As Twitchy readers know, Graham Platner’s campaign just handed his opponents a gift-wrapped scandal that writes itself.
And looking at the entire situation as a really eff'd up play in three acts simplies things so people can just how bad it really is. In case you haven't seen all of the chaos, this post sums the entire situation up brutally.
A Play in Three Acts:
— David Crockett (@davidcrockett08) June 1, 2026
1) Threaten someone in writing that unless they lie on your behalf you’ll (falsely) accuse them of being a liar
2) After 1 leaks, have the Candidate accuse them of being a liar anyway.
3) Have the campaign issue a lying statement to deny having accused them. pic.twitter.com/PrrnNIaNCk
It began when the Wall Street Journal contacted former aide Genevieve McDonald for comment on a story. According to McDonald, Morris Katz — a top Platner staffer — demanded she call the reporters, retract her off-the-record remarks, declare their reporting false, and hand over a recording of the conversation. When she refused, Katz fired off a text threatening to go on the record and accuse her by name of betraying the personal trust of Platner and his wife Amy by spreading “explicit falsehoods” to sabotage the campaign.McDonald didn’t fold. She went on the record with the New York Times instead.
Act Two arrived when Platner himself was asked point-blank on camera whether the messages existed. He flatly denied the accuracy of what McDonald reported while his wife whom he forced to record a video insisting things were AOK stood next to him.
Act Three? The campaign scrambled to clean up the mess. An official close to Platner quickly told NBC News that, actually, the candidate wasn’t denying the texts at all — he was just pointing out that the Times didn’t possess the messages themselves. The campaign even confirmed the authenticity of the exchanges between Platner’s wife and the former aide.
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In other words: we never denied what we just denied.
From what we're hearing, Acts 4 and 5 (and more) could be so much worse ... for Platner. Stay tuned.
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