Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hi, it's Layla Faldin here with a special episode, a conversation from our sister show, NPR's Newsmakers, where we interview some of the most influential people of our time. Today, Graham Platner, Democratic Senate candidate from Maine. You can hear more interviews like this one on Newsmakers. Follow or subscribe to the show on Spotify, YouTube or wherever you watch or listen.
You can also find it in the NPR app.
Chapter 2: What controversies surround Graham Platner's campaign?
And now here's our episode with Graham Platner. The path to turning the Senate blue runs in part through the state of Maine, and that hinges on the presumptive Democratic nominee, Graham Platner. But Platner's controversial past keeps catching up with him. On May 30th, reports emerged that Plattner exchanged sexually explicit messages with multiple women early in his marriage.
His wife, Amy Gertner, defended him in a video posted on X. I think it's shameful behavior to spend time and energy and resources on negative ads and negative stories on Graham when all he's trying to do is improve the lives of people who work for a living.
The controversies around Plattner don't end there. And they raise a big question. Does he have too much baggage to carry on? Or can his anti-establishment political message that has generated so much enthusiasm among the Democratic base... carry him through. I spoke to Graham Plattner in Maine before news broke of these explicit messages.
We offered him a follow-up interview to discuss the latest scandal. His campaign said he was too busy. But Plattner provided a statement that read in part, I've learned throughout this campaign that people don't care about gossip or headlines. They care that you're fighting for their hospitals, their paycheck, their kids.
Chapter 3: How does Graham Platner view the role of organized labor in politics?
Thank you so much for sitting down with me.
Of course. Thanks for having me.
So we're sitting here. This is Maine Carpenters Union?
Yep.
I want to talk about why we're having the conversation we are here at this place, what it means to you.
I firmly believe that... re-empowering organized labor is going to be one of the keys to building the power necessary to really take back our democracy from corporate interests, honestly, from the interest of money, from the interest of billionaires.
Historically, organized labor has always really been the kind of foundation of any kind of real movement politics that is able to advocate for working people. And so being able to build a close relationship with labor being able to go be an advocate for labor in the United States Senate. This is a pretty, I don't know, core part of my politics.
And so the relationships I've been able to build with the unions here in Maine, I mean, it's been an absolute honor. And it also is, I think, kind of core to the project we're undertaking, which is turning the Democratic Party back into the party of working people. back into the party that represents the interests of those who work and, frankly, those who are often exploited.
And you can't represent the interests of those who are exploited and represent the interests of those who are exploiting them at the same time. But for quite some time now, there's an element of the party that has tried to do that.
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Chapter 4: Why does Platner believe the Democratic Party needs to change?
The disapproval ratings for the president are bad, but for the party, they're worse.
That's right.
So why did you choose to run as a Democrat?
Oh, because I am one. I mean, I've been a registered Democrat my entire life, and I firmly believe that the Democratic Party should be the party of labor unions, should be the party of community organizations, should be the party of civil rights organizations, should be the party that advocates continuously
for systemic and structural change that is going to make this society uplift all of us, instead of creating structures that allow for the consolidation of wealth and power and keep that wealth and power in the hands of very few.
There are many people who talk about the Democratic Party as it once was, a party that used to represent labor unions, used to represent working people, and that one of the reasons why it has lost that support is because it ceased being that. And I believe it still can be.
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What makes you qualified to be the senator for Maine? I mean, especially given the questions around your lack of political background, lack of running a huge business and so on.
Well, it is very funny to me that we've created this idea that you can only represent like the average American if you're rich. Or if you've spent a bunch of time around wealth and power, which is funny because the average American has not spent a bunch of time around wealth and power. The average American is not rich, does not come from some kind of specialized background that we have elevated.
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Chapter 5: What qualifications does Platner claim to have for the Senate?
It's this idea that power is only for people who have a specific last name or who come from wealth or who are already connected to it, people who have a specific kind of business background or have some kind of educational background. They're the ones who are competent. They're the ones who are worthy of wielding power. And that's not true. It's simply not true.
One, they've been the ones wielding power for the past 50 years. Look where it got us. I don't think anybody's looking around right now and being like, yeah, this is all working really great for most Americans. We're all very happy with the outcomes that we have. Of course not. And so I honestly think that the question itself is sort of a defense of the system as it has stood.
And I just don't buy it. I think the fact that I have served my country, multiple combat tours, the fact that I've seen up close the actual realities of war, And then struggled afterwards with not just the trauma and the sort of challenges that come with that, but also coming back to a society itself that had sent a lot of us off to fight in those wars.
And when we came home, it almost didn't even acknowledge that those wars had happened in the first place.
That's how it felt.
Yeah, very much so. And going through that and then going through, frankly, like the darkness and the alienation, the isolation that comes from it. And then... Getting help, getting therapy, going to the VA, moving back to my hometown, building a life in the community that I was born and raised in, reconnecting with people and rebuilding hope in that.
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Chapter 6: How does Platner respond to accusations about his past?
And then at the exact same time, building a small business, growing food in the ocean for my community. I mean, we don't sell an oyster outside of a 25-mile radius. And that whole experience, I think to me, that makes me quite qualified to understand that policy, decisions made in DC, they have real material outcomes for people. It's not theory. It's not vague. It's not just words on a page.
It's not just numbers. All of this stuff has a material reality for regular people in this country, one that I have seen up close and personal and seen the outcomes of. And I think that makes me very qualified to go up into that place of power and make sure that when policy is crafted, we are always keeping in the forefront of our minds, what is this going to do to regular everyday Americans?
What is the material outcome of this? Because I think that the people who are quote-unquote qualified, for quite some time they've completely forgotten that that's what they should actually be thinking about. And that's why we are in the straits we are today.
your detractors would say, oh, he's not a real working man. You know, he came from money. You know, these are the things that are being said about him. He's just cosplaying working man. What do you say to them?
Well, I mean, I started raking blueberries when I was nine. I had my first W-2 job before I even went to high school.
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Chapter 7: What is Platner's stance on masculinity and its portrayal in politics?
I bagged groceries and pushed carts, did landscaping, and then worked on the Appalachian Trail for the AMC on the professional trail crew. Those were all jobs that require you to work and use your hands.
After that, I joined the infantry, where I spent my 20s engaged in combat operations for this country, struggled afterwards, and then eventually came back to Maine, where I have become a diver and an oyster farmer. My wife and I combined make about $60,000 a year.
You do get help from your family here and there. I mean, this is where your detectives say, oh, your father's a lawyer. Your grandfather's a story architect.
For the record, my father is a small-town lawyer in Ellsworth, Maine, who did bankruptcy and real estate law for his career in Ellsworth. Yeah. Yeah. Not a billionaire. Most certainly not. My mother, by the way, still works. She still runs her restaurant because in her 70s, she has no retirement. So she's going to work for the foreseeable future because she's got no way to retire.
I mean, to me, if that's your definition of being like a wealthy rich person, then I think those people's definitions need some attending.
And you have talked about your wider definition of what the working class of the United States is.
Yeah, it's very simple. If the bulk of the money that you get to – live comes from wages, comes from working, and you are not just sitting on an immense amount of hoarded wealth which generates income for you, then you work for a living.
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Chapter 8: How does Platner differentiate his campaign from traditional politics?
And if you sit on a bunch of hoarded wealth that generates revenue for you, you don't because you literally don't. So for me, it's fairly simple. And in an age of immense wealth inequality, that's the definition that we need. Because they're going to try to pit us all against each other.
They're going to try to pit poor people against the people who are sitting on immense amounts of hoarded wealth that generates revenue for them. Billionaires, CEOs of corporations, hedge fund managers, private equity. That's who, because they don't want us recognizing that if we band together and build political power, we have it within our power to pull all that stolen money back.
We have it in our power to have a tax code that doesn't, for right now, as we have right now, we tax wages at a higher rate than we tax wealth. That's a math equation you can run to the end and see who wins out. None of this is actually all that complicated.
Those people and the establishment politicians that they have paid off for decades to represent their interests, they don't want us recognizing that down here in the real world, we all have everything in common. When hospitals close, that impacts Republican or Democrat alike.
If young people are fleeing your community because there is no housing to buy and there's no future and no work, it doesn't matter if you identify as a progressive or a conservative. Your community is dying. And it's dying because people have made policy decisions to create this outcome. It's important for people to know the world that we live in right now, it isn't natural.
None of this is organic. We live in the outcome of policy, policies that have been implemented really for the last 40 years by establishment politicians at the behest of those who donated the most money to them. And the fascinating thing is everybody knows. Everybody knows that.
Say that to the average American and they're going to nod at you because they know that their political system is bought off by people with money. And those of us who are not benefiting from that system, those of us who are not seeing our lives get easier, who are not seeing our wealth increasing, who are seeing our communities suffer, that's the working class.
Those are all the people who are being taken advantage of in a system that is not representing their interests. And for the people who are benefiting immensely, They're the ones who we are arrayed against. They're the ones who are going to use politics to protect their interests.
They're the ones that need us being all mad at each other down here, yelling at each other about being a Republican or a Democrat or left or right, because they don't want us recognizing that there's only one direction we need to be pointing fingers, and that is up. It's not left and right.
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