Elizabeth Warren Defends Graham Platner Endorsement As Anchor Drops Scathing List of Scandals

CNBC anchor Sara Eisen grilled Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) on Wednesday over her recent campaign appearances with progressive Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner. Warren has endorsed Platner, who has been a lightning rod of controversy over his bigoted past social media posts and Nazi chest tattoo.

“You campaigned with Graham Platner ahead of that state’s very pivotal Democratic primary. And I wanted to ask you about something you said. You said he’s your kind of man. And I’ve interviewed you for a long time and watched your hearings and listened to your questions. You care about character,” Eisen began, adding:

This is a guy that had a chest tattoo with a Nazi symbol. OK, he apologized for it. It’s a guy who reportedly wrote that ‘people concerned about rape should take some responsibility for themselves and not get so effed up that they wind up having sex with someone they don’t mean to.’ He praised military tactics used by Hamas, reportedly, in comments online and Reddit when they were murdering Israeli soldiers. So I’m just curious why you think he’s your kind of man?

“So, as you rightly point out, he has apologized. He’s out meeting with the people of Maine every single day so they can evaluate not who Graham Platner was, but who Graham Platner is today,” Warren replied, adding:

And let me tell you exactly how that comment came to be. I was describing how I didn’t know Graham Platner from anybody. And I’m reading an interview with him, and he’s asked, “When did you first know that the game was rigged?” And he harks back to the 2008 crash, when 10 million families lost their homes, when 8 million people lost their jobs, when millions of people lost savings, and when big banks cheated folks, when non-bank financial institutions tricked them, robbed them of their homes. And Graham Platner’s answer on when he knew the game was rigged was when not one banker went to jail. And I said, “That’s my kind of man.”

“Well, ‘I dig it’ next to a video of a bunch of terrorists killing five soldiers. I don’t know. I mean, you guys want to be the party of inclusivity, right?” Eisen followed up.

“I want to be the party that stands up for hardworking people,” Warren replied, adding:

I want to be the party that is transformative of an economy that right now is hip-deep in corruption and an economy that’s working for a handful of billionaires and multi-multi-multi-millionaires and not working for much of anyone else. I want us to be a party that actually delivers on lowering costs and that expands opportunities, and that’s what Graham Platner wants to do, and I’m there to stand with him and help in that fight.

Watch the clip above via CNBC.

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