Democrats spent years telling Americans that believing women was non-negotiable.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) was one of the loudest voices making that case.
And now Khanna is stumping for a Senate candidate whose former girlfriends say treated them in ways he himself calls “toxic and volatile.”
The Platner Problem Democrats Can’t Shake
Graham Platner is the presumptive Democrat nominee for U.S. Senate in Maine, running to unseat Republican Senator Susan Collins in a race Democrats desperately need to flip if they want a Senate majority. He’s an oyster farmer, a veteran, and a self-described populist who rails against billionaires. He’s also become a one-man scandal factory with a new revelation dropping what feels like every few days.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Platner sent sexually explicit text messages to multiple women while married to his wife, Amy Gertner. Gertner publicly defended her husband and their marriage. Then came the New York Times, which published accounts from three former girlfriends who described Platner’s behavior as “toxic” and “unsettling.”
One of those women, Lyndsey Fifield, told the Times that Platner allegedly “twisted her arm behind her back, shoved her into a bedroom and held the door closed from the other side so she couldn’t get out, telling her to remain there until she was ‘calm.'” Platner has denied the physical abuse allegations, calling them “just not true” and claiming they came from someone who was “politically motivated.” Fifield has worked for conservative groups and Republican campaigns.
Another former girlfriend, Jenny Racicot, a Maine Democrat, described Platner showing up at her home intoxicated in 2021 after she had asked him not to visit, calling his behavior “reckless” and “unsettling.” The Times spoke with more than two dozen people, including six women who had been romantically involved with Platner at various points.
And the controversies don’t stop at his relationships. Platner has also faced scrutiny over a skull-and-bones tattoo on his chest that resembled a Nazi Totenkopf symbol. He has said repeatedly he didn’t know what it meant when he got it with fellow Marines in 2007. But Fifield told the Times that Platner had taught her the word for it years earlier, calling it “my Totenkopf,” and that he joked about it being a Nazi tattoo. Platner had the tattoo covered after it became a campaign issue. He has also apologized for now-deleted Reddit posts that were racist and dismissive of sexual assault in the military.
That’s a lot of baggage for any candidate. Senate Democrats hauled Platner into a closed-door meeting in Washington, DC, where Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) reportedly asked him directly whether any more allegations could surface. Platner gave his assurances. Then the Times story landed.
Khanna’s Memory Gets Awfully Short
Into this mess stepped Ro Khanna, who organized a rally in Bar Harbor, Maine, and stood onstage with Platner despite having described the conduct in the Times report as “wrong and toxic.”
Khanna told Fox News Digital, “I agree with a lot of his economic policies, that we should be taxing the billionaires, we should be focusing on the working class.” He acknowledged the relationships were “toxic and volatile” but insisted Platner was “taking accountability” and deserved redemption.
At the rally, Khanna declared, “We reject, unequivocally, misogyny. But you know who else rejects it? Graham Platner.”
When pressed about whether Platner should apologize to the women, Khanna agreed. “I think he should apologize. I believe what he did was wrong, was misogynistic, was toxic or volatile,” Khanna said.
That’s a pretty remarkable thing for a man to say about the candidate he just flew across the country to campaign for.
But here’s where the hypocrisy really bites. After Christine Blasey Ford accused then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault in 2018, Khanna posted on social media, “I stand with Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. Brett Kavanaugh is not fit to sit on the Supreme Court. #BelieveSurvivors.”
Kavanaugh denied Ford’s allegations. He was confirmed to the Supreme Court. The allegations against him were never proven in a court of law. Yet Khanna declared him unfit for the bench based entirely on an accusation.
Now Khanna stands next to a man whose own allies concede behaved in ways that were “wrong,” “misogynistic,” “toxic,” and “volatile” toward women, and the answer is a rally and a speech about billionaires.
The Calculation Behind the Curtain
The Maine Senate race is genuinely important to Democrats. Senator Collins has held the seat for decades and is considered one of the most vulnerable Republican incumbents on the map. Platner, despite the pile of controversies, remains the all-but-certain Democrat nominee after two-term Governor Janet Mills dropped out of the race earlier this spring after trailing badly in both fundraising and polling. Mills’ name remains on the primary ballot, but she’s not running.
Platner has backing from Senator Sanders, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ). The Democrat Senatorial Campaign Committee, led by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), has essentially signaled it’s sticking with him. “We are still going to win Maine,” a spokesperson for Gillibrand said after the Times story dropped.
So the party that spent years demanding zero tolerance for any man accused of mistreating women has decided the Senate majority is worth more than the standard it spent years loudly proclaiming. Khanna is just the most visible face of that calculation right now.
Platner has leaned on his military service and his struggles with PTSD to explain his past. He has said that after returning from combat deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, he lived with undiagnosed PTSD and depression, drank heavily, and went through what he called “the darkest time of my life.” He says he sought therapy through the VA beginning in early 2017 and has worked to become a better person since. Those are real struggles that deserve real acknowledgment.
But Platner also told Maine Public, “When Amy and I decided we were going to do this, we knew that our lives are going to get ripped apart. We knew that people were going to lie.” That framing puts every woman who came forward into the category of liar, even as Platner simultaneously claims to be taking accountability. You can’t do both at once.
And Khanna knows that. He said Platner should apologize. He called the behavior misogynistic. Then he took the stage with him anyway.
In 2018, an accusation was enough for Khanna to declare a man unfit for public service. In 2026, admitted misogynistic and toxic behavior toward multiple women is apparently a minor speed bump on the road to flipping a Senate seat.
The voters of Maine get to weigh all of this when they head to the polls. But the rest of the country gets to notice what Democrat politicians actually believe when the stakes are high enough.
Sources: Fox News Digital; NBC News; The New York Times; Maine Public; Wall Street Journal; Prism News; The Hill; Durango Herald; WGME