Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution — The Interview

[0:00] destroyed Iraq. And we destroyed Afghanistan. And all the suffering, all the killing, all the [0:06] dying, all the displacement, all of it. And that I'm ashamed of. In Maine, there's a candidate for [0:15] Senate who's electrifying the Democratic base and worrying the establishment. I did four infantry [0:21] tours in the Marine Corps and the Army. I'm not afraid to name an enemy. He's Graham Plattner, [0:26] a progressive 41-year-old military vet and oyster farmer. His pitch of starting a working-class [0:32] revolution and a savvy social media strategy has seen him surge in popularity. But he's been [0:38] dogged by controversy in his short time in the national spotlight. Hey all, it's Graham here. [0:43] As you've probably seen, there's a story that's broken about comments I made on Reddit in an earlier [0:48] part of my life. I am sorry, but it does not in any way reflect who I am today or the beliefs that I [0:57] hold. Now that his primary opponent, Governor Janet Mills, has dropped out of the race, [1:02] Washington Democrats are pinning their hopes on him to help win back the Senate in November. [1:07] Nothing brings people together like wanting to beat Susan Collins. [1:10] Is he ready? I sat down with him to find out. Not a bad interview setup. [1:15] Here's my conversation with Graham Plattner. [1:18] Thank you so much for coming to New York on this grade A. But I'm really, I guess you're used to it, [1:24] I mean. Yeah, well, I mean a little bit. This is nice though. And at least we're inside. [1:29] We're inside, exactly. We're not out in the elements as you normally are. You are now the [1:34] presumptive Democratic nominee for Senate in Maine after Janet Mills dropped out. Your opponent, [1:42] Susan Collins, is viewed as, I think, one of the most vulnerable GOP senators up for re-election. [1:48] I'm sure you know this, a ton of cash is about to drop. [1:52] Oh yeah. [1:52] Into the race on both sides. Are you ready for prime time? [1:56] Yeah. I mean, at the point, I'll be entirely honest. Like when we set this thing in motion [2:00] back in August, the entire idea was we wanted to build a different looking politics in the state [2:08] of Maine. Right? And it's based around like community organizing. I'm a firm believer that [2:13] organized people is the only actual place of power to conflict with organized money. [2:18] And in our society, money is very organized. We set out on that. We were hopeful. We thought it [2:26] was going to work. It's of course worked in a pretty spectacular fashion thus far. We're just going [2:32] to continue doing exactly that. We're going to continue doing the public events. We're going to [2:36] continue focusing on the field organizing. And we knew that all the money was going to come. [2:42] We knew that we were up against the establishment of the American political system. In many ways, [2:51] we were up against the Democratic establishment up until last week. And we figured at some point, [2:57] we were probably going to win that. And then we were going to go up against the Republican [2:59] political establishment, which is where we find ourselves now. [3:02] You know, obviously the test right now is if you can run in a general election. And so, you know, [3:08] I want to ask straight up because there've already been quite a few controversies. And we're going to [3:13] talk about that a little bit later. But the GOP is going to dig up everything and more that they can. [3:21] Yeah. And probably lie at some point. [3:25] Is there something new you want to get ahead of? [3:27] No. I mean, like we've, I've been, I've lived my life. Like I've been there for the whole thing. [3:34] And it's, and because of that, like I, I mean, I know what I've, what I've been through. I know [3:41] what I've, I know what my behavior has been. I know all of it. And the, I mean, there's a reason [3:47] that even after however many months that was, October, when they dropped the opposition research [3:52] stuff on us. And the whole time there was always just like, oh, there's more coming. I'm always like, [3:57] I don't know like what this more is going to be. And. [4:00] These are all your social media posts, et cetera, which again, we'll talk about in a minute. [4:03] And, and, but there was always this like, oh no, they're, they're going to dig up everything in [4:07] your life. And you know, it's everything you've ever done. And I'm like, yeah, I mean, I get that, [4:10] but like I've, I've been through my life and like, I'm certainly an imperfect person. And I certainly [4:15] went through my struggles and I mean, which I'm sure we'll talk about, but I also know for a fact that [4:22] like, I've never been close to money. I've never been close to power. I've never been able, [4:26] I've never like, you know, uh, I don't think anything I've ever done has been outside of the [4:33] realm of like what people do when they struggle, when they suffer, you know, that kind of stuff. [4:37] And I'm, yeah, you know, I, I think those controversies and the fact that you're such [4:45] an unknown is part of the reason why the democratic establishment was worried. Um, not the whole [4:52] reason, but certainly part of it. Uh, Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, um, recruited, [4:57] obviously Janet Mills to run against you, um, because she did have that track record of running [5:03] statewide and she was viewed as more moderate in his view. Uh, there were no skeletons in her closet, [5:11] so to speak. And so I'm wondering if you feel a lot of pressure right now, because yours is one of the [5:19] very few races that could really help to flip the Senate into democratic control. As you know, [5:24] uh, the Democrats are extremely anxious about resting some control back, uh, in their favor. [5:32] For good reason. Um, you know, I've had Democrats tell me that the fate of the country is sort of in the [5:38] hands of you and a few other people now. I mean, how do you feel about that? [5:42] Yeah. I don't engage with it emotionally because it's way too much. Like I, this whole experience has [5:49] been just a continual, one intensely surreal thing after another. I mean, it's, it's like, I, like, [5:58] last summer when this all happened, I mean, my wife and I went from one day living a very small, [6:05] simple life to, I mean, literally within days having this whole thing like upend our entire existence. [6:12] And so there's a, [6:14] Cause you were recruited, right? [6:16] Because they saw a video of you and somebody saw a video of me talking about fighting a Norwegian [6:20] salmon farm, uh, in our area. And they were like, that guy seems well-spoken. Maybe we should go [6:23] talk to him. And they came to my house and they said that we should run for U S Senate. And my wife [6:27] and I were like, that's the most insane thing we've ever heard. Please get out of our house. [6:30] Uh, and then they came back a few days later with more of like a fleshed out plan. And at that point, [6:34] we're like, oh my God, I mean, it's still insane, but there's something to it. And for us, we've, [6:40] we've spent a long time being very engaged politically at the local level. Uh, and I think [6:46] both of us are, are deeply committed to building a significantly better future. Um, and this was an [6:54] opportunity to do something about it on a scale that, you know, it's just frankly hard to comprehend, [7:00] still hard to comprehend, to be entirely honest. I mean, I'm, I mean, I still live in Sullivan, [7:05] Maine. I still live in my small house and across the street from the boat launch. So my business [7:10] partner is still like in the yard this week, getting the boats ready. And cause it's this time [7:14] of year we're putting boats in the water and getting the oysters up. So like, that's all still [7:18] happening while all this other stuff is happening too. So it's a strange disconnect, I guess. [7:24] Yeah. And it, and it brings me to this like idea that you've been running as this [7:29] anti-establishment candidate, but we've talked a little bit about the Republican money that's [7:37] going to be dropping on you, but there's also the democratic party's money and their organizing [7:41] power to win this campaign. Do you think that hurts your message of being an outsider? [7:46] No, I think it's very clear to everyone, uh, just how not the establishment candidate I, [7:53] I am or have been, um, you know, there's without question, the democratic party wants to retake the [7:59] Senate, uh, more than anything else. And almost no map that has a democratic Senate, uh, it does not [8:07] include flipping the state of Maine. We have to flip the state of Maine. We have to get rid of Susan [8:11] Collins for a whole myriad of reasons, not just flipping the Senate. So they're going to come [8:16] and help us out. The thing that's important to know is we welcome their support in like the, [8:24] for like with the money, because we're going to be up against, I mean, the NRSC has already put [8:30] aside almost $50 million. That's the number I heard. Yeah. For this race. That's insane. [8:34] I mean, also, by the way, could you imagine investing $50 million in the state of Maine, [8:38] like in anything, it'd be a different looking state. The fact that they're just going to blow [8:41] it on like negative TV ads is just shows how gross and insanely, uh, flawed the system that we have [8:49] is around politics, but the, we'll take their help because we're going to need it on that front. [8:54] But we're not going to take as like, frankly, direction or advice on what we're doing because [8:59] we just, what we've built is ours. And we have, we have 15,000 active volunteers in the state of Maine, [9:06] and we have more signing up every single day. Um, and a lot of people who are supposed to be really, [9:12] really good at politics who were the, the, the experts, they all said that all this was entirely [9:17] impossible and we didn't just prove them wrong, but we did so in rather spectacular fashion. [9:23] And we're just going to keep doing that. You know, you had said that, um, [9:28] Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer had not really reached out to you until, um, Janet [9:35] Miller sort of dropped out and you've had a conversation with him recently. Did you tell him [9:40] that? Did you say, Hey bud, stay out of my business? No, I said, look, we, we are happy [9:44] to work together, uh, to beat Susan Collins. I mean, nothing brings people together like wanting [9:49] to beat Susan Collins. That's, it's a, it's a very unifying thing. Um, the conversation was short. [9:55] We did not get into details. He said, congratulations. I said, thank you very much. [9:59] He said the priority is to beat Collins. I said, that's my priority too. And however we can work [10:04] together to do it effectively is what I'm willing. I mean, that's what I want. [10:08] Yeah. I mean, I've, I've watched you on the campaign trail and one of the main messages that [10:14] you have though, is not to put, to find a point on it, but you know, F the establishment. [10:21] Yeah. [10:22] And, and I guess, do you think Schumer should be replaced as leader then? I mean, are you? [10:27] Yeah, I, I don't, I, I, I, my criticisms remain exactly the same as they were last Wednesday. [10:34] Uh, I do think that the, that leadership in the democratic party has been, has really failed [10:40] the moment. I don't think, I mean, for a bunch of different reasons, I do think that, uh, I do [10:47] think that Senator Schumer has, has not really risen to the occasion. And I think we do need new [10:52] leadership, uh, within the party without question. Last question on this. Um, and it is about Susan [10:58] Collins. As you know, she has been there since the nineties. She has been a very deaf, [11:05] um, sort of fundraiser and campaigner in the state of Maine. I mean, what do you give your chances, [11:11] really? [11:11] Very high. Extremely high, actually. I, one polling bears that out. Now I am a Democrat in Maine, [11:18] so I'm wary of polling. There's no question about it, but there is a consistency to it, which is nice. [11:23] Um, cause I think there was another candidate, um, that was trying to run against her. [11:27] Yeah. [11:27] She was up in the polling and Susan Collins won. [11:31] I think a couple of things have changed. One, I think polling methodology has changed [11:34] significantly since 2020. Um, there in, in Maine has always been notoriously a hard state to poll, [11:40] uh, because we have an aging population. There are a lot of people that still use landlines or a lot [11:44] of people that still like do mail. So there are, but a lot of the, a lot of the more recent polling [11:49] takes all that into, into account, which it didn't use to, but there's a deeper change. And I think [11:54] it's, it's a couple of things first and foremost, and people often forget this 2020 Collins had [12:01] already voted for Brett Kavanaugh, but Roe had not been overturned. And Collins is real pitch for a [12:07] long time was like Olympia snow. She tried to make herself look like the Olympia snow actually was this [12:16] by the way, but Collins has tried to make herself look like this moderate Republican who will buck her [12:21] party, a, a woman Senator from Maine who is pro choice, who is, who, who, who supports reproductive [12:29] rights. That fiction could still exist in 2020 because Roe was still in place. Roe was no longer [12:36] in place. I mean, she said it was settled law. She said it was never going to change it, which is why [12:42] she voted for Brett Kavanaugh. Well, this point it has changed because of her vote for Brett Kavanaugh. [12:47] So either she was lying or she completely misunderstood what was happening either way, [12:54] that doesn't show like a really solid, uh, I don't know, political acumen. Uh, and, and I think in many [13:00] ways that, I mean, that alone is relatively disqualifying, not just because of the implications, [13:04] but because of the, frankly, just incompetence of it. Then there's the element where at this point, [13:11] I don't think you could come up with a better avatar for the long serving, self enriching, [13:18] establishment politician than Susan Collins, who raises an immense amount of money outside of [13:23] the state of Maine, who takes an immense amount of money from APAC. She takes an immense amount of [13:29] money from special interest groups and fossil fuel companies. And she has a very high performing stock [13:34] portfolio. Uh, you know, I mean, these, I think a lot of people in Maine look at that and are like, [13:39] yeah, I don't think that that is actually the politics I want representing me. [13:43] I want to, um, take a bit of a step back, uh, and talk a little bit about you. Um, because I think [13:51] for many people across the country, you're, uh, an unknown quantity. Um, you're out of almost [13:59] nowhere. Yeah, I'm a random guy. I'm a random oyster farmer from Sullivan, Maine. So, yeah. [14:02] So you're pitching yourself as a working class man. You're a firearm instructor, a gun owner. [14:10] Yep. Um, in your campaign launch video, you're wearing a dirty hoodie, you're shucking oysters, [14:16] you're swinging a kettlebell, you're chopping wood. What kind of masculinity are you trying to evoke [14:22] with that? A healthy one. Uh, one in which like it's, it is entirely fine to be a weightlifting, [14:32] kettlebell swinging, gun owning, kind of like rugged guy. You can do all of that and see, [14:41] see your strengths or see your privilege as things that are to be used specifically to like uplift and [14:47] help other people not to like impose on them. I think right now, especially there are a lot of [14:52] young men in our society who are being dragged into this kind of like really dangerous, misogynistic, [14:57] like manosphere. I just watched Louis Thoreau's documentary the other night. Uh, it's horrifying. [15:03] Sadly for me, having spent like, having spent my life as an angsty young man and then being in the, [15:09] in the service, in the Marine Corps, in the army and in the infantry and both very, very masculine [15:13] spaces. Um, like I have seen that kind of toxic masculinity really attract a lot of, a lot of young [15:23] men. And a lot of it comes from the fact that I think that there are a lot of men who are deeply, [15:29] deeply insecure who, whether it's because of trauma, whether it's because society has told [15:35] them they're supposed to be a certain level of successful and they aren't that. And so then [15:41] they feel like they've failed or that society has somehow failed them. And then they're given this [15:46] story that the only way to make that up is to like impose on other people, to uplift yourself. [15:53] You have to put others down, which I think is nonsense. I think that just results in you being alone. [15:58] Why have Democrats struggled so much with, with men lately? [16:03] Oh yeah. Uh, honestly, I think it's because they've left behind working the, like the working [16:10] class and, and, and hear me out here. There was a time where like people who like worked for a living, [16:20] used their hands, were very, very close to the democratic party, uh, through the labor movement, [16:26] through just kind of general policies. The democratic party was, was once the policy that [16:31] really represented working folks. And there is this vision of masculinity in America, which has a lot [16:36] to do with that exact thing, right? Like kind of working, building, creating. Um, there are elements [16:42] of that that I think are very positive. I do not believe in this whole like white working class that [16:46] like the, that the working class is just a bunch of rugged dudes and hard hats. That's not the working [16:51] class, working classes, significantly bigger than that. And it's very multicultural, multi-gendered, [16:55] multiracial, the whole nine yards. But there is an element in our society that we view, [17:01] you know, we view like kind of working class people like that. And I think as a democratic party has [17:05] for a while now, kind of begun to look like the party of like liberal elites. [17:12] There's just an element- You don't have to whisper it. [17:14] I'm sorry. I'm in New York. Um, but it, it looks like this party and sounds like, and, and in some [17:20] ways kind of did become this party of sort of like Ivy league schools and elite that like when you, [17:29] when that was left behind. I mean, the data shows it. [17:31] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the strength of the democratic party is in cities. It's among the educated. [17:36] Yeah. Um, it's among women actually. [17:38] Um, and I think a lot of that came because, uh, the democratic party, uh, abandoned organized labor. [17:45] Quite frankly. [17:46] Is that what you were tapping into when you did your thing? [17:48] Yeah. I mean, like it wasn't, yes. I mean, but, but I'll be honest, like not, [17:52] not performatively. This is just my life. I mean, I do swing kettlebells. I lift weights. I work on [17:55] the ocean with my hands. I shoot guns. Like it's, I, yeah, like that's a, it's all, there's nothing [18:01] performative about it. It's just kind of my existence. So yeah, I think there's a, I want us to be able to [18:08] reconnect with a healthier version of masculinity. One that is rooted in hard work and building things. [18:15] You're not a look smackser? [18:16] Uh, definitely not a look smackser. I'm not going to smack myself in the face with hammers [18:20] because that seems to be like possibly the dumbest thing a human being could ever do. [18:24] But you know, that's just me. [18:25] One of the things that I have heard debated about you quite a bit [18:31] is your working class roots because you know, you grew up in a small town, didn't graduate college, [18:39] became a bartender, but also your father was an attorney. Your grandfather was a Cornell educated [18:45] architect, quite, quite well known. You went to private schools. So kind of, well, the private [18:51] school thing, I would just like to, so I, yeah. Okay. So in eighth grade, so I grew up in Sullivan, [18:59] Maine, went to Mountain View, uh, elementary school, which is very small. I think my graduating, [19:05] I think we had like 12 kids or something, 12 to 14. It was tiny. And my mom really, really wanted my [19:12] brother and I to get like a high quality education. And this place in Connecticut, Hotchkiss gave us a [19:17] really good financial aid package. So my mom was like, all right, that's where you're going. I did, [19:21] and I did not want to go at all because I didn't want to leave Maine. Um, so I got sent down there [19:29] and there was a moment, which I will never forget. And it was the moment I knew that I had to leave [19:34] this place. I went down to Hotchkiss and they had like, you know, monthly or weekly, uh, I think [19:40] called it chapel or something like that. And people, you know, graduates or, you know, people would always [19:45] come and give speech, motivational speeches and whatnot. And the first one I went to, some guy came, [19:50] some business magnate type, uh, and was trying to kind of inculcate in everyone like the concept of work [19:57] ethic. And at some point he was just like, who in here's had a job? And I put my hand up and I [20:02] was the only kid in the room that put his hand up. And I realized that it wasn't a real question. [20:05] It was a rhetorical question because of course, none of these kids had held jobs. And I then felt [20:10] really embarrassed because I'm like 13 and like, I realized, oh my God, like, I'm like, there are a [20:16] lot of people who are like super wealthy and I like, I'm not, and my family's not. And like, it's, [20:22] and we were fine for the record. I grew up solidly middle class without question. Um, [20:28] but like worked for, I mean, all the way I worked through high school, I bagged groceries, [20:34] I did landscaping, worked for the Appalachian mountain club on the professional trail crew for [20:37] two years before I joined the Marine Corps. And so like, there was just this, I don't know, [20:41] this, this real sense of like, I was very out of place. So I, uh, I got myself kicked out by Christmas. [20:50] I lasted, I was at Hotchkiss for like three months and then I went back to Maine and I went to John [20:55] Bapst, which is up in Bangor, which was far more my speed. Lots of, lots of just normal Maine kids [21:00] who were more of my kind of world. I mean, how do you think about class? Um, is working class [21:07] how you grew up or how you live now? Like, how do you, because you grew up, you're, you're describing [21:11] it as solidly middle class. Um, I think the difference today. And you make your, you know, [21:16] your pitch is I'm of the working class now. I work with my hands. And I am, I mean, I work with my [21:21] hands. I don't make a lot of money. Uh, my wife and I work incredibly hard. Uh, and we probably make [21:26] like $60,000 a year combined. We don't have money left over. We're not saving for retirement. I'll [21:32] tell you that. Um, I was lucky. I got to buy my house in 2017 and I could not afford my house today. [21:38] My, my house has gone up almost three times in value, but my family money, the, was that? [21:43] Do you have family money? My, my father gave me the, uh, the mortgage, except of course, [21:49] because he's my dad and he's an attorney. He gave me a significantly higher interest rate than the bank [21:54] would have because he's a lawyer. Uh, but, um, but it was, but I also, I had, I could have used a VA [22:00] home loan if I had wanted to, but at that point it was just easier to do it that way. Um, and, and I [22:07] mean, I, I, I just, but to be fair, like I could never get that today. Uh, cause I can't afford the [22:13] monthly, I can't afford the mortgage. If it was three times what it is, my, my income hasn't gone [22:17] up three times and my, uh, so I was lucky to get it then. And so we're like, we, my wife and I very [22:27] much recognize the life we've been able to build has come from a lot of like luck. And, but on top of [22:35] that is also my VA healthcare and my VA pension, which that really is kind of like the, that's [22:42] the baseline that really allows all this to happen. Um, if it wasn't for the VA healthcare thing, [22:46] I wouldn't have had the freedom to start a business, to move back to my hometown, figure out. [22:52] I mean, I was flat, I moved back to Maine in 2016 from DC and I had, I was broke, broke. I was living [22:58] at my mom's house. Uh, cause I had spent a number of years very depressed, which we can get to about [23:04] after my combat service. But, um, you know, when it comes to like middle-class working class, [23:09] I will be very upfront. I think this to this day and age, you are working class. If you work and you [23:15] make your money from work and wages, uh, like the, the world of wealth disparity has become so intense [23:25] that there are just so many people now who are sitting on so much money who do not work. [23:32] They make money off their investments. They make money off of their wealth. And, and I know it's [23:37] an expansive definition of working class, but I think you need to have an expansive definition of [23:42] working class when we have the most expansive margin of wealth inequality in the history of [23:47] the country. In, in the state of Maine, almost everybody's working class. Everybody works. [23:52] Mm-hmm. [23:52] Everybody works. Everybody struggles. Everybody has, like, if the hospital closes and that really [23:57] impacts you, you're probably a working class person. If you're really rich, you don't, it doesn't [24:01] matter where the hospital is. You probably can go wherever you want for healthcare. [24:05] You know, it's interesting. I'm listening to you and I'm, and on the one hand, it makes political [24:10] sense to say the working class is this very expansive group that anyone who gets a W-2 and has to pay [24:15] taxes off a salary, uh, which is different than if you're making it off your investments is working [24:21] class, right? Yeah. [24:22] And that's, it's, you get a different kind of hit as we all know, just having been in tax season. [24:28] Um, by the same token, it's, it's a, it's a strange kind of idea of what working class is. I know [24:34] people who really consider themselves working class who grew up, you know, with a lot of struggle. [24:41] Yep. [24:41] And that feels probably to them like that's too expansive, um, a definition. [24:48] I, I mean, I, I spend a lot of time around labor unions. I spend a lot of time around community [24:53] groups that focus on, I mean, I, I, everybody seems these days, everybody seems to subscribe to the [24:57] the same definition because it is so substantial. And to me that's, it is expansive, but I think [25:03] it's also pretty, I think it's the most accurate definition of what we're seeing right now. [25:08] And, and I look, I'll be very upfront. I get a chuckle out of the fact that like [25:13] a lot of folks in this political system who come from incredible amounts of privilege and wealth, [25:19] they're the first ones to be like, are you really working class? Are you, are you, are you really like, [25:26] well, I don't know. You're just out there not making a lot of money and working on the ocean, [25:29] but, uh, your dad was a small town attorney. Does that mean that like, you can't actually [25:34] represent working people? I honestly think it's a tool. It's a political weapon that throughout [25:40] history has been deployed against people whose primary political goal is to improve the lives [25:46] of working folks around them. It's always to call into question like they're, they're bona fides. [25:50] Well, to be clear, I'm asking you, cause I'm interested in hearing how you describe yourself. [25:54] No, I don't mean you. Well, I just, yeah, to be clear, just to understand how you, [25:59] you know, tell your own story and also how you view what your coalition is. Um, because obviously [26:05] you're pitching yourself to the working class. Yeah. I mean, which is also, I think we're winning [26:09] by spectacular margins. Cause in a state like Maine, everybody's like, yeah, that makes perfect sense to [26:13] me. And we, we all do, we all do feel very much that us and our neighbors in our communities, [26:19] we're all kind of suffering the same way. So after high school. Yep. You joined the [26:25] Marines at 19. Yep. 19. Yeah. 19. And I want to ask you about your tours in the Middle East. [26:31] Um, you went to Iraq in 2005. Is that right? Yeah. I mean, we were there at the same time. I covered [26:37] Iraq from 2002, uh, before the invasion to 2010. Why did you want to serve? Because you were anti-war. [26:45] Very. Um, you were out protesting the conflict. I just saw this post about you actually in Maine, [26:51] kind of protesting George W. Bush. I got dragged out of a Bush rally in [26:55] I think November, December of 02. I want to thank the people who take time, [26:59] who work hard to make sure that the democracy is strong. Yeah. So it's a strange thing to sign up. [27:06] I see. I, everybody says that, but like, it never was for me. I mean, like one, [27:11] I wanted to be a soldier since I was about two. I mean, I was singing the Marines hymn as like, [27:17] I think I was like four or five when I first memorized it. Uh, and I don't know why that is. [27:22] Like I was my, I don't come from like, I mean, I, I, we have a long lineage of military service in my [27:28] family, but like my dad wasn't in the service. My parents were not enthused about my joining of the, [27:33] of the, of the Marine Corps. Um, uh, but I always had an attraction to, I think service, [27:40] but I also had an attraction to adventure and, you know, in our society, we do very much sell [27:48] militarism and war in this very romantic fashion about like, about adventure and excitement. [27:55] And then there's also, and I think you can probably understand this too. There is this weird attraction [28:01] when everyone tells you that everyone tells you that the only way you could ever experience it is [28:06] to be there, that it's a thing that is so unique and so its own thing that no one could ever get it [28:15] unless you had seen it. And I think for me, there was an element of curiosity to that where it's like, [28:22] well, I mean, like, what am I, what, what is it then? And, and, and I, you know, I grew up reading [28:26] military history books and I was in the civil war reenacting and I was like very, it's like a little [28:31] military nerd. Um, and, but I also in high school became pretty critical of certain elements of, [28:40] I think American foreign policy. Certainly when the war in Iraq was kicking off, I was like, this seems [28:44] like a deeply stupid idea. Yeah. I mean, you had an image of you in high school holding up a sign [28:49] saying free Kosovo, Chechnya, Kashmir, Palestine, Kurdistan, and Tibet. That's... Yeah. Yeah. I got it. I [28:54] got really into Irish politics when I was in high school, uh, which introduced me to, I think some sort of, [28:59] uh, like, uh, yeah, a connection to like national liberation struggles and seeing people as like, [29:05] seeing the world through that lens. Um, at the exact same time though, I was still like a young [29:09] man in the United States and I still, I was very patriotic. And so there was a, to me, the two things [29:20] never, it'll be like, I met a lot of guys in the Marine Corps that thought that the war was dumb and were [29:25] there, you know, but they were there cause the, it's a, like the attraction is more to like the [29:31] camaraderie and the kind of whole, like, I don't know, the whole, like the infantry combat unit [29:38] thing. It's, it's, it's less about like why you're doing it. Uh, in my experience, I, I don't, I, I never [29:45] met anybody. I don't have many friends in the Marine Corps who, when we were serving, they were like, [29:48] yeah, I'm definitely here to like fight for George Bush and like, and do whatever. No, no, [29:55] I mean, they're there for like, cause you joined the infantry. You're there cause you were a young [29:58] angsty man and you like joined up and you wanted to go have an adventure and you wanted to fight. [30:02] I mean, that's why that's what the infantry primarily is. Can you tell me, um, with that in [30:08] mind in your head, that sort of romantic vision of what it was, what you felt when you first arrived [30:12] in Iraq, because you were based in what was called, um, then the Sunni triangle. Yeah. Very high [30:18] conflict area. Yeah. When we first got there, it wasn't so bad. So we, January, February, March, [30:23] we're pretty mellow. Uh, we did the election late January first, that first Iraqi election, [30:29] January of 05, somebody shot an RPG at us, but like it didn't go off. And then on April 2nd, [30:36] 2005, there was a large, uh, combined assault, multiple suicide, car bombs, an immense amount [30:43] of indirect fire rockets, mortars, the whole nine yards. And that was like my first actual [30:49] interaction with like combat combat. Um, the rest of that deployment was fairly mellow. Summer came, [30:58] a lot of IEDs. We got blown up a bunch. Um, a couple of serious incidents with my, with my, my, [31:05] my platoon and took some casualties. But for the most part, it wasn't like, uh, it wasn't like continuous. [31:14] Um, and yeah. And then that deployment ended January or, uh, August of, of 05. We came home [31:20] for like four and a half, five months. I went to machine gun leadership course. [31:24] And then we promptly went to Ramadi for 06. And that was like a totally different. [31:29] That was the middle of the civil war. [31:31] Yeah. And that was Ramadi in 06 was a. [31:34] The worst of the worst. [31:36] Okay. And we were at the government center, uh, in downtown Ramadi and we just lived there. [31:41] Uh, you know, everybody else came and rotated through and, you know, journalists would come [31:45] and the brass would come. They'd all come down because they all wanted to see the government [31:48] center. Cause that's like where all the fighting was. And like, we were like, we just, we lived there [31:52] like just where eight months, no days off. Didn't have a single day off for eight months. [31:57] It was exhausting. Yeah. [31:59] And it was, it was very, very violent. I mean, you know, we just like regular contact almost every day. [32:06] So. [32:06] What do you remember about how you felt being part of that war? Because it's just interesting to me [32:17] considering where you came from to suddenly find yourself as part of an occupying army [32:21] in the middle East, no less. I'm just wondering how you sort of made sense of the mission because [32:26] you wrote to your mom at the time, the United States is doing an amazing thing here. It took [32:31] me coming here to realize that don't think we are somewhere we shouldn't be. [32:36] Yeah. I mean, I remember in 05, we were actually engaging in like some building projects. [32:41] We were like, we're helping turn the water back on. We were like, it felt, I, I actually, I mean, [32:47] I was also 20, I was still a kid. So I get, and you need to make all this stuff mean something, [32:52] right? Like you, you want to be part of something good. And so, as I saw like what seemed like doing [32:58] good things for a little bit, for a little bit in 2005, I did, I did believe that we were doing something [33:05] good. Towards the end of the deployment, I started to kind of return to my more cynical [33:10] kind of state on the whole thing. Mostly just because I saw like all the contractors and all [33:15] the, like we were spending so much money. Like somebody was clearly getting very rich, but it [33:19] wasn't us. But then yeah, 2006 comes in Ramadi. And I mean, at that point I became very, well, I don't [33:30] even know if I was, you know, let me rephrase. At the time I did, I didn't really think about it much. [33:35] I mean, when you're in it and you're just doing the work and every day is a slog and your friends. [33:40] You're not reflecting. [33:41] No, no. I mean, you might spend a lot of time being bitter because you haven't slept in three [33:46] days and some Colonel just came down and told you that like your boots were dirty. Like there's a [33:50] lot of being angry at everything, but, but there is a, but like, but you're still, you're part of your [33:56] unit, you're around the guys that you, you love and that you care about and you're all kind of [34:02] in it together. And there is a deep sense, I would say, of like camaraderie and community [34:08] that you get from that. That I mean, I certainly got from it. [34:12] That period I imagine was really hard. Just looking back on it. [34:17] Yeah. And you, you know, have been diagnosed with PTSD. You've talked about that. When you look back now, [34:25] when do you think you started to suffer from that? Because I was also diagnosed from PTSD and for me, [34:33] you know, I can remember exactly what happened and that caused the sort of cascade. What was it for you? [34:44] It was, it was 2006 and it wasn't a specific moment. I'll just be, I, I, I think that's not actually true. [34:56] I'm sorry. That's okay. Um, in 2005, my vehicle got hit by an IED outside of a place called Karma, [35:16] north, uh, north of Fallujah. And, uh, we, uh, it was myself and my best friend, I was in the back [35:25] of the truck. Uh, another Marine, another Marine was driving and yeah, we drove over an IED and blew [35:31] the truck up. I got knocked on, we all got knocked unconscious. Um, I come to, whole front of the truck [35:37] is ripped off. Um, I like, I thought we had engine trouble. I was all like discombobulated. [35:44] I ran around the back of the truck and there's my friend, uh, you know, um, he's alive, but a piece [35:51] of shrapnel is like come up under his helmet and ripped a lot of his, uh, his head off. And, uh, [35:58] you know, I'm 20 and this guy's my best friend. We went to infantry school together. We came to the [36:03] fleet together. We were like, we were thick as thieves real close. And I, I just remember, [36:08] and I was like, yeah, I was a combat lifesaver. So like I got this training on like how to, [36:13] but they never told me what to do when you're like looking at brains. And I remember standing [36:18] there being like, I don't know what the fuck to do. Uh, like, and this is my best friend. [36:22] And I'm like, and I, I'm supposed to save him, but I like, I don't, I have no idea how to even do [36:27] that. Um, and then luckily this guy, uh, Doc Huey, um, spectacular, spectacular Navy corpsman comes [36:34] running up and starts immediately going to work and, uh, and saves, saves his life. Um, and he [36:39] survives, uh, but, but has some pretty significant, it was a significant head wound. And, you know, [36:46] it like, it happened. I was of course distraught because he was my best friend and I'm a kid and, [36:53] you know, you're like, you're in, and it's scary. It's very scary. Oh, and then we also like came under [36:58] fire. So like all this is happening and we're also a gunfight going on. So then I gotta go [37:01] like get in the gunfight for a while. And we, we get the vehicle back. We drop, drop him off at the [37:07] medical station. And, and, and then like, I'm at the back of the truck, just like cleaning the blood [37:11] out, uh, and like mopping it up. And I just remember being, there was a moment and they were like, well, [37:17] we gotta go back on patrol in like three hours. And you're just like, yep. So there was a, there was [37:26] like a hardening at that point for me where I was like, you don't actually get to do this. [37:32] You don't, you don't get to engage with it because if you do, you're going to be worthless [37:37] and you can't be worthless out here. The whole point of this is like to be effective at your [37:40] job. You're not going to let down your fellow Marines. And I realized looking back on it now, [37:46] like that was, cause I saw frankly, worse things after that, there was much more horrific violence. [37:53] I saw people in, in far worse physical, I mean, far more death, awful stuff. But like, that was, [38:01] that was like the first time it happened to me. And I think, you know, we got back from that [38:06] deployment and you know, the young Marines, we all drink a lot. We all party a lot, you know, [38:14] high risk behavior is pretty standard for young Marines. Um, but when I got back from my Ramadi [38:19] deployment, no six in between my second and third deployments, that was when I know that I was [38:26] absolutely self-medicating and drinking heavily, really not wanting to engage with like feelings [38:33] and emotions becoming very emotionally distant. Um, I had like a girlfriend relationship totally [38:40] fell apart cause I was just a wreck of a human being. Sadly, that kind of remained sort of the [38:46] case for a while after that, not being a very, uh, emotionally connected human being. And, uh, [38:53] but I think it all, it all starts back then. You end up serving quite a few more tours. You go to [38:58] Afghanistan and then in 2018, you go as a military contractor to Afghanistan. Yeah. For six months. [39:06] Didn't last very long. I mean, how had your views at that point evolved from that, from that first [39:11] letter that you wrote home to your mom to then? I mean, I, it is, it's in entirely, they didn't, [39:19] they, they had changed into something else entirely different. When I went back in 2018, [39:25] I didn't believe in any of it. I went back in 2018 because I was broke and lost and I had no idea [39:31] what to do with myself and my skills. Um, cause all I, all I'd ever really done was carry guns for [39:36] a living. And in my friend of mine was just like, Hey man, uh, I'm on a contract to Kabul. We don't do [39:43] anything. All we do is lift weights. The ambassador doesn't really go anywhere. So we don't really have to [39:48] do much driving around. Uh, he's like, the pay's pretty good. It's not bad. So I went over for six [39:55] months and at that point, whatever, whatever disillusionment was became something much deeper [39:59] because that I'm in Kabul and I'm like seeing it from the, I'm like at the embassy and seeing it [40:04] from the high side. And I was like, oh my God, seven years, seven years I haven't been in this country [40:10] and no new ideas. Then we're out there dropping bombs on people's houses. There are special operations [40:17] units kicking in people's doors in the middle of the night. It's all, all the violence is still [40:20] happening and nobody down here has an inkling of what to do or what we're even attempting to do. [40:28] And so I, uh, quit, moved back to Sullivan, bought a 19 foot seaway skiff, started farming oysters and [40:37] decided that I never wanted to look back and I wanted to get as far away from all of it as humanly [40:42] possible. When you look back at that, do you feel angry that you were part of that violence? [40:47] Do you feel, do you regret that you were part of that violence? [40:50] I agree. Yeah. I have a complicated relationship with it. Cause I, I am still proud of being a Marine. [40:54] I'm still, I, and like, and I am very proud of like my service and the service of the guys [40:59] that fought next to me. I mean, we, we, we tried our best. We truly did. Uh, and, but it doesn't matter [41:09] if you try your best inside of a flawed policy and a flat system, it's flawed from the top down. [41:14] It's bound to fail. It's bound to bring an immense amount of violence upon people who in no way, [41:19] shape or form are deserving of it. Because I mean, we destroyed Iraq and we destroyed Afghanistan and [41:26] all the suffering, all the killing, all the dying, all the displacement, all of it was, was that we, [41:34] we brought that. We, the United States did that. And it is a, and that I'm ashamed of. [41:44] Um, the anger that I feel is for the people that sent me who are frankly, still the same people [41:53] who are sending people off right now to go, but be in harm's way. So we can start and have this [41:58] stupid war with Iran. I mean, Susan Collins voted to send me to Iraq and she's also there to help [42:04] Donald Trump continue this absolutely insane conflict in the Straits of Hormuz. So it's a, [42:12] it's the same people. And I, and that is like, if I have any anger, it is reserved for like the [42:17] political system itself and, and the people in it who view war, not as like a thing that has a human [42:25] toll, but they view war as like a political game, something that they can use. [42:29] Do you see yourself as anti-war now? Not the war with Iran, but just. [42:33] Yes. In general. Absolutely. [42:34] In general. [42:34] Yeah. Yeah, I do. Um, I'm not a pacifist, but I, I am, but I, I am essentially anti-war. [42:42] And I think the way that we, the United States wages war, I mean, really going, it's, I'm, I'm, [42:47] I'm pretty critical of most of our military engagements. I fail to see many that made lives [42:52] better here for Americans. There are a lot of examples of it being good for multinational [42:57] business interests. There are a lot of examples of it being good for people in places of political [43:01] power. Um, rarely good for the people who have to go fight and die and rarely good for like the [43:08] American people who have to pay for this nonsense and deal with the repercussions of it. Meanwhile, [43:14] you know, Raytheon executives get a, get a yacht. People make a lot of money off of this thing. [43:20] You know, it's interesting, um, hearing you talk like that. I mean, there are some on the right who [43:26] have very similar views. Yeah. [43:29] I mean, how do you think about that? Do you think that there's like a natural, [43:34] alliance there perhaps, or is there? I don't know if there's an alliance, [43:37] I, I, but I, like, I, I think it's just a reflection of the fact that it's hard not to [43:41] come to that conclusion these days. I mean, the, the forever wars that we have been in now, [43:47] really since 2001, I mean, what good has it done us? Your politics do not have to remotely align with [43:55] mine to still like see that very clear reality, which is, I think what we're seeing. [43:59] I want to come back to something, um, that we mentioned at the top, which is [44:04] something else that happened during your time in the Middle East. And that is, of course, [44:10] that you got a tattoo. Um. [44:12] Well, that wasn't, that was in Croatia. [44:13] That was in Croatia, but it was during this period then when you were serving. [44:16] Yeah, 2007. [44:17] Right. [44:17] All right. [44:18] Uh, and it resembles Nazi insignia. [44:20] Yeah, it's a skull and crossbones. I like, I, for the, I just wanted my, I got a skull and crossbones [44:25] with a bunch of other Marines in a tattoo parlor in Croatia because skull and crossbones are things that [44:29] Marines get. Uh, and then I had it for 17 years and I took my shirt off. I was out in public. I took [44:36] pictures with it. I went through two security clearances where I got screened for gang and hate [44:41] tattoos and it never once came up on a screening. Um, yeah. So that was, that's what I, I had a skull [44:49] and crossbones on my chest for 17 years until after the campaign started. And then the, uh, [44:57] the, you know, the, the establishment candidate got in the race and suddenly they drop all this [45:01] opposition research. And part of it is that Graham Plattner has like this, this like tattoo with white [45:08] supremacist ties or Nazi ties. And at that point I took a look at the things I'm like, well, I don't [45:13] want something that has that kind of connotation on my body. And so I promptly got it covered up. [45:18] Did other people get the same tattoo? [45:19] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Other guys in my unit. Yeah. [45:22] You know, I mean, you say it's opposition research that may well be true, but ultimately it is hard for [45:29] voters to know what the reality of why you got that is. [45:35] It doesn't seem to be the case for people in Maine. I mean, I've, I've talked about this ad [45:39] nauseam and, uh, I mean, have you made outreach to Jewish voters and, and how have they responded? [45:47] Half of my family is Jewish. I, I, in fact, the video in which the tattoo is displayed, [45:53] which was the video that was shared around was at my brother's wedding to my Jewish sister-in-law [45:58] with her whole extended Jewish family, where I was taking my shirt off and dancing. [46:02] If I had thought I had something that was this obvious, like anti-Semitic thing, I would not have [46:07] done that because that would be utterly insane. Yeah, no, I, we do a lot of, and I mean, to be [46:11] honest, like we, we have, we have, I have a lot of close supporters who are in the Jewish community [46:16] in Maine, um, primarily because I've, I've been close with people in the Jewish community in Maine [46:22] my entire life. [46:23] Does it make you concerned about who you engage with? Because, you know, obviously this issue is very [46:29] sensitive for many voters. As you know, I recently interviewed Tucker Carlson. He told me he was [46:33] interested in meeting you. I saw that. I've been hearing about it ever since. [46:37] Um, I mean, you told independent journalist David Serrata that you're weighing talking to him. [46:42] Yep. I mean, do you, what are you weighing? Do you think Tucker Carlson's an anti-Semite? [46:49] Are you worried that by going onto his show, because this is, this is still a part of the conversation, [46:56] that this could lend itself to? Oh, I'm not worried about that part. [46:59] I mean, you know, people tagging you with, with the way that they might view him. [47:03] No, I mean, like I'm, look, I'm not an anti-Semite. I never have been. I've been very [47:07] dedicated actually fighting. Do you think Tucker Carlson's an anti-Semite? [47:09] Uh, I do not know enough about the band to know. And I, but I will say I am not a fan of his form of [47:15] like right wing kind of, uh, uh, there's a lot of like, I think unhealthy nationalism and xenophobia in [47:23] there. And that's, I don't think a helpful thing. What I'm weighing is the fact that I, and I often talk [47:30] about on the campaign trail. I do think it's necessary to have conversations with people we [47:36] disagree with, especially these days. I think if we always just stay in these kind of ideologically [47:41] pure spaces, we're just never going to talk to anybody. And I firmly believe in the need to find [47:46] common ground and to, and to rebuild like communities and relationships in which the average person [47:52] actually has like almost everything in common when it comes to material needs. But I, at the exact same [47:58] time I say that I also don't want to elevate hateful or, or I mean, frankly, any kind of thing [48:06] that I, that I personally view as being dangerous. And, and that's a, that is a, that's a tough needle [48:12] to thread is because in order, especially with somebody like Carlson who has such a huge reach. [48:18] I mean, I'll be very honest. A lot of the guys I served with big Tucker Carlson fans. Um, and I want [48:25] to be able to engage those kinds of people with my kind of politics and, and my, my answer on these [48:32] things that it isn't, it isn't immigrants who you need to be afraid of. It's it's, and that's not why [48:37] your life is hard. So that's a yes, you would go, I guess. It's, oh, no, I, I, we, we, I, I still do not [48:43] know. I'll be honest. I have not, uh, I bounce back and forth on this one all the time. I also want to [48:51] bring up something else. There are controversial statements also on social media. You posted over [48:58] 1800 comments under the username P hustle from 2009 to November, 2021. And some of them [49:05] are objectively concerning. Um, you said rural Mainers are racist and stupid. You said that sexual [49:12] assault victims should take responsibility for themselves. This all came out in the national [49:18] press. Yeah. Why didn't you disclose this stuff first? [49:21] Oh, we, we did. We, we released all of the comments. I mean, when, when people came to us, [49:27] they're like, oh, we've got these very, we've got a couple little ones. Uh, and we were like, I mean, [49:32] there's a lot more than a couple. So we just put everything out there before the campaign launched. [49:39] I deleted them a while ago. I, I haven't used Reddit in, I think this is 2021. Um, and I don't, [49:45] I'll be honest. I don't actually know when I, when I did delete everything. I, uh, [49:49] so it wasn't because you were going to run. No, no, no, no. I got like, I just, I, I stopped using [49:54] the internet. I mean, which is, I stopped using the internet because I got happy. I mean, I, I sat [49:59] on the internet for, for a number of years getting in fights, trying, I mean, quite frankly, uh, [50:08] in the parlance of the times, shitposting, um, trying to, trying to get a rise out of people, [50:14] trying to get in arguments because it, you know, brought me some form of, I don't know, [50:17] like serotonin boost or something, because truthfully I was really, really isolated and [50:22] alone, very angry. And a lot of the worst comments definitely come from the years where I was in my, [50:28] like, at my absolute worst, which really is between like 2012 and 2017, um, 2018 is when I was actually [50:37] like in, in a pretty dark place all in all. I, I just want to clarify something about the Reddit [50:42] comments. Can you walk me through the timeline again? Yeah. So you decided you were going to run. [50:47] Did you worry about those old comments immediately? I mean, when exactly did you delete them? [50:51] When did you decide to release the others? Well, we released, we, we like just put everything out [50:58] because it was, what is it? The way back machine, I think is what, what got used. Um, right after we [51:04] got contacted by, I think it was CNN, who was the first, the first outlet that reached out to us [51:09] because they'd found some and we were like, there are more, um, because they're out. I mean, it's, [51:15] I'm an elder millennial. I grew up on the internet. I am well aware that everything [51:19] you post on the internet is there forever. It's not like a, it's not a, it's not a thing. I don't [51:24] know. So you deleted them like in 2021, 2022, is that? I'll be honest. I don't know. Uh, I don't. [51:31] But well before you were considering running for office. Yeah. I mean, I, I didn't, uh, yeah, [51:36] I'm trying to think of, cause I deleted my Reddit profile cause I just stopped using Reddit. [51:41] So I didn't, but I, I don't know actually when I did that because it, I just, I, well, I had, [51:46] I hadn't used Reddit since I think 21. So somewhere in those five years between 21 and 2026. [51:53] Did the people who recruited you, did you disclose it to them that this, that this was there? [51:58] Oh yeah. I was like, look, I mean, cause I mean, I mean, we talked about everything that I could have [52:02] ever, cause you know, this, we, that's, this is how politics is now, even though I, I'll be honest, [52:07] I think it's a pretty ridiculous way of conducting politics, but this is how politics is. So you have to go [52:11] through like everything you've ever done that could be like portrayed as a bad thing. And, [52:17] uh, and you know, one of the first questions was, do you have social media posts? I'm like, [52:20] oh yeah, man. Like I spent, I spent 18 years on, or whatever, 12 years on Reddit, um, and made a [52:26] whole bunch of comments, uh, cause I did. Can I ask you about something else? You wrote [52:32] in 2018 about armed resistance to fascism. You said, quote, an armed working class is a requirement [52:38] for economic justice. How do you think about that now? As a student of history, [52:45] uh, it is difficult for me to not see elements of that as being like a reality, [52:52] especially in resistance to fascism, but we didn't beat the Nazis with smiles. We, we did, [52:59] we did beat them with a war. Um, it's, I don't think it's a very controversial statement to tell you [53:04] the truth. Hmm. I mean, I guess in the context of political violence, some might see it as, um, [53:12] worrying. Well, to be fair, I was talking about it as a private citizen with no visibility and [53:19] mostly just talking about what I thought was a very clear historical, uh, like reality. [53:24] Hmm. Um, which I would, you know, I would say it's still true. I mean, again, I mean, historically [53:29] fascism has been beaten, uh, with, with armed, like resistance and conflict. I mean, World War II was [53:36] mostly us and the Russians and using, you know. Do you think there needs to be armed resistance [53:43] in this country? No, good Lord, no. The way that we use the term political violence right now in our, [53:47] in our kind of current discourse, violence is absolutely no place. And I don't think it moves [53:53] us any closer to a better or freer society. That's what I think the organizing's for. It's going to be [53:58] upfront. I mean, I think one of the reasons we actually see an explosion of political violence today [54:03] is because we do not have more effective outlets. Like there are people who want to see change. [54:09] They want to see, and you know, for, especially for folks who are kind of, um, either ideologically [54:15] more, uh, or just mentally more, uh, attracted to using violence that when there is no other outlet, [54:23] when there is no healthy place to put that energy, I do think you see an explosion of violence, which [54:28] is kind of what we're seeing right now. A lot of people are angry about the system. People are angry [54:32] about the state of things, but there isn't like a very clear and healthy way to use it. And I think [54:39] that's one of the reasons why building, organizing at the community level is paramount for the future [54:48] of our political system. Um, 2017, my mom and I went down to the women's march in DC. So, and I remember [54:56] going there and being like, oh my God, look at all these people. Like, we're clearly gonna, we're gonna [55:01] resist. We're gonna fight back. The pussy hats. Nothing happened because it was just mobilization. [55:07] Mobilization is a tactic, turning people out into the streets, protests. That's part of it, [55:11] but there, it needs to be deeper. And I think one of the problems is that we haven't had that in quite [55:16] some time outside the labor movement and certain organizations and the civil rights groups. I mean, [55:20] they've kept the flame alive, but I think right now that's the work we need to be doing is tying into [55:26] those skills and those legacies of organizing and expanding them to everybody else to give a lot [55:31] of people who are feeling hopeless and angry, a place to come in and a place to like put that [55:37] frustration, that anger to positive use, working with their neighbors, building trust, building [55:43] relationships at the community level. I think that's without question, that is the only way we're [55:48] going to effectively resist the Trump administration, but also the only way we're gonna effectively build [55:54] power to, I think, rebuild the American political system, to be more representative of the average [56:00] American. And the way you've discussed this is revolutionary. You have talked about wanting to [56:06] completely break the system as it works now. We need a political revolution in this country. [56:11] I mean, Bernie said it in 2016, he was right then, he remains right today. I mean, I think structurally [56:17] our political system at this point, whether it's money, whether it's the way that we've, [56:23] the way that our democratic systems have been kind of subsumed by corporate power, [56:29] we need to change the structures of how this thing works. [56:31] We're going to talk again and I'm interested in how you think about building power because [56:37] you've talked a lot about your theory of power and, you know, what should happen once you have it. [56:44] But that shall be for another time. [56:47] Okay. [56:47] Graham Plattner, thank you very much. I really appreciate your time today. [56:52] Of course. Thank you. I appreciate it. It's great being here. [56:54] On the interview, we speak to our guest twice. So a few days later, [57:00] I spoke to Graham again about his vision for American politics. [57:04] Hey. [57:06] How are you? [57:08] Good. I went and, today's the first day of early voting. [57:11] Oh, exciting. [57:13] So I went and voted the town office, so. [57:16] What was it like to vote for yourself? [57:18] Very weird. [57:20] Very weird, deeply surreal. Not a, not a, not a thing that I ever, yeah, [57:25] ever pictured would happen. So it's very strange seeing your name on an actual ballot. [57:30] So I want to talk to you about your plans for the Senate. [57:35] If you are elected, because it is, as you well know, very hard to get things done in the Senate. [57:42] And you've talked about Bernie Sanders a lot. And I think he's someone who has moved the party on ideology, [57:51] but not necessarily on legislation. And you've exhorted voters in the past to elect people who want to wield power. [58:00] And I just wondered what you think that means. What, what is the sort of philosophy of Graham Plattner? [58:06] The philosophy is, is that we don't have things that most of the American people want, like universal healthcare, [58:15] like a foreign policy that isn't just based around militarism. [58:20] We don't have them not because we don't know what they are, or not because we haven't been able to [58:27] define the or even write policy around them. We have them because there hasn't been the political will to make it reality. [58:33] In the Senate, what we need is more numbers. We need more people who are willing to vote for things [58:40] like universal healthcare. And like there, I've, I've actually had a bit of a, there's always been [58:46] like a frustrating relationship with a lot of kind of the pundit class over the course of this campaign, [58:52] which is always this like, well, we've never got, it hasn't, we haven't been able to get say Medicare [58:57] for all. And maybe that speak. And so why do you think we can get it now? It's like, well, we're definitely never [59:03] going to get it if we elect people who don't want to get it. I mean, that's a, that's kind of like where we, [59:11] that seems fairly obvious to me. And so I think we need to very much look at the United States Senate [59:17] as a place where we have to engage in a power building process, which is going to be electing [59:21] more people who want to advocate vote for, but in many ways also elevate the conversation around [59:28] these things. You know, I, I kind of agree with you on Bernie. Bernie has been able to [59:32] change the narrative and change ideology, but hasn't been able to move votes. That's because [59:37] he's one vote. At this point, we need to add to that. We need more. [59:43] I'm interested in this because I think one of the critiques of Democrats has always been, [59:48] um, you know, that they're weak. Uh, and that's from Democrats, right? Other Democrats are always [59:52] complaining that Democrats lose their way, that they, you know, they get power, they don't exercise [59:57] it in the way that they should, et cetera, et cetera. I saw that you want to impeach members of the [1:00:02] Supreme Court. Is that what you mean by wielding power, taking action that's concrete, that is aggressive? [1:00:07] Yes, absolutely. I mean, that is a, and by the way, I didn't, this is not just like my opinion. [1:00:13] I mean, an accurate reading of American history shows that this is the case. I'm going to use the [1:00:22] example of, of FDR New Deal programs in the Supreme Court. You know, FDR implements a bunch of New Deal [1:00:28] programs. Supreme Court says a lot of these might be unconstitutional. We're going to rule that they're [1:00:32] unconstitutional and we're going to shut down the New Deal programs in progress. Then FDR, [1:00:38] much to the chagrin of his own party, I may add, threatens to pack the court. Suddenly, overnight, [1:00:45] no change to the words and the policies, everything became constitutional. No longer came up for a vote [1:00:51] in front of the court. Power is more than just the words on the page. Power is something that needs to [1:00:59] be wielded, used when you have it. It's just rooted in historical reality. That when you look at American [1:01:07] history, when you look at moments in which the nation was in crisis, and when large programs [1:01:13] were necessary, when things needed to be protected or when new things needed to be built, it wasn't [1:01:18] enough to simply stay within the norms of the, of the, of the institutions as they had been built [1:01:25] recently. You had to create new forms of power. You had to use them. And it's amazing to me that that [1:01:33] very clear history has existed the whole time. But I would say for the past, well, for the recent few, [1:01:39] the recent past anyways, um, the Democratic Party has not had a theory of power. [1:01:44] I mean, the Republicans have certainly had a theory of power. [1:01:47] Absolutely. Which is why we have lost. I mean, and like, this is when you, when you, when you run [1:01:53] up against the theory of power and you don't have one of your own, you're going to lose every single [1:01:56] time. I think while Republicans and I would say corporate conservatism has very much developed a [1:02:03] theory of power over the past 40 odd years, the Democratic Party developed a theory of management [1:02:09] and that is not sufficient. But isn't your theory of power simply like the Republicans' [1:02:15] theory of power, which is we will do the things that we want to do, um, and that we need to do [1:02:22] regardless of whether the institutions or the, um, sort of history and niceties allow us to do it or [1:02:34] not? No, there's, there, there's one major difference. Like right now, the Trump administration [1:02:40] breaks the law every single day. The Trump administration does not use funds have been [1:02:45] appropriated by Congress, by law. The Trump administration has started what I would call [1:02:50] an unconstitutional war, uh, overseas in Iran. You know, there are, the Trump administration has [1:02:56] been sending ice out to terrorize American communities and murder American citizens with, [1:03:01] at this point, no accountability. What I want to see is a creative use of constitutional power. [1:03:08] When I talk about impeaching justices on the court, what I'm saying is we merely need to hold the court to [1:03:15] the same ethics standards we hold all other federal judges. I'm not saying we should break the law. [1:03:21] What I'm actually saying is we should follow the better law. The Senate could do this. The Senate [1:03:27] has the power. The Congress has the power to hold the court to ethics standards if it so chose to. [1:03:34] I'm curious as someone who wants to be part of the Senate, how you view executive power? Because one of [1:03:40] the things that we've seen obviously during this Trump administration is a real coalescing around [1:03:45] executive power. And in many ways that has allowed, uh, the Trump administration to really push the [1:03:50] boundaries of what it can do. And Republicans might say, do exactly what you're saying. Remake [1:03:58] the country, um, in the way that they want to see it remade. How do you see that relationship between [1:04:04] executive power and the power of the Senate and Congress at large? [1:04:09] I firmly believe that certainly over the past 40 years, we have seen a, uh, a coalescing of power [1:04:22] in the executive branch that far outweighs what it was supposed to be in the constitution. [1:04:27] You know, George W. Bush era unitary executive theory, much of course, which all comes out of the [1:04:34] same people who were in the Reagan white house, who were all actually the same people who were in the [1:04:38] Nixon white house. Uh, it's a pretty, pretty clear through line through all of that. And, and to be [1:04:44] honest though, we have to be clear that it wasn't merely Republican presidencies. Executive power was [1:04:51] sometimes created among, uh, within an executive president or a Republican presidency, but then it [1:04:57] certainly wasn't diminished or given up when a follow on democratic president was in place. [1:05:03] I mean, Republicans would say president Obama was the prime example of that. [1:05:06] And I think that that's a, that's an accurate critique or it's a fair critique. [1:05:12] This nation was not set up to have a King. That wasn't the point. This nation was supposed to be [1:05:19] a representative democracy, a Republic in which the house and the Senate are supposed to be actual [1:05:26] actors in the governing of the nation. We have seen that disappear for decades now. And what I very [1:05:36] much want to see and one of the reasons I want to go to the United States Senate is a Senate and a [1:05:40] house that reassert their power. Uh, because what we have now, I mean, I don't think this is remotely [1:05:45] in line with how the nation was supposed to be functioning, which is one of the reasons why it's [1:05:50] not functioning. But over time we have just given power up to the executive and we've given power up to [1:05:55] the judicial and in a completely unelected body, uh, which in many ways is not even open to any [1:06:04] input from the American people because we have lifetime appointments to it. And I very much believe [1:06:09] that structurally these things need to change. Yeah. You want term limits. [1:06:14] Term limits in the Supreme court. Absolutely. And, and, and, and term limits in the house and the [1:06:18] Senate as well, but we need to see structural shifts so we can reassert. I mean, a big one too, [1:06:24] is we need to have a new war powers act that really pulls war powers back from the executive, [1:06:30] um, and does not allow for what we currently have, which is the ability of the executive branch to [1:06:35] begin wars, claim that they aren't wars, and then sometimes have them go on for years and years [1:06:42] without a declaration of war. But by the way, I, I just suffer because of that, because I had to go [1:06:46] fighting two of those versions. Well, let me ask you this because you've, you brought up the war [1:06:51] powers act and, and, and conflict. And we obviously talked about that a lot in our first conversation. [1:06:59] How should we deal with a hostile power with nuclear ambitions? [1:07:03] I think on foreign policy, we have to redefine what it is we want. I mean, not even just recently, [1:07:10] but really since the end of the second world war, a lot of American foreign policy has not been around [1:07:15] the elevation of the American population of the average American, right? I mean, the war in Vietnam, [1:07:21] I'm not really sure what good that did, uh, for the average person in this country. [1:07:26] Um, many of America's interventions in Latin America, uh, they weren't really good for the [1:07:33] average American in this country. They weren't good for workers. They weren't good for American families. [1:07:37] They often are very good for corporate interests, defense contractors, and people in places of political [1:07:44] power who want to use war as a mechanism of protecting their political power. [1:07:49] So let me, though, ask you again, though, what do you do with a hostile power with nuclear ambitions? [1:07:54] Like how do you curtail an Iran? How do you curtail, for example, a North Korea? [1:08:00] You engage in diplomacy like the JCPOA, which we had in place until the Trump administration [1:08:06] ripped it apart. I very much think the Biden administration should have brought it back. [1:08:09] But that's what you do. You engage in robust diplomatic, uh, activity. That's how you do it. [1:08:17] You do it as a mature nation that acts like, that acts like a country that is trying to engage in a [1:08:26] long-term project that is going to protect Americans, keep the world safe, and also keep us out of [1:08:33] military conflicts. The Trump administration got rid of the JCPOA, which, which then reset the stage. [1:08:41] And then now us and the Israelis seemingly every couple of years have this idea that like we have [1:08:48] to keep Iran from having a nuclear weapon. So we go and bomb things that we claimed just a year ago [1:08:54] or less than a year ago, we bombed to destroy their nuclear weapons capability. You can't just keep [1:08:59] doing that and then expect to be taken seriously. [1:09:02] Um, I, I want to pivot and, um, talk a little bit about the race itself. Since we spoke, you dropped [1:09:10] your first attack ad against, uh, Susan Collins. And in it, you say she is selling Maine out to the [1:09:16] Epstein class. I mean, it's an angry ad. [1:09:19] We don't care that you are concerned while we go broke as you sell us out to the president and to the [1:09:26] Epstein class. [1:09:27] What are you channeling there? [1:09:28] The anger of the average manor. People are angry. People are angry because they [1:09:34] are looking at a system that does not represent their needs, their value or their will at all. [1:09:43] They are seeing this country continued. I mean, the war in Iran is a perfect example of this. [1:09:48] We have now spent $50 billion, $50 billion in the war in Iran, a war that is uniquely [1:09:57] unpopular with the American people. We're angry at a political system that doesn't reflect that in [1:10:03] any way, shape or form, and also seems to have not one ounce of power to slow it down. Look, [1:10:10] things have gotten worse for working people in the state of Maine in the last 30 years. Things got harder. [1:10:17] So, you know, one of the things that you've said again about being a New Deal Democrat, [1:10:23] and the thing that I understand about that period is that it was about creating programs and spending [1:10:28] money. And I'm just wondering, especially in the moment that we find ourselves spending money from [1:10:36] where? [1:10:36] Well, where did the money for... Where did the $50 billion... [1:10:40] I mean, these ideas... Let me finish. [1:10:43] Sorry. [1:10:44] It's okay. I don't mean to argue. I just want to finish my thought. [1:10:49] I guess, you know, we are at a moment where, you know, our debt has ballooned. [1:11:01] Spending is... Government spending is, you know, many view it as out of control and unsustainable. [1:11:09] How are you going to find the money to do these very ambitious things like Medicare for All? [1:11:14] These are all very expensive things. [1:11:16] So, we just spent $50 billion in two months in the war in Iran. [1:11:21] And I haven't heard a single question of where it came from. [1:11:25] I am always amazed that this nation can just expend billions, trillions of dollars on wars that [1:11:33] enrich the military industrial complex, protect people in power, and we never have to have a [1:11:39] conversation about where the money came from. But the moment you say that Americans deserve to see [1:11:45] housing costs come down or energy costs come down, the moment we have to talk about healthcare, [1:11:51] suddenly we have to pull our pockets out and pretend like we're paupers. I just take issue with [1:11:56] the framing, primarily because we have taken on an immense amount of debt, specifically over the [1:12:03] past 30 years. [1:12:04] I guess I'm asking, are people's taxes going to have to go up? [1:12:07] The answer is no, because we're going to go after the money where it went. I mean, [1:12:13] the reason this nation is an immense amount of debt, and this is important to understand, [1:12:17] is because we created lots of new public money, put it out into the world where it went into a [1:12:22] a speculative financial system, where it has now been hoarded and invested in truly ridiculous [1:12:29] things for a long time. The debt that this nation holds, it holds it because we made public funds, [1:12:36] and we put them out not into the real world, not into programs that are going to uplift the average [1:12:41] American, not into small businesses, not into small farms. No, we put this money out in the form [1:12:46] of fossil fuel subsidies. We put it out in the form of tax cuts for billionaires and for corporations. [1:12:52] We put it out into massive amount of funding for the American military industrial complex. [1:12:56] That's where the money is gone. The reason we have such debt, but we also have essentially a [1:13:02] crumbling society, is because we have taken on that debt merely to enrich the already wealthy. [1:13:09] We didn't take on that debt to create new programs to elevate all of us as a nation. I think this is [1:13:15] really important to understand. One of the reasons we're going to, we will never be able to pay off our [1:13:21] debt if we don't invest in making America more productive. And the way that we make America [1:13:28] more productive is by uplifting everybody in it to give them the opportunity to create and to produce [1:13:35] and to consume. I mean, what's funny, people often talk about this like it's some sort of [1:13:41] left-wing fantasy. What I'm talking about is an actual functional market. What we have right now is a [1:13:48] non-functioning market because essentially all the money every single day, wealth and labor, [1:13:53] gets extracted out of working people and hoarded more and more and more in a part of the economy [1:13:58] that doesn't do anything. And we need to use the tax code to pull that money back. [1:14:03] A few last questions. You know, I was thinking about your PTSD and our discussion around that. [1:14:15] And I was thinking about your time in DC before that and how you discussed it being difficult and [1:14:22] you being unhappy. I've thought also a lot about John Fetterman. When I interviewed him, [1:14:28] he talked about his mental health struggles that were brought on by the stroke. He talked about how [1:14:32] lonely he was in DC. And, you know, you are an oyster farmer. You partly healed from your PTSD by [1:14:39] being out on the sea in Maine. Do you think this time will be different? [1:14:45] Oh, of course. Well, because I'd done no healing back then. I hadn't gone through any of [1:14:50] the process. I mean, I came back and went straight to college in Washington and had done no therapy, [1:14:58] had, I mean, really was, was on my own in many ways and isolated, hence why I was deeply unhappy then. [1:15:06] You know, now I'm going back down there with not just an array of tools because of years of therapy [1:15:12] and years of kind of dealing with stuff, but also a community of people who, who love me deeply and [1:15:18] who I love deeply. I've also spent a lot of time recently developing relationships with sitting [1:15:22] senators relationships that I hope will go far beyond just the professional. Um, because I think [1:15:29] it's important to go to a place and to, I want to be a functioning part of it. I don't, I'm not trying [1:15:35] to go to just be a pain in everyone's ass, which no offense to the Senator from Pennsylvania, but that [1:15:43] does seem to be his primary goal these days. Like I want to go and create relationships and, and create a [1:15:51] better future for Americans and for the people of Maine. And yeah, I mean, I feel just like a, I'm a [1:15:58] different person now because of the time that I've spent, the work that I've done, the tools that I have [1:16:06] now. Um, yeah, I think it's going to be incredibly different. [1:16:10] I saw this thing in the bulwark that argued you have a chance at being the Democratic nominee for [1:16:15] president in 2028. And I think it's indicative of people looking for a savior, um, and radical [1:16:22] change. Yeah. I'm definitely not a savior. So, um, I mean, who do you want to actually lead the [1:16:28] party? Or who don't you want to lead the party? I mean, who I don't want are many of the people [1:16:37] that have been doing it for years. I'll be upfront people close with corporate power, people who [1:16:42] often waffle on, on, uh, on positions often. I, I, I think people are sick and tired of that. I think [1:16:49] people are happy to disagree with you as long as they know that you're being straight with them. [1:16:52] Who is that? Governor Gavin Newsom? Like, I'm just trying to understand from the people that we [1:16:57] know that are out there, who you like and who you don't like. Uh, I will be a, I, I am, I very much [1:17:03] like Ro Khanna. I think he's done an excellent job and I've heard his name banning around a bunch [1:17:08] on, on this, uh, on this topic. I think he has a much like myself, a connection to the past and [1:17:15] understanding that new deal era programs are going to be necessary to meet the challenges of the moment and [1:17:20] of the future. Um, and I think that he, uh, he also is interested in long-term industrial policy, [1:17:28] which I am as well. It's something this nation really needs to get back to doing. Um, and, but [1:17:35] I also think that I wouldn't be surprised if the person we see in 2028, we haven't even started [1:17:40] talking about yet. I'll be upfront. I think that, that people are looking for radical change and I [1:17:47] don't know where exactly that's going to come from, but I'm relatively convinced that we're going [1:17:52] to be talking about names next year and the year after in relation to the 2028 presidential race that [1:17:57] right now just aren't even on the radar. I think we're in for a, a generational shift in American [1:18:02] politics. Um, and it's coming quickly. Graham Platner, thank you so much for your time. I've [1:18:09] really enjoyed this. No, thank you, Lulu. I really appreciate it. I'm Lulu Garcia Navarro. And I'm David [1:18:16] Marchese. And we're the hosts of The Interview, an audio and video podcast from The New York Times. [1:18:22] Every week we interview fascinating and influential people from all walks of life. [1:18:27] Subscribe to our YouTube channel so you'll never miss an episode.