The Ben Shapiro Show - July 08, 2026


The Whole Left Wants Platner Gone. He Won't Leave


Episode Stats


Length

13 minutes

Words per minute

186.22

Word count

2,604

Sentence count

207

Harmful content

Misogyny

4

sentences flagged

Toxicity

5

sentences flagged

Hate speech

7

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Graham Plattner has been accused of rape by multiple women, including his own ex-wife, Lindsay Fifield, who says he removed condoms without her consent during sex. Will he quit the race? And will the Democratic Party accept it?

Transcript

Transcripts from "The Ben Shapiro Show" are sourced from the Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool. Explore them interactively here.
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 The entire Democratic Party now wants Graham Platner gone.
00:00:02.000 Before, they wouldn't let him leave, but now he won't leave.
00:00:05.000 Bernie Sanders told him to step aside.
00:00:07.000 Zar Mamdanya, Richard Taleb, Elizabeth Warren, Rokhana, all the endorsements yanked.
00:00:11.000 The Maine Democratic Party, the Senate campaign arm, they're all running for the exits.
00:00:14.000 And now another accusation from ex Lindsay Fifield.
00:00:17.000 She told the Washington Post he pulled off condoms without her consent during sex.
00:00:21.000 And Democrats are teasing there's more coming.
00:00:24.000 Will Platner quit?
00:00:25.000 I mean, why should he?
00:00:26.000 He's got until July 13th.
00:00:27.000 So far, he's not budging.
00:00:29.000 The Democrats are now in serious trouble in Maine. 0.99
00:00:31.000 They're in serious trouble in Maine, not just because it turns out that Graham Platner, the oyster farmer who only farmed oysters for his mom's restaurant, the blue collar man who grew up Silver Spoon, the guy who said, Yeah, if somebody tried to break into my house, I hope someone tries to break into my house, I'd rape him, not in a gay way. 0.86
00:00:54.000 Well, it turns out that there are now rape allegations, multiple rape allegations against Graham Platner. 0.92
00:01:00.000 And the Democratic Party is like, We don't want any more of him.
00:01:03.000 And he's like, Well, too late.
00:01:05.000 You can't make me go.
00:01:07.000 Well, yesterday, Lindsay Fifield, who is Graham Plattner's ex.
00:01:13.000 This is the Republican ex.
00:01:14.000 So, because she was a Republican ex, that meant Democrats could ignore her.
00:01:16.000 And then there was a Democratic Socialist ex who alleged rape, and now they have to pay attention. 1.00
00:01:20.000 So, it's believe all Democrat women is the way that this works. 0.52
00:01:23.000 In any case, here she was describing alleged abuse, including the rather unpleasant revelation that during sex, he would randomly remove the condom that they had agreed to use because she was not on birth control, which in many countries actually is a crime.
00:01:39.000 Here was Lindsay Fifield with Jake Tapper explaining.
00:01:42.000 When Jenny told her story, what, if anything, aligned with your experiences?
00:01:51.000 The eyes.
00:01:53.000 The dead eyes?
00:01:54.000 Where he couldn't hear your protests?
00:01:59.000 I just know exactly what that looks like.
00:02:01.000 I know exactly what it looks like.
00:02:03.000 And that is something that I feel like people need to understand.
00:02:06.000 It was almost like looking at a pit bull where they just, it's nothing.
00:02:11.000 Not just nothing, but like a capacity for violence, and you see it and you know it's there and it's terrifying.
00:02:19.000 And I, but also, yeah, a deafness to anything that you know, yes, like I'm going, like this is going to happen.
00:02:32.000 And I think that was the hardest part.
00:02:37.000 Oh, God, I'm sorry.
00:02:41.000 Okay, so.
00:02:46.000 She also told the Washington Post again that he repeatedly removed protection without her consent while they were having sex.
00:02:51.000 She said, quote, he would pull condoms off.
00:02:53.000 He would do it in a sneaky way.
00:02:55.000 He wouldn't tell me.
00:02:56.000 She estimated that Plattner removed condoms without her consent at least six times when they had sex at both of their residences in D.C. during their two year on and off again relationship.
00:03:04.000 She said she told him she was upset about it, but he would make light of the situation.
00:03:09.000 He would act cute about it like, oh, sneaky me.
00:03:11.000 So, I don't know.
00:03:14.000 I feel like there were some red flags here.
00:03:16.000 Like a few red flags that, you know, maybe the Nazi tattoo guy was not the best candidate.
00:03:23.000 I know, crazy, right?
00:03:25.000 So, Democrats have decided they're done with him.
00:03:26.000 Now, let's be real.
00:03:27.000 The reason they're done with him is because he's going to lose.
00:03:29.000 They're not done with him because of any of these allegations.
00:03:31.000 And in fact, here is the theory the theory is that if Graham Plattner sticks around for another week and a half, Democrats will start coming back around to him.
00:03:39.000 Because we are now past the point of candidates stepping down out of honor or decency.
00:03:43.000 We are long past that point, obviously.
00:03:46.000 And so now, The question becomes whether Democrats come back to the fold after Graham Plattner stays in and they decide it's just that important.
00:03:54.000 They need Rapey McNazi over here to replace Susan Collins.
00:03:58.000 Representative Debbie Dingell says that there are more explosive Graham Platner stories coming.
00:04:02.000 Again, the reason why they want him out is because he's down in the polls, and also there's more to come.
00:04:09.000 You know, I'm going to not give you names because they're people that I have a great deal of respect for as well.
00:04:15.000 But they have said to me, you were right.
00:04:17.000 Your gut was right.
00:04:19.000 Your instincts were right.
00:04:20.000 He lied to me.
00:04:21.000 I am going to tell you point blank that I'm not even going to give you gender because I've discussed it with people of both genders.
00:04:28.000 He said that they'll never forgive him for lying the way that he did.
00:04:34.000 And I think a lot of people have been stunned by the continuing pattern of stories.
00:04:40.000 And quite frankly, I am told that there are more.
00:04:44.000 I do talk.
00:04:44.000 This is a community that I work in, and there are other credible reports that people have told me of.
00:04:53.000 Well, unfortunately for the Democrats, they can't actually force him out.
00:04:56.000 So they're withdrawing endorsements and all the rest.
00:04:58.000 Bernie Sanders put out a tweet saying that he recommends that you step aside. 0.65
00:05:01.000 The Nazism was one thing.
00:05:03.000 That was bad.
00:05:03.000 And the allegation of him getting a little rapey with a Republican, that was also not great.
00:05:08.000 But not disqualifying.
00:05:10.000 Not disqualifying. 0.61
00:05:11.000 I mean, if he supported Israel, that would be disqualifying.
00:05:14.000 But I have spoken, he says, with Graham Plattner about the best path forward for Maine.
00:05:19.000 In light of these very serious allegations, I have recommended that he step aside.
00:05:24.000 Well, he's not going to step aside.
00:05:26.000 Just get ready for it.
00:05:27.000 He's not.
00:05:28.000 Rashida Tlaib says that she also is withdrawing her endorsement of Graham Plattner. 0.91
00:05:34.000 Mainly because he wasn't in Gaza and raping Jewish women on the other side of the Gaza border.
00:05:39.000 If he had done that, different sort of endorsement available. 0.99
00:05:43.000 But instead, he allegedly raped a Democratic socialist.
00:05:49.000 And he wants, she wants, Graham Platner to be replaced by a progressive fighter who will deliver for the people and help win back the Senate.
00:05:55.000 She says these allegations are devastating and must be taken seriously.
00:05:59.000 Zarn Mamdani says that he believes it's time for Graham Platner to drop out of the race.
00:06:04.000 Yeah, yeah.
00:06:05.000 All right.
00:06:06.000 Here we go. 0.98
00:06:08.000 I believe that it's time for him to drop out of the race.
00:06:11.000 And when it comes to my own endorsements, I've made eight endorsements at the state and federal level.
00:06:18.000 They've all been right here in New York City.
00:06:20.000 I'm incredibly excited at the fact that they won their races, and that's where my focus is for now.
00:06:28.000 You know, I think the focus of today should be to respond to the gravity of what so many of us have read.
00:06:35.000 And I think that the only appropriate response is for the campaign to come to an end.
00:06:40.000 Okay, well, we will find out whether he has any sort of a truck there.
00:06:46.000 The answer, of course, is no.
00:06:47.000 We'll get to more on this in a moment.
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00:08:06.000 Senator Jean Shaheen, she's out there also saying it's time for Graham Plattner to go.
00:08:10.000 Remember, they were all fine with this until Sunday.
00:08:13.000 All the other stuff is fine.
00:08:15.000 The real answer is bad polls started to drop and they got scared.
00:08:21.000 Yes, I think he should step down.
00:08:23.000 It's time.
00:08:24.000 And the sooner the better.
00:08:27.000 Have you been moved by this latest accusation, or all along have you been concerned about this candidate?
00:08:36.000 There are a number of issues that have surfaced with respect to Mr. Plattner.
00:08:40.000 And I think taken together, it means that the Democrats need to look for another candidate.
00:08:48.000 Okay.
00:08:48.000 So the reason the Democrats are panicking is because if Plattner stays in, he's almost certainly going to lose.
00:08:54.000 He was probably going to lose anyway.
00:08:55.000 Now he's almost certainly going to lose.
00:08:57.000 And if they don't.
00:08:59.000 Grab Maine, they don't grab control of the Senate.
00:09:01.000 It is that, which means that he actually has pretty much all of the leverage right now.
00:09:07.000 Graham Plattner can stay in, and then what he can do is he can say he's only handing over the nomination to somebody who he likes, and then he can claim that he was the hero who saved the Republic if that candidate ends up winning, or he could just stay in himself.
00:09:22.000 The Maine Democratic Party executive director, a woman named Devon Murphy Anderson, is now calling for him to drop out and also not be involved in the picking of his replacement.
00:09:29.000 That is not going to go the way she thinks it's going to go.
00:09:33.000 As you know, the Maine Democratic Party has been working around the clock to develop a process to replace our U.S. Senate nominee that is open, inclusive, transparent, and fair.
00:09:44.000 The integrity of this process is just as important as the outcome, and we are committed to ensuring that Democrats across our state can have confidence in both.
00:09:54.000 Unfortunately, Graham Plattner's team has repeatedly reached out to us in an attempt to put their thumb on the scale of what this process looks like.
00:10:03.000 We have repeatedly reiterated to Graham Platner's team that they have no role in determining our next Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate, nor in determining what this process looks like.
00:10:14.000 We have also reiterated that Graham Platner must drop out of this race so that Democrats in Maine can focus on defeating Susan Collins this November.
00:10:22.000 We look forward to making this process public as soon as Graham Platner formally withdraws from this race.
00:10:30.000 Okay, but he's not going to formally withdraw.
00:10:32.000 I don't think he will.
00:10:32.000 I don't think he will.
00:10:33.000 By the way, the CalSheet Markets, and again, their sponsor, Say that there were like 85% who was going to withdraw yesterday.
00:10:39.000 Now they're down around 50%.
00:10:40.000 They're going to keep drawing.
00:10:42.000 The longer he stays in, the better a shot it is that he just stays in for the long haul.
00:10:48.000 Meanwhile, it's kind of fun to watch Democratic commentators mope around and pretend that this is all very sad and unforeseeable.
00:10:54.000 The Pod Save America bros, who are all in on Graham Platner, all in on Graham Platner, they're having a sad.
00:11:00.000 They're enmeshed in the thicket of sad today.
00:11:05.000 Watch the sad.
00:11:08.000 Yeah, it's just the whole situation is just terrible.
00:11:11.000 Even after the June 4th story, she said, I am still technically on the ballot, but didn't reactivate the campaign.
00:11:16.000 So, you know, it's a terrible situation.
00:11:19.000 And the story is horrible.
00:11:22.000 And my thoughts go to like, I think of that person who finally felt like they didn't get their story out the first time the story ran.
00:11:27.000 They felt they had to come forward and tell it in even more gruesome detail.
00:11:31.000 And that is terrible and a brave thing to do.
00:11:34.000 And I still hope you win that seat.
00:11:38.000 Yeah, yeah.
00:11:39.000 A lot of sad happening.
00:11:41.000 Maybe you shouldn't immobilize behind the Nazi guy.
00:11:44.000 Maybe, maybe. 0.99
00:11:45.000 Molly Jongfast and all of her various hair colors had some thoughts on this as well.
00:11:52.000 Look, with this story, as someone, I mean, what she says in this story is that she is, I mean, the misogyny that I found in the story was this poor woman is saying it was non consensual when it was obviously rape.
00:12:07.000 And she couldn't say that because she was, you know, trying to protect him to some extent.
00:12:12.000 So in my mind, this is a really serious, you know, as a woman and a mother of a daughter.
00:12:21.000 You know, as serious as it gets.
00:12:23.000 And you see in, you know, the ways in which the culture, you know, this victim is protecting this man.
00:12:29.000 So in my mind, this is, you know, but it's not up to me because I don't even live in Maine.
00:12:35.000 It is up to the voters of Maine.
00:12:38.000 It's not up to her because she doesn't live in Maine. 0.50
00:12:40.000 Yeah, that's that's a get out of jail free card right there.
00:12:43.000 Mika Brzezinski went after Adam Wren, who is one of the co writers on the Politico piece talking about the alleged rape. 0.63
00:12:49.000 And here she was grilling him.
00:12:52.000 What is the actual evidence between her and him?
00:12:56.000 Evidence of a crime?
00:12:58.000 Because he's being accused of rape.
00:13:03.000 So, what put this over the edge?
00:13:08.000 Because he says he didn't, and he has people on his side who say he didn't.
00:13:13.000 She says he did, and there are people.
00:13:17.000 What's the through line?
00:13:18.000 What ties this together and gives you the evidence to bring this story to the point of publishable?
00:13:27.000 Okay, so again, we'll see whether Democrats re coalesce around Graham Platt.
00:13:33.000 He is being advised, apparently, by Morris Katz, who is his insane left wing progressive advisor, that he probably should step down.
00:13:40.000 We'll see whether he does it.
00:13:41.000 I don't see an upside to him in stepping down, frankly.
00:13:43.000 What's his prize?
00:13:43.000 Like, what does he get?
00:13:45.000 What is the thing he gets?
00:13:46.000 He's not going to run for governor in Maine.
00:13:48.000 Like, this is his shot, and he knows it.
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