It turns out one bad day really can change everything

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
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**David Pakman** (0:23)
Today, a Democratic Senate campaign has completely imploded after allegations forced Graham Platner out. Donald Trump's reaction tells us a lot about what we need to know. And then Donald Trump's prized new Air Force One, a gift from the Qataris, becomes a global embarrassment after Trump abandons it amid security concerns and comments about assassination, but then switches back to the plane after wasting a bunch of our taxpayer money flying around on multiple planes. We'll talk about the growing demands for proof of life for Mitch McConnell, including now from Governor Andy Beshear, plus another strange Trump press conference where he says he was president three times, invents economic statistics out of thin air, and of course struggles with basic questions from reporters. Finally, another Washington beautification project goes wrong. As our friend Aaron Parnas discovers a code brown, as we call it in my household. We refer to diaper situations as code brown with the baby. But Donald Trump now lead dealing with a code brown. And it is becoming another symbol of a presidency defined by self-inflicted distractions. It's a big show today. If they'll let us do it.
Democratic main Senate candidate Graham Platner has ended his campaign.
This is going to be one that I don't know. I think a lot of people need to hear, but we want to be careful. We want to be thoughtful. We want to be precise so that we don't have another screw up like this again. Now Graham Platner announced that he was departing the campaign with an 11 minute video.
I've got to tell you, 11 minute video to basically say, this has turned into a disaster and I have to end. I don't know, guys, Graham Platner posting, my name might be on the ballot right now, but that ballot line belongs to the people of Maine. The video, along with that post, it starts as follows. And then we'll talk about it.

**Graham Platner** (2:34)
Everyone, it's Graham Platner here. I think, as many of you know, over the past couple of days, I have faced some very serious allegations. And I just want to make it clear, this is all false. The things that have been claimed did not happen. It's not real.
It has placed an immense amount of weight on me as I think about what needs to happen now.
Amy and I are regular people. We were not looking for this experience. We were not looking to get into politics.

**David Pakman** (3:15)
By the way, that's an important line, because in a moment, I'll tell you that it was essentially Ivy League consultants who said, hey, let's put Graham Platner in politics. It's interesting that that is something he says.

**Graham Platner** (3:27)
We had no desire to run for office. I just want you to think about like what you would do as a regular person in a position where a much larger world, large forces were working against you personally to accuse you of the worst thing that a person could do. And it was not remotely true.
I learned about this through press inquiries.

**David Pakman** (4:07)
I'm not going to play the whole thing for you. The 11 something minute video is out there if you're interested in it. This is sort of a strange video to me. I have to say, Graham Platner doesn't take responsibility for anything.
He foments conspiracy theories saying bigger forces are at play here when I think the reality is this guy wasn't a good candidate, Nazi tattoo, which he I think was dishonest about knowing the provenance and meaning of. And there are a number of allegations suggesting that eight year period during which he's posting racist and misogynistic things to read it. There are multiple allegations from women up to and including rape and taking off condoms during sex.
And I think that that's what this is really about. And I really do think the left has to learn from this. You know, it's become popular to talk about how we can't let the consultant class pick our candidates anymore. The consultant class created this campaign. Consultants from Yale literally went to Platner and said, hey, we want to run you as the working class hero. We're going to develop scripts. We've cross referenced main donor information with populist language and we're going to do it all. We'll do it. But you don't have skeletons in your closet, right? And he said he didn't. But of course he did. And consultants vetted him of a disastrous vetting. I guess they call it a light vetting. And the consultants and strategists that we've been told by the left, we have to be skeptical of, said, hey, this is going to be the guy.