And here is the big, big problem with that. That same woman had already been an unnamed source in other reporting about Graham Platner's abusive conduct with women, and she thought what she had said as an unnamed source was clear enough about his aggression with women.
But she was ignored. And so the very same person decided that she needed to go public on the record with her name, including in a video interview, and tell the story - tell her story, with all the details of what she says happened to her. And only then did the people who ignored her the first time take her seriously this time, even though Graham Platner once again denied her accusations.
And so it's over tonight, and Graham Platner is clinging to the wreckage of his campaign, mercilessly and foolishly dragging out the day and the hour on which he will announce that he cannot find a path forward for his candidacy.And the lesson of it all could not be simpler. It is just one word, and sometimes it's the hardest word, for many of us. Patience. It's all it is.
When the new exciting candidate emerges who no one knows anything about, always just wait. Find the patience to wait for the vetting. The vetting isn't perfect, but vetting is the safest way to place your bets.
And when someone has already run for elective office and won, and then maybe run for another office and won or lost that one, that person has, to some degree, been vetted, at least by the news media, repeatedly.
(...)
10:33:34 p.m.
Graham Platner was trading on the positive feelings generated by truly great candidates for the offices they were running for, like Barack Obama and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. A familiar feeling for Democrats. That's what he was trading on.
And he abused that feeling in people. He abused that goodwill extended to him by the people of Maine.
And in his video statement last night, he said that he was "humbled."
[Cut to video]
GRAHAM PLATNER: Over the last ten months, I have been deeply humbled by the faith Mainers have put in me.
[Cut back to live]
O'DONNELL: And that is Graham Platner's one and only appearance on this program. And I firmly believe that he was lying when he said that.Applause does not humble people. That is a cliche politician's lie, "I am deeply humbled by your adoration."
To find a path forward in his life, Graham Platner is going to have to be, finally, deeply humbled, possibly for the first time in his life.
Failure is an opportunity. Disgrace is an opportunity is an - it is an opportunity to rebuild. It is an opportunity to look within, through humility, to find your way forward in life.
Graham Platner tonight is still not deeply humbled enough to find his way out of his campaign.
