‘I’m Mad at Myself’: Dan Pfeiffer Beats Himself Up After Falling for Graham Platner

Pod Save America’s Dan Pfeiffer admitted he’s “mad” at himself for falling for Graham Platner’s “redemption” story, pointing to one specific comment he ignored that should have been a major warning sign.

Pfeiffer, who served in many roles under former President Barack Obama, and Runway Country host Alex Wagner discussed Platner’s numerous controversies on Friday and the race to replace the far-left candidate following an ex-girlfriend accusing him of sexual assault.

Pfeiffer said he “naively” bought into Platner’s story of PTSD struggles and eventual “redemption.” He bought into the story so much that he was willing to look past incendiary Reddit posts and a Nazi-inspired tattoo — which has since been covered, and Platner claimed he was unaware of the Nazi connection when he got the tattoo.

Pfeiffer said:

The thing that I’m mad at myself about is when we went through this process, you and I had this conversation then and we knew nothing about Platner, and then we saw the online posts and the things he said were horrible. I thought there was a real chance that could be disqualifying in the primary and the general to voters, but I did believe, naively apparently, the story he told about being a person who was dealing with PTSD, that dark time in their life, drinking, did a bunch of things, and then changed their life, improved.

The former Obama aide stressed there should still be “space” for “people who make mistakes to still be in politics,” which Wagner agreed with.

“Of course. I think redemption and empathy are, like, things we need to cultivate as a society beyond politics,” she said.

On the Nazi tattoo, Pfeiffer argued he still doesn’t believe Platner is a “secret Nazi” because such an ideology would have been displayed in his online posts.

“I think he got it, then figured out what it was, and kind of used it as a cocktail point. Look at my Nazi tattoo! He certainly knew about it before,” Wagner said.

“I think he lied about when he discovered it was a Nazi tattoo, that I have come to believe. But this was a guy who was not shy about sharing his opinions online, so if he really was a Nazi, we would know that,” Pfeiffer acknowledged.

He chalked the tattoo up to “bad judgment” fueled by alcohol and adrenaline from Platner’s overseas military service.

Pfeiffer said he started to see cracks in his image of Platner when stories dropped about him sexting with women while still married.

He said:

Where I really started to get worried about Graham Platner was when the story came out in May about him sexting other women while married and it’s not that people can’t make mistakes in their marriages and run for office, that happens all the time, it was that that happened so recently that it really brought into question the redemption story that I had naively believed from him. It’s one thing to make mistakes in a different part of your life. The story was he made a bunch of mistakes, he changed his life, he started working, he got into politics, but that wasn’t the story. That wasn’t the reality.

Pfeiffer then pointed to a specific Reddit post by Platner that he noted Wagner warned him about, but he did not take seriously enough at the time.

“What I think I should have paid more attention to was that back in March you and I did a ‘political experts react’ where we were looking at ads that were running in that race, including the first negative ad that Janet Mills launched against Platner, which had a bunch of women reacting to the things Platner had posted,” he said, referring to a post where Platner was “minimizing” rape.

In the 2013 post, Platner blasted people who “get so f*cked up they wind up having sex with someone they don’t mean to,” something Wagner noted is “ironic” at this point since Platner was accused of sexually assaulting his ex-girlfriend while intoxicated.

“Holy f*ck, how about people just take some responsibility for themselves and not get so f*cked up they wind up having sex with someone they don’t mean to?” Platner wrote.

He added, “Men and women, you make a choice to consume enough of a substance to lose your self-control. So if you don’t want to be in a [compromising] situation, act like an adult for f*ck’s sake.”

Pfeiffer admitted the “dangerous” and “offensive” post should have been a much bigger flag for him.

“What he said about minimizing rape and that sort of inherent misogyny should have been a much bigger flag. That is the sign of something else. I wish I paid more attention to that in this discussion,” he said.

Watch above via Pod Save America.

Jason Cohen contributed to this report.

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