Verdict with Ted Cruz - July 07, 2026


BONUS POD: Rising Socialist Star One Day, Democrats Rush for the Exits the Next


Episode Stats


Length

12 minutes

Words per minute

151.39

Word count

1,882

Sentence count

113

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Toxicity

1

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Graham Plattner, the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate in Maine, is now facing, yet AGAIN, another devastating allegation from his former partner, Jenny Rassico. She told Politico that while she and the Democratic candidate were in an on-and-off relationship in 2021, he allegedly entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night while intoxicated and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.
00:00:02.660 Guaranteed human.
00:00:04.180 Why should you listen to Armstrong and Getty On Demand?
00:00:07.840 We're not boring.
00:00:08.840 A lot of news is boring.
00:00:09.820 And tedious.
00:00:10.700 And depressing.
00:00:11.300 And makes you angry.
00:00:12.660 You don't want to live your life like that.
00:00:14.920 Hey, I'm Jack Armstrong.
00:00:16.000 He's Joe Getty.
00:00:16.640 We're Armstrong and Getty.
00:00:17.760 We try to bring you the truth.
00:00:18.900 And help you figure out this crazy modern world.
00:00:21.300 How about something about a comedic tone?
00:00:25.780 We have a winner.
00:00:27.300 Yes.
00:00:27.700 Listen to Armstrong and Getty On Demand on the iHeartRadio app,
00:00:31.420 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:00:34.560 The Joel Osteen Daily Podcast.
00:00:36.900 God's plans for you are for good.
00:00:39.140 Be inspired.
00:00:40.360 Get ready. God is about to exceed your expectations.
00:00:43.700 Joel Osteen Daily Podcast.
00:00:46.080 You are coming out of that dry place into more than enough.
00:00:49.280 Daily encouragement right when you need it.
00:00:51.600 There are opportunities in your future bigger than you can imagine.
00:00:55.560 Listen to the Joel Osteen Daily Podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite podcasts.
00:01:05.360 And this referee who is a little bit suspect if you check his past.
00:01:13.380 I don't want to say that because I don't like to create controversy, but very suspect.
00:01:19.620 If you'd like, I'll provide you with the past.
00:01:22.320 You're listening to the 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson.
00:01:26.100 Good Tuesday morning. Nice to have you with us on the 47 Morning Update.
00:01:29.720 And we've got very big breaking news.
00:01:31.580 First up, Graham Plattner is accused of breaking into a woman's house and sexually assaulting her.
00:01:38.220 The campaign has now canceled multiple events.
00:01:41.660 And Democrats are now saying, OK, maybe you should drop out.
00:01:47.180 So why did it take so long? We break down the timeline.
00:01:50.260 It's the 47 Morning Update, and it starts right now.
00:01:54.220 Story number one.
00:01:55.480 Graham Plattner, the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate in Maine,
00:01:59.940 is now facing, yet again, another devastating allegation from a former partner,
00:02:07.000 Jenny Rassico, who told Politico that while she and Plattner had been involved
00:02:11.680 in an on-and-off relationship in 2021,
00:02:15.400 he allegedly entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night while intoxicated.
00:02:21.800 Plattner allegedly forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop.
00:02:26.120 She told Politico, I remember him grabbing my pelvis and being really forceful of me.
00:02:32.120 She explained that, quote, I remember the specific moment where I thought to myself, like, this is no longer my choice.
00:02:40.360 Plattner, of course, has come out, just like he has with all the other allegations against him,
00:02:44.920 denying the allegations and calling it false and politically motivated.
00:02:49.720 But the political fallout has now been immediate and severe.
00:02:54.660 Democrats who were protecting him at all costs are now, well, saying,
00:02:59.600 okay, maybe it's time for him to get out of the race.
00:03:03.020 And that is the story, not just the allegation itself,
00:03:06.140 But the way the Democratic Party handled Graham Plattner until it became politically impossible to keep pretending that this was somehow not a problem.
00:03:16.300 Now, this was not the first red flag, and that's what voters need to remember.
00:03:21.040 Plattner had already faced scrutiny over disturbing past online comments and allegations about his behavior towards women and even a tattoo of the SS.
00:03:30.260 Yes, yes, the Nazi tattoo on his chest, which, of course, he said he did not understand at the time and later then covered it up.
00:03:38.500 Yet there's video out there and others who said, oh, he knew exactly what it meant.
00:03:42.680 And even with all of those allegations and problems, what did the Democratic Party do?
00:03:48.680 What did the progressives do?
00:03:50.000 What did the socialists do?
00:03:51.240 What did the communists do?
00:03:52.900 They backed him and rallied behind him and kept giving him funding.
00:03:58.300 They treated every warning sign like a Republican smear campaign instead of actually looking at the facts.
00:04:06.820 Now, after this latest allegation, the same party that protected him is running for the exit.
00:04:13.800 It reminds me a lot of Eric Swalwell in California.
00:04:16.920 When they realized it could cost him the governor's mansion, they decided to turn on the guy they protected at all costs.
00:04:24.140 Representative Ro Khanna has now withdrawn his endorsement and urged Plattner to leave the race.
00:04:30.040 Senator Ruben Gallego, for example, as well as in Citizens United, they both now pulled their support.
00:04:36.920 Main Democratic leaders are also calling on him to withdraw, saying the party needs to move on and focus on defeating the Republican Senator Susan Collins.
00:04:46.760 So let's just be honest about what happened here.
00:04:50.040 Democrats did not suddenly discover standards.
00:04:52.940 they discovered liability it's no different than what we saw in california it is no different than
00:04:59.940 we see almost every time a democrat gets in trouble publicly they don't care what you did
00:05:06.720 as long as they feel like they can save you but when they realize maybe you're too big of a
00:05:12.300 liability they'll immediately turn on you and if you don't believe me call eric swalwell when the
00:05:18.680 scandals were politically survivable they will always defend you and when the allegations become
00:05:24.800 politically catastrophic they'll abandon you instantly it is truly the definition of hypocrisy
00:05:32.120 this is not moral clarity is the point i want to make this is simply a political calculation
00:05:38.720 and this is where the hypocrisy is impossible to ignore on a nationwide scale this the same
00:05:45.600 democratic party that lectures america constantly about believing all women accountability character 0.69
00:05:52.380 decency and protecting victims they run campaigns on moral superiority they also say republicans
00:05:59.660 are dangerous unfit and disqualified over allegations or rhetoric or past behavior
00:06:04.760 but when the accused candidate has a d next to his name or her name and it might help them win
00:06:12.200 a Senate seat, suddenly the standards, they disappear. They don't even just become flexible.
00:06:17.820 They just don't care. And then they always say this, well, we're going to let the process play
00:06:23.180 out. Well, suddenly the process played out. And now they say, well, we need to look at the full
00:06:29.680 context of everything. Well, now that we have more of the quote, full context of Graham Plattner,
00:06:36.200 you got to ask yourself this question. Why is it there's such a big double standard,
00:06:40.840 especially in the media when it's a republican they demand resignation before the ink is dry
00:06:46.280 on the headline plattner has been well surrounded by controversy since the day he announced his
00:06:53.300 candidacy and now he is reportedly reassessing his quote-unquote campaign because the democrats
00:06:59.860 have cut off the spigot the money and without money how do you run now again he has denied the
00:07:06.840 allegations and does not immediately exit the race at the moment i'm recording this now there's also
00:07:12.860 something else that's interesting under maine's election rules democrats still have a short
00:07:17.920 window to replace him and that's really what this is about if they can get him out of the race and
00:07:23.540 he withdraws by july the 13th then he's no longer their problem they'll just throw someone else in
00:07:29.980 there it almost reminds me of kamala harris and joe biden and the deadline explains a lot of the
00:07:35.700 panic this is actually organized panic it's not actual so all of a sudden you're going to see the
00:07:42.900 big headlines coming from the media as well NBC Nightly News is going to be talking about this
00:07:48.660 and before they didn't discuss it at all why because this is all about getting rid of a
00:07:55.860 candidate that they believe now is a political liability and may not be able to win and that's
00:08:02.360 why they're doing it before July the 13th. It's not about, well, moral clarity. Now, it also is
00:08:09.800 about the math, and the Senate map is really important. It's also about Susan Collins. It's
00:08:16.200 about Democrats realizing they may have to nominate a candidate with, well, a lot less baggage, and
00:08:21.580 then maybe they would have a chance of beating Susan Collins. Now, remember, this was supposed
00:08:26.380 to be their political populist hero. Plattner was sold by the same people that are destroying him
00:08:32.080 now as a rugged outsider as a veteran as a fake oyster farmer the left-wing fighter who could
00:08:39.780 take on the establishment and to be clear the most progressive democrats embraced him as a
00:08:46.420 movement candidate a socialist a communist but now that movement has a major problem
00:08:51.880 the candidate that they elevated is engulfed in allegations and scandals that even they can't
00:08:58.920 overcome. The most revealing part is how fast the Democrats moved only after the allegations became
00:09:05.260 public and then politically unavoidable. The party did not leave. It only reacted. It did not
00:09:11.440 protect its standards. It protected its strategy until the strategy collapsed. And there's a
00:09:16.380 deadline of the 13th to find that new candidate. That's the double standard voters should see
00:09:22.200 again and again. And why would you vote for a party that does this? One set of rules for
00:09:27.920 Republicans, another set of rules for Democrats. Now, on the set of lectures, by the way, for the
00:09:33.900 country, many Americans should be really angry because Democrats now want credit for demanding
00:09:40.160 Plattner step aside after spending months ignoring the warning signs, brushing off all the scandals,
00:09:46.720 and pretending concerns about him were just right-wing attacks. That's literally what they
00:09:51.940 said. You don't get credit, by the way, for arriving late to the truth, and they knew the
00:09:56.980 truth all along. You don't get credit for accountability only after the political cost
00:10:01.680 becomes too high, because that's not actually accountability at all. And you don't get credit
00:10:06.620 for pretending to be shocked when the concerns were already there. The bottom line is this.
00:10:12.800 The story is bigger than one candidate in Maine. It's really about a Democratic party that claims
00:10:18.160 to own the moral high ground while repeatedly lowering the bar for its own side. It's about
00:10:24.680 the danger of partisan blindness and the media helping these stories disappear until they need
00:10:32.020 them to get rid of their own. That's why this is, well, all about hypocrisy. There's also one other 0.82
00:10:40.160 thing I'll say. If the Democrats were actually being honest right now about their standards,
00:10:45.260 they would come out defending Graham, saying he deserves due process. They would say they're just
00:10:51.040 allegations and deny them. And they would say that Democrats deserve the candidate they chose
00:10:57.380 in Graham Plattner to be their candidate on election day. But they're not doing any of that.
00:11:03.580 Why? Because this is all about politics, not about moral clarity.
00:11:21.040 to the Ben Ferguson podcast
00:11:22.620 and we will see you back here tomorrow.
00:11:51.040 on demand on the iHeartRadio app,
00:11:53.060 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
00:11:55.040 your podcasts. What God started
00:11:56.980 in my life, He's going to finish.
00:11:58.900 The Joel Osteen Daily Podcast.
00:12:01.020 Surely goodness and mercy will follow
00:12:02.960 me all the days of my life.
00:12:04.900 What was meant for my harm, Lord, I want to
00:12:06.980 thank you right now. You're turning to my
00:12:08.980 advantage. Your daily source of
00:12:11.040 hope and encouragement. Your second
00:12:13.200 wind is on its way.
00:12:15.360 God is about to breathe on your
00:12:17.040 life in a new way. Listen to the
00:12:19.020 Joel Osteen Daily Podcast.
00:12:21.040 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
00:12:23.460 and wherever you get your favorite podcasts.