MS NOW Host Nukes Graham Platner’s ‘Lacking’ Judgment ‘As An Adult’: He’s a ‘Slow Motion Train Wreck’

MS NOW host Elise Jordan pulled no punches on Monday morning in hammering progressive Maine U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner. Jordan argued that Platner’s campaign has been a “slow-motion train wreck” ever since his Nazi-linked tattoo was revealed.

Morning Joe host Jonathan Lemire began the conversation by laying out the latest scandal engulfing Platner, “Graham Platner, the presumptive Democratic nominee looking to unseat Senator Susan Collins of Maine, is facing yet another controversy this morning. Over the weekend, both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times released reports that Platner had exchanged sexually explicit text messages with several women while married.”

“Platner’s actions were first brought to the attention of the campaign last year by his wife, Amy Gertner, who worried what would happen if they were made public. The Times writes that Genevieve McDonald, a former state legislator who was the Platner campaign’s political director before leaving in October, said that Gertner reached out just days before a big Labor Day rally with Senator Bernie Sanders and was concerned that her husband’s behavior could become a political liability. The messages were confirmed by the campaign, and a representative for Platner said he has since stopped and that he and his wife are in counseling. Gertner posted a video statement on social media in which she defended her husband,” Lemire added, before showing the clip:

I find it really shameful that there’s a group of media outlets and people who are willing to spread gossip instead of talking about real issues that Graham is running on. Graham and I have a great marriage. Being married is hard. Being newly married is really hard. I think it’s shameful behavior to spend time and energy and resources on negative ads and negative stories on Graham.

“This controversy is the latest in a campaign that has seen Platner being forced to respond to things like old offensive posts on Reddit and a Nazi-style tattoo. Democratic leaders seem split on the candidate. Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna of California is standing by Platner, writing on social media on Saturday that he looks forward to their scheduled campaign event. But others, like Senator Cory Booker, are worried about the impact on the party’s chances to retake the Senate,” Lemire continued, showing a weekend clip from Booker:

Yeah, I have concerns. That guy has questions to answer, and that’s what campaigns are for. I know that so much is riding on Democrats taking control of the Senate — that this election, if we do not get the votes necessary to take care of the House and the Senate, we will continue to have an out-of-control president.

“So at least Platner’s campaign has showed remarkable resiliency to this point, right? I mean, he dispatched a pretty popular sitting governor, Governor Mills, in the primary, and polls have him up on Susan Collins. Now, we should note, polls in Maine are traditionally unreliable, and Susan Collins is nothing if not a survivor. At the very least, we can say this is another real headache for the party,” Lemire concluded.

“Graham Platner is clearly a very talented retail politician, but the problem is his judgment, which he has clearly been lacking as an adult. It’s one thing to have foolish, youthful indiscretions, but I’m sorry — you cannot get past it,” replied Jordan, who hosts a weekend show on MS NOW. She added:

It is not a Nazi-style tattoo; it is the tattoo of concentration camp guards. It is the very worst tattoo you can get, and that’s a pretty high bar. So this has been a slow-motion train wreck ever since that tattoo and knowledge of it hit the world, and it’s only going to get worse. These texts — there are multiple women. Are all those women going to keep their mouths shut from now until election day?

Watch the clip above via MS NOW.

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