Political Life Support - July 7, 2026

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
I'm so upset, oh my god.

**Cenk Uygur** (0:14)
Welcome to The Young Turks, Cenk Uygur, Ana Kasparian with you guys on a lovely birthday for Ana Kasparian.

**Ana Kasparian** (0:20)
Come on.

**Cenk Uygur** (0:23)
All right, and we've got a hell of a show for you guys.
So, is Mitch McConnell brain dead? And does anyone in Washington care?

**Ana Kasparian** (0:33)
He's been, he's been, okay.

**Cenk Uygur** (0:34)
Yeah, I mean, would it really make any difference? That's actually a thing we're going to discuss on the show tonight.

**Ana Kasparian** (0:40)
No, they love brain dead people. We will get to that later.

**Cenk Uygur** (0:43)
And we'll tell you why they love them.

**Ana Kasparian** (0:44)
Yeah.

**Cenk Uygur** (0:45)
Some shocking facts about the views of Jewish Americans on tonight's show. I can't wait to share that with you guys.
Wars back on, it's on again, off again. This is one of those on again moments. We're bombing Iran as we speak. We'll explain all that. Graham Platner is, of course, in the news. And reactions, some surprising reactions, some non-surprising reactions.
And yeah, Israel's torturing an innocent doctor to death. But we should send them more money. Okay, so having said that, let's start with Platner.

**Mika Brzezinski** (1:20)
There's not a police report, correct?
Correct me if I'm wrong. And there's not a legal case playing out here for due process to see itself through. So my question to you, given the very high standards political has before they write something like this and publish it, what aspects of this story brought it to the level of publishable?

**SPEAKER_7** (1:44)
We looked at messages that she had sent to others in the months after this happened through social media.

**Mika Brzezinski** (1:51)
But you were able to see those DMs?

**SPEAKER_7** (1:55)
She tried to recover those DMs. We were not able to review those DMs, but she described them to us.

**Cenk Uygur** (2:05)
What in the world is happening? Mika Brzezinski, grilling the political reporter that reported the allegation against Graham Platner, a shocking source of skepticism from there. She actually did a brilliant job. We'll show you more about that in a second. And she was tougher on the political reporting and the establishment reporting that a lot of progressive activists have been. 100%.
So is Graham Platner gonna drop out? We've certainly got details for you on that. If he does, who might be the next person in line? And was he targeted? So a lot to discuss here. Ana's got the facts.

**Ana Kasparian** (2:38)
So before we give you the details, I just wanna say, Graham Platner's candidacy was treated very differently from the typical centrist slash establishment types in the Democratic Party. As you just saw, Mika Brzezinski seems very skeptical of the latest reporting, which we're gonna get back to in just a second. James Carville, who is, I mean, part and parcel of the Democratic establishment defended Graham Platner prior to the latest allegations. So the establishment wasn't just flat out rejecting him. So I want you to keep that in mind as I give you the details of what's going on here. Now, the latest allegations have to do with a 41-year-old Maine resident who used to date Graham Platner on again, off again for about two years. Her name is Jenny Rasicott, and she claims that in late 2021, he allegedly entered her home when the door was unlocked. He was deeply intoxicated by her telling and forced himself on her while she told him to stop repeatedly. So her allegation, let's be very clear, is that Graham Platner entered her home when he wasn't invited and forcibly raped her.
She says to Politico, quote, I remember him grabbing my pelvis and being really forceful of me. I remember the specific moment where I thought to myself, this is no longer my choice. Now, she previously described reckless and unsettling behavior by Platner in a New York Times article. But she didn't go into the detail, she refused to elaborate. She said she didn't want to do it specifically because she didn't want to be known as a rape victim, okay?
But she decided to do it a week before an incredibly important electoral deadline in this Senate race in Maine. Now Platner flat out denies the allegations, but it clearly looks like he is going to eventually drop out of this race because every person who endorsed him has now turned on him.
Further, this is a statement from Graham Platner's campaign. They say these allegations are very serious and Graham vigorously denies them. They are also coached and coordinated by out of state establishment operatives. For a year, opponents of this campaign have thrown everything they can at Graham, calling him a Nazi, a war criminal, and a communist. None of it has been true, and this is no different.