the Republican every Democrat wishes every Republican was. She convicted Donald Trump. Yes, she she worked with Joe Biden on a bunch of stuff.
She is as bipartisan as they come. She's not Adam Mockler completely dismantled a MAGA talking point in real time. Adam Mockler went right into it on Abby Phillips CNN show and absolutely cleared the floor.
Adam watches as the right-wing machine panics over Graham Platner winning his primary. And Caroline Sunshine thought she had an easy hit piece here on Adam Mockler. She was wrong.
Adam Mockler ate and left no crumbs. Let's roll the tape and break this down frame by frame as I have my thoughts I want to share about it. Do give this video a like and let me know where you're watching from.
Let's go. Following breaking news tonight on a number of key primary races across the country with control of Congress at stake. One of the most consequential contests is unfolding in the state of Maine where Democrat Graham Platner just clinched the state's nomination for the United States Senate.
That's despite a slew of scandals that he has faced in the months leading up to tonight's vote. And any of those who feel let down or disappointed or disillusioned, it is my job to earn your trust, faith, and support. And I will spend every day of this campaign and if I have the privilege, every day in the United States Senate doing exactly that.
Platner will face longtime GOP Senator Susan Collins in a crucial matchup and Democrats will almost certainly need to win it if the party hopes to flip the chamber in the fall. We're also keeping an eye on South Carolina where Republican Senator Lindsey Graham just punched his ticket for November without a runoff. And in the state's GOP primary for governor, Congresswoman Nancy Mace is admitting defeat in a race that has tested the power of President Trump's influence and his endorsement.
Instead, Trump backed Lieutenant Governor Pam Ivet and she will advance to the runoff later this month along with Attorney General Alan Wilson. Uh but let's start with um Maine and uh the Graham Platner of it all. He gave a pretty defiant speech tonight.
He attacked Susan Collins, but basically he was arguing uh this is a redemption narrative, right? Um he quoted a hymn, I was once lost and now I'm found, though he admitted that he's not very religious. Nevertheless, we've heard this from many a politician before.
Is it enough? I think it remains to be seen if it's enough. And what I'm curious on to see is what do the vote totals look like?
I mean, what how much did Janet Mills pull from Graham Platner? Because that's going to be really a big indicator of how much he's going to have to win when it comes to main voters. Um, at the end of the day, I mean, I think Graham Platner is a very flawed candidate.
I think if I were a mayor today, I would have probably cast my vote for Janet Mills. Um, I think every moment that we talk about Graham Platner and his scandals or whatever it is, we're losing time talking about the issues that matter to voters, which is, as we know, affordability and gas prices, and I think we're taking away from candidates who are putting competitive seats in play, like in Iowa, Ohio, even in Texas in the Senate race, which I'm sure we'll we'll talk about. But I I think Graham Platner is going to have a wave to overcome and is I don't know if there's more coming out, but um if there is, you know, he's going to have to brace for that.
There probably is more coming out, don't you think, Adam? There could be. But we are now witnessing the post cancellation, postpurity style of politics that the Republican party has ushered in.
I'm not going to sit here and defend things Graham Platner did in his past. Not even Graham Platter defends these things that he did in his past. But we have watched for a decade as Republicans have repeatedly lowered the threshold, lower the standards for their candidates.
And now Democrats are going to keep holding our candidates to an infinitely higher standard while we have Ken Paxton in Texas, while we have Donald Trump sitting in the oval office right now. And I guess it remains to be seen, but I also want to Is it a high standard or is it a low standard because I'm not sure that I'm not sure that he's being held to a higher standard than anybody else. Well, but the Republican party is absolutely holding him to a higher standard than they hold their own candidates.
I mean, Donald Trump had a sit down dinner with Nick Fuentes, and the very same people who were silent about that are now clutching their pearls about this admittedly weird tattoo that Grant Platin has apologized for. So, this caught me. Did you see what Adam Mockler just did?
He completely flipped the script on them. Caroline Sunshine and the rest of the right-wing media want to hyperfocus on Graham Platner and play this purity game, but Adam isn't letting them get away with it. He points out the absolute absurdity of the GOP clutching their pearls over a tattoo that Graham Platner literally apologized for while their own standard bearer is literally hanging out with white nationalists at Mara Lago.
Like, the sheer hypocrisy is driving me crazy. You can't lower the bar to the floor for your own guy and then demand Democrats leap over a high jump. Adam's delivery here is just so fast, so sharp.
He didn't even let them breathe before exposing the double standard. Let's continue with it. Tattoo, Adam.
Acknowledge that. It's not weird. It's It's a Nazi tattoo.
So I I mean look, Democrats now are I hear what you're saying and I and I know we've had conversations with you, Caroline, about similar things, but um basically Democrats are saying that we're going to go lower. They go low, we go just as low. I think that Democrats are trying to reframe this away from Graham Platner's personality and towards a race between Graham Platner versus Susan Collins.
Susan Collins is somebody who rubber stamps stamps all of Donald Trump's worst impulses from stripping healthcare away from tens of millions of Americans that will lead to death. We talked about the affordability issues. We talked about uh ICE even I mean uh Susan Collins rubber stamped Christine Nome which led to the death of Alex Freddy and Renee Good.
So trying to claim Democrats are going low. No honey, they are reframing the race. Adam Mockler makes the most crucial point of the entire segment here.
This isn't a beauty pageant about Graham Platner and his personality. This is a policy fight against Susan Collins. He literally lists out how Collins rubber stamped the worst parts of the Trump agenda.
When you talk about stripping healthcare, that stuff has real actual consequences. Graham Platner is running against a rubber stamp. Adam is basically telling the audience, stop looking at the distraction and look at the actual voting records.
So, I'm not going to sit here and judge mayors who want to push away, push against the status quo. It's not my place to judge. If Graham Platner can earn their trust, then he earns their trust.
But I think what's missing is Graham Platner just won a Democrat primary by running on the best aspects of President Trump's 2024 campaign platform. If you look at Graham Platner's platform, he ran on no foreign intervention in the Middle East, no new wars. He ran on DC has been working for the elites and it has stopped working for the working class, which is very similar to President Trump's original drain the swamp message.
He ran on bringing back US manufacturing, working class issues. He's an anti-establishment working class. He is making a point.
He ran on that and that's what he won. Hello. Graham Platner only won because he copied Donald Trump's populism.
See how she tries to hijack the workingclass narrative? She's trying to argue that the left is just stealing Trump's drain the swamp energy. But here is the thing she leaves out and what makes this so disingenuous.
Trump ran on those things, but he never actually governed that way. the this is a version of the type of politics a a type of populism on the left that Trump ran at least he ran on it on the right. I'm not sure we could argue he governed quite that way but he ran on it.
My gut tells me this is a byproduct of the wrapping of the messenger as much as it is the message itself. He looks like a dude. Let's just say what it is.
He's got the scruff. He's got the edge at a moment in which Democrats were I would say it's allow allow me to allow me to finish though. Allow me to finish because it's actually the Democrats who did this whole autopsy on what it is to be masculine.
Did you guys did you guys? [laughter] It's the Democrats that did this whole analysis about what it means to be masculine. They didn't do that because there wasn't a problem there.
They didn't do that because there wasn't something that was happening on the right that they couldn't tap into. When I look at Graham Platner, the first thing I think of he looks like a dude and he looks like someone who looks very different than many of the men who lead the Democratic party. And I think that is an appealing aspect that Democrats need to focus on.
Maybe the flaws are part of that package. No, you are correct, LZ, with that part. He looks like a dude.
And And when he first entered the race and he said, "I'm a oyster farmer. " I said, "Uh-oh, we got problems. " Turns out he's not an oyster farmer.
Turns out he's not a low class guy. He's got about 20. He isn't what he says he is.
Now, listen, this isn't a reframing about turning this to Susan Collins. Susan Collins is the best. By the way, and by the way, come November, just like 6 years ago, just like we were seeing garbage polls about Lindsey Graham in South Carolina, we saw garbage polls about Susan Collins in Maine.
Come November, she's going to wipe the floor with Sir Ma Mayers don't want to be put. They are literally shouting over each other now because the data doesn't back them up. They try to claim Susan Collins is this beloved, untouchable, bipartisan hero who is going to wipe the floor with Graham Platner.
Except oops, look at the actual numbers. Even when voters learn about the scandals, Graham Platner is up in the polls. Why?
Because people are tired of the old establishment guard. Adam Mockler is sitting back watching them lose their minds because the old playbook isn't working anymore. The MAGA pundits like Caroline Sunshine genuinely don't know how to handle a progressive candidate who doesn't just fold under pressure.
Say something to Caroline's point. two vers. Yeah, but when they learn about his scandals, just to be clear, when when voters learn about Graham Platner scandals, oh, you're going to like this.
Trust me, just you wait. You're going to love me saying this. When voters learn about Graham Platner's scandals, he beats Susan Collins.
He goes up in the polls 48 to 43. Republicans, I'm telling you, I'm talking about his talk about the fact that he wants to abolish. All right, I got to wrap this entire thing up because this panel tells us everything we need to know about where politics is at right now.
What we just witnessed from Adam Mockler is exactly how progressives need to fight back against these coordinated media hits. For years, the right-wing establishment has used this specific strategy. Find a flaw, hyperfix in on it, and force the Democrat to spend the entire campaign apologizing until they lose all momentum.
We saw it happen in past election cycles where a single misstep would ruin a career. But Graham Platner winning this primary proves that the electorate is changing. Think about it.
Look at John Federman a few years ago. The media tried to completely write him off after his stroke, focusing entirely on his aesthetics, his hoodies, his speech patterns. The establishment on both sides panicked.
But what happened? The voters looked past the noise because they wanted someone who felt like a real person, someone talking about real world economic issues. We're seeing the exact same dynamic play out with Grand Platner in Maine.
And let's talk about the absolute breakdown from Caroline Sunshine and the conservative pundits on that panel. They are terrified. It's obvious.
They are terrified because their ultimate weapon, fake moral outrage, has completely lost its power. It is hilarious to watch a group of people who defend Donald Trump's endless courtroom dramas and literal felony convictions try to act like a weird tattoo is a disqualifying crisis for Graham Platner. Like, do you hear yourselves?
The double standard is so loud and it's deafening. Adam Mockler completely exposed that tonight by bringing the conversation back to Susan Collins and her actual record of stripping away healthcare and enabling the worst right-wing policies. He showed how to break the spell.
Voters don't want perfect saints anymore. They want people who are going to fight for social security, protect Medicare, and stop spending billions on foreign wars while people at home are struggling to pay for gas and rent. That populist economic message is incredibly powerful, and it bridges the gap between working-class Democrats and independents.
The real question now moves to the voters of Maine. Can Graham Platner maintain this momentum when the full weight of the GOP attack machine hits him this fall? History shows us that garbage polls can turn around fast, but if he sticks to the populist anti-establishment script, he has a real shot at unseeding Collins.
I want to know what you all think about this. Did Adam Mockler completely clear the room, or do you think the scandals are going to catch up to Grand Platner by November? Drp your thoughts in the comments.
See you next time.
