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| By The Free Press |
It’s Monday, June 1. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Peter Savodnik meets the man behind “Latinos por Pratt.” Coleman Hughes and Aman Verjee on whether AI is the next great bubble. A former Scripps finalist on why the spelling bee may be America’s purest meritocracy. And much more.
But first: Graham Platner’s latest scandal(s).
How many scandals can one Senate campaign handle? Graham Platner, the progressive Democratic Senate candidate in Maine, may soon find out.
Platner had already faced his fair share of controversy. This is the candidate with the Nazi tattoo on his chest (now covered), who may not be quite as blue-collar as he makes out, who used assorted slurs and masturbation jokes in trollish posts on Reddit, who smeared cops as “trash,” who. . . you get the picture.
This weekend that list got a little longer. The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday that last year Platner’s wife, Amy Gertner, found sexually explicit texts between Platner and several other women. The Journal also found that Platner has an active account on Kik, a private messaging app. In his profile picture he is shirtless with a towel around his waist.
“No marriage is perfect, and I don’t want a perfect marriage. I want my marriage,” said Gertner in a selfie-style video Sunday.
Today, we’re publishing two perspectives on Platner and his candidacy.
The first is about another Platner controversy that got a bit less attention than the salacious sexting story. In comments made on a 2024 podcast that resurfaced recently, Graham Platner suggested that Chris Kyle, the legendary “American Sniper” made famous by the 2014 movie of that name, targeted innocent Iraqi civilians to boost his kill numbers.
Kyle died in 2013 so cannot defend himself from these claims. But his friend and former platoon commander, Leif Babin, can—and does in The Free Press today.
“Those accusations are absolutely false,” writes Leif. Read his full response to the “slanderous accusations” of an “aspiring politician” and the toll they have taken on Kyle’s wife and children.
Our second Platner story comes from River Page, and it is an answer to a simple but central question: Why does none of this seem to be hurting Platner? River’s theory gets to the heart not just of this crucial Senate race, but the dynamics driving so much of our politics.
—Oliver Wiseman
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