Former White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Tuesday pressed Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner after he claimed the Democratic Party was trying to “destroy” his life.
Platner has faced backlash over reports about past Reddit comments where he labeled police as “bastards,” said white people were racist and accused Black people of not tipping.
He’s also been criticized for having a chest tattoo that resembled a Nazi skull-and-crossbones symbol, which Platner has now covered.
“You’re running as an outsider, for sure, which is probably an advantage for you, but campaigns, I mean, they use opposition research. It can get very ugly, but these were comments you made. As you said, you knew they could come to light — a tattoo on your body,” Psaki told Platner during a Tuesday episode of MSNBC’s “The Briefing.”
“And when you say the party is trying to destroy your life, it sounds like, a little bit like you’re trying to shirk responsibility for things that you did in comments that you made,” she added.
The candidate fired back, saying he was not attempting to dodge responsibility but urging voters to give him a chance to explain himself.
“For the record, I’ve not shied away from anything. I’ve been, I frankly, have been doing nothing but interviews for the past week and a half on exactly this topic. I’ve talked about it at length with multiple news outlets,” Platner told Psaki.
He added that, “nobody ever asked me about where like, why I would have felt those things in the past, or if I am the same person today.”
During a Monday town hall, one voter lauded Platner for discussing his past transgressions and shared appreciation for his dialogue about evolving.
However, Platner’s recent poll numbers tell a different story. A SoCal Strategies survey, taken after news about Platner’s tattoo surfaced, showed his competitor, Gov. Janet Mills (D-Maine) leading by 5 percentage point months ahead of the Democratic primary.
Still, Platner has refused to back out of the race, pegging himself as a champion for the working class.
“For so many people right now, they just want to connect to the politics that is rea. A politics that, like, is accessible and and looks and sounds like something they can understand, not kind of the horse race, not the negative ads, not the negative, not just like the general negativity, which we’re also used to now,” Platner told Psaki.
“It’s also, I think, for a lot of people, it feels very aesthetic and empty,” he added.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has been one of Platner’s strongest supporters, noting the oyster farmer’s the ability to rally large crowds. Despite the controversy, Sanders has still backed Platner.
Platner told Psaki he wants to continue to connect with an “immense amount of Mainers, because I when you talk to people one on one, they can tell whether you’re lying to them or not.”
“And I think they see what’s going on right now, and they just see it as the machine hitting back. And many of them are just, frankly, kind of rallying and saying that, ‘No, we need to have a better politics,’” he added.
