Graham Platner overcame a wave of personal controversies Tuesday to secure the Democratic nomination in Maine’s U.S. Senate race. In an interview on “Morning Joe,” the oyster farmer and Marine veteran downplayed concerns that allegations about his past behavior could come back to haunt Democrats in the midterm elections as they seek to defeat Republican Sen. Susan Collins and retake the Senate in November.
Platner told MS NOW that recent reports — which include accusations from former girlfriends of threatening behavior and allegations that he sent women sexually explicit text messages outside of his marriage — were “entirely blown out of proportion as to what the reality of the situation is.”
Platner has denied any allegations of physicality in his past relationships, while acknowledging that he and his wife, Amy, “had some struggles” early in their marriage.
“We worked through them because that’s what you do when you’re in love with somebody, and it made our marriage much stronger,” he said Wednesday morning.
“Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski pressed Platner over whether his alleged behavior could affect his ability to fight on behalf of survivors and “call out those who have abused women,” such as Jeffrey Epstein and his associates. He told MS NOW that the two situations were very different.
“I engaged in consensual romantic activities with adults at an earlier part of my life; that seems like a fairly normal thing most people do,” he said. “Going to an island with billionaires to possibly assault children is a vastly, vastly different thing.”
When asked whether more stories about his past behavior could emerge before November’s election, the Democrat said, “There is nothing out there that will run counter to any of the stories that I’ve talked about openly this entire campaign.”
“I’ve been very open about the fact that I struggled, very open about the fact I had a long litany of failed relationships for years because I myself was not in a good place,” he said. “And then every now and again, we will have a media outlet or politically motivated attack come up and try to drag it all up, but it’s all very much within the exact same story that I’ve told this entire time.”