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He defiled his marriage and sent sexual messages to women as a newlywed. You know, and all the things he said, you know. He gets to go away. He can go back online. He can go around.
doing all the kinds of things, but uh Yeah, the the trash took itself out tonight. And now, finally, people in Maine have a chance to really vote on someone that's not a total piece of trash. And now, Audios trash bag. Senator John Fetterman last night doing incident analysis on the 8 o'clock show after finding out that Grant Plattner took 12 minutes to say, I didn't do anything wrong, but I'm not going to run anymore because everyone took their funding away in support. Howie Kurtz joins us now, Fox News political analyst and host, and he also has his own podcast, Media Buzz, Meter Podcast.
Howard, welcome back. I think John Fetterman's right on the money, and he's about the only Democrat to say it that bluntly. No, the Democrats are furious with Graham Plattner, but Brian, I largely blame the left-leaning mainstream media for creating the myth of Graham Plattner. You know, he is a salt of the earth oyster man.
Well, that was BS. He only sells oysters to his mother. Yes, he was a combat veteran. He came back. He drinks too much.
He has PTSD. But you could see, and I said this, and I wasn't alone from the beginning, that this guy had a boatload of baggage and more stuff was going to come out. And the people who should be most embarrassed are at the New York Times, which when one of his ex-girlfriends came out and talked about how he pulled her out of a car and twisted her arm and locked her in a room. Kind of raised questions about her credibility, Lindsay Fifield, because she was a Republican.
So the whole believable women thing, apparently. It doesn't matter if you're a Republican. Which is crazy. You know, Michelle Goldberg, I don't know if you know her, but she came out in the New York Times as a columnist. She says she did a Maya culpa.
She said she fell. She goes, I have to blame myself, and I can't leave myself out of the blame. She said she had been impressed by Plattner's political charisma and previously portrayed him as misunderstood. She acknowledged that she wrote the platinum was nothing like the The Edgelord character I encountered online. She now says the assessment was wrong.
If anything, he seems to be significantly worse than she thought.
So she did a meaculpa, but admitted in the New York Times in a column she was very kind to him. She fell under his spell.
Okay. It's magic, Brian.
Well, good for Michelle Goldberg for doing the Maya Culpa. I think a lot of people need to do that, including the dummies in the Democratic Party who thought this guy would be an ideal candidate. You know, the thinking was, well, he's a fighter and we need a fighter. And he defied his aide's advice.
Okay, if you're going to bow out, he finally bows out last night. Then you should, you know, for one thing, he never said he took any responsibility for having made a single mistake. I regret, you know, the things that you say when you're under fire. And secondly, he just seemed angry. And the fact that When only and when Politico talked to the latest accuser, Jenny Rascoe, daughter of a former Maine governor, who's a Democrat and who agrees with Plattner on policy stuff, only then did the story explode.
And even then, he took his time getting out of the race.
So I want you to hear.
So the question everyone asks is, did anyone do a background check of this guy? Did anyone do an opposition research on this guy who got maybe 72% of the vote? Still with all this stuff, except for the latest revelation. People in Maine didn't care. They still wanted him.
So listen to the give and take about the two people responsible for the background check who called him the hero of the moment. Cut 32. Did the vetting process turn up the tattoo that became so controversial? No. The Reddit posts, did that turn up in the vetting process?
The firm sent us a thing and it had some of the posts, but it didn't have all of them. And he just giggled through it. They promised to go through it. All these liberals, Brian, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, who looked the other way. I mean, the Nazi tattoo, one of the ex-girlfriends said, yeah, we discussed it and he knew what it was.
That was a giant neon red light about this guy's candidacy who was going to be in trouble. And of course, the reason we're spending so much time talking about it is if the Democrats don't remain, and I think Susan Collins' chances of getting reelected again are improved by this whole fiasco, then they can't, there's no way they can take control of the Senate. But yeah, a lot of people fell for the act, and I don't think he showed even a modicum of grace in pulling out of the race. Yeah, I mean, if you want to hear some of that, we did, we took the whole thing. I don't even think CNN took the whole thing.
Here's why he said, so all this stuff comes out. And we don't even, evidently, there's another woman that's coming forward. I'm not sure if she's still going to do it. And then, of course, you have the revelations on the teen site that he only got off of a few weeks ago. Here's what he said, though, that he's getting out cut 31.
Much like October. When the first attack started. Much like the news that was created the week before the primary, there is a reason that this is happening now. I only have until July 13th. until I am officially the nominee.
This was the last week. to try to get me off of the ballot. And that's why this is occurring. It's not the false allegations, though, that have brought us to where we are. It's the fact that they are being used by the political establishment to put structural pressure on us.
We live in a political system that is not built for normal people. It is a system that is built structurally to make sure that movements like ours cannot flourish, that if they begin to succeed, they can be crushed. Do you think he even believes this? Do you think he believes this?
Now, boohoo, you know. Look, I guess he's trying to go out with a. A blast at everybody else. It's the Democratic Party establishment. The Democrats were behind this guy until supporting him became untenable.
And then Elizabeth Mornon and the others say, oh, well, yeah, you know, we got to run the other way. He continues to deny this, but no, now that we have these are people who were ex-girlfriends of his. There are texts, there are photos. The idea that he would say that none of this happened absolutely doesn't pass the smell test. Across the country, United Health Group is working with local partners to build healthier communities every day.
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So when you have another problematic candidate, in my view, and that's Abdul Syed, I mean, he called himself a doctor. He's not even a doctor. People say, well, what's the big deal? And then we have his radical views. Basically, we deserve 9-11.
You know, he says he's not a socialist, but almost everything he stands for is socialist. He also trumpets the positiveness about Sharia law.
So I mean, just take a listen to some of what he said when pressed. Are you even and by the way, this is the leading Democratic contender to be the Democratic nominee to go against Mike Rogers and try to keep that seat for Democrats.
So it's an extremely impactful seat. Cut 30 uh cut 39. You got attacked by your rivals for calling yourself a physician. not just a doctor, even though you don't have a valid state medical license in New York or Michigan, which apparently is what you need legally to call yourself a physician. Do you wish you'd just stuck to calling yourself a doctor, which you are, to avoid all of this controversy and attacks on your physician status?
You know, at the end of the day, it's not about whether or not I'm a physician or a doctor. The question is, can you see a doctor? It's not about my education. It's about whether or not your kid gives a good education.
So I'm just not spending that time. That's a good line, but people would say it's also about, did you tell the truth?
Well, I would say that I was the health director for the city of Detroit, and I've done more to provide more people health care or eliminate their medical debt than most doctors have done in their practice career. Is that an answer? Fake doctor? I don't care what the hell he calls himself. What troubles me with these socialists who have won in places like New York with the help of Zohar Mamdani and even in Colorado is: I mean, they're kind of a fringe element, but they've said some really ugly things, including saying that Israel doesn't have a right to exist, saying defund the police, defund the prisons.
You know, they try to dance around it now. And so, they getting so much publicity, as I understand, it's not. The whole Democratic Party, but certainly ruining the image of the Democratic Party, pushing the party to the left, especially the anti-Israel stuff. Uh and You know, in a low turnout primary, they're able to get more voters out. But, you know, it's also true, I think, that the Democrats, sadly from my point of view, are becoming an anti-Israel party.
That's become kind of a litmus test. And Israel has its faults. And you were talking earlier about, you can criticize the Dan Yahoo government, but it's our ally against horrible terrorist states like Iran.
So, yeah, I want you to hear what he said about Israel. Do they have a right to exist? Cut 42. The question about a right to exist, it's interesting because nobody's ever asked me whether or not I believe Palestine has a right to exist. Every single president who served has said that they believe in a two-state solution.
Israel exists. The question is whether or not we want a politics where our money is sent over to Israel to do genocide and apartheid instead of investing in our own kids. You say it exists, but does it have a a right to?
Okay. I didn't say that. I just said the question of Israel's existence is not a question. I'm not going to play this gotcha game about whether or not it has a right to exist. It's a really simple answer.
There's yes and there's no. It's not a gotcha game. And, you know, a lot of them use this phrase from the river to the sea, which means we have a map in which the Israelis have a right to exist. No, I think the Palestinians need a territory too. And Bibi hasn't been very hot on that.
But boy, you know, when somebody's trying to dance around the question and the question gets asked three times and you don't get a straight answer, I think a little light bulb should go off. Howie's also the extreme right. There's the extreme right in the Republican Party that doesn't seem pro-Israel, very anti-Israel. What's going on? That's troubling to me that it's not only limited to the Democratic Party.
But, you know, the idea that there are some on the extreme right who also look the other way, for example, all of the scandalous allegations against Ken Paxton, who was impeached by his own party in Texas, but acquitted, who had settled federal charges. You know, you know, if you flip the, if you flip the. Party ID, Brian. If Ken Paxton was a Democrat, the Republicans would be all over him. And if Graham Plattner had been a Republican, the Democrats would have been all over him.
So there's no shortage of hypocrisy in politics. But I think the ones with the real trouble now, since the GLP controls everything, including the White House, is um is these upcoming midterms. And they're they looked like they were sort of on a glide path. And now I think they're in real trouble in part because of exactly what we're talking about. And just on the for the record, I think John Corn is one of the classiest guys in Washington.
You know, he's a very good guy, former judge, just wants to get things done. I think it really. really hurt the Republican that they thought he was a friend. I think it really was a gut punch to the Republican Party when President went for Paxson over him, and Paxon ends up getting it. But then people have told me in Texas he was going to get it anyway.
Well, everybody hates incumbents now. There are a lot of frustrated voters, particularly on the Democratic side, who feel like all they get from Washington is hot air and promises that are never kept.
So, fairly or unfairly, some very good members are going down or have gone down because no matter how good a record they may have, depending on your political point of view, they They seem like they're part of the establishment. Howie, do you think that it'll ever, from your experience in Washington, Do you think that It would ever be a plus for someone to start cutting deals, let's say, on immigration, on missile defense, the golden dome, for example. Do you ever see a time when we're Oh. Kind of what during the Clinton era, maybe it was that a necessity, both sides are kind of working together. It was in vogue.
Do you see a time in which that comes back? I wish I could say yes, but everything is so polarized now right now, Brian. I mean, there was a bipartisan bill that easily passed from both parties to help people with housing. And then Donald Trump is going to sign it. And he says, no, I'm not going to sign this until you give me this other bill, the Save America bill.
So, you know, I think the American people, the bulk of them, people were not sort of hard core partisans of either the right or the left. Would love to see some cooperation and get things done. I mean, the Republicans have the concern of saying, what are they going to run on for the last year and a half? How many bills have they delivered other than the Epstein files and all the things that have been talked about, all those controversies?
So I think there'll come a time. But it's not going to be for the next couple of years. Everything is it's all about demonizing the other side. And you know, a lot of this takes place online. Average voters on X or Instagram or Snapchat all the time.
But I'm not optimistic. It just seems like. A swamp, as the president once called it. This podcast, the media buzz meter, Howie Kurtz, always great to have you on. Appreciate it.
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