“The View” co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin dug into the Democratic Party over the “botched” vetting of Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner on Wednesday as he remains embroiled in several scandals, including sexual abuse allegations.
Co-host Sunny Hostin said that Platner needed to get out of the race because Democrats needed to flip the Senate.
“I’m just struck by how Dems botched this so badly though, because, to your point, the path to Dems taking the Senate, I think, always ran through Maine,” Griffin said.
“That was always going to be one of the important pickup seats. They had six years to recruit against Susan Collins and to vet somebody and to look into their past statements, to look into the tattoos that they might have. I mean, listen, Texas just nominated a lunatic in Ken Paxton, so it’s not like the other party isn’t guilty of this as well. But when the stakes are so high, and when the path to the Senate runs through this, how were they not able to find this?” she asked.
She continued, “And this is where I think consultants did know. I think that a lot of people who are making a lot of money around him knew. There were whispers, now there’s reports, but that he had issues with women and people kept saying, ‘No, no, no, look away,’” Griffin said.
Whoopi Goldberg argued people knew about Platner and said the hosts had discussed it.
“You know what, I don’t know — given what’s happened just in our world right now, how the country — who’s in charge of it, I think people held their nose and said, ‘I’m going to take a step,’” she said.
Goldberg said people vote for flawed candidates despite allegations such as these.
The hosts agreed as Griffin argued that the parties weren’t vetting based on character.
The co-hosts have had several debates about Platner, during which Hostin has called him a racist, a homophobe and an antisemite, but said she would support him anyway, due to the state of the country.
During a back-and-forth on the show on Tuesday, Hostin was confronted by Griffin over whether she would feel comfortable voting for him if she lived in Maine.
Here’s the latest on the bombshell sexual assault allegations against lefty Senate candidate Graham Platner:
Hostin focused her criticism on the Republican Party, arguing they couldn’t claim the moral high ground.
“I said it, if I lived in Maine I would have, you know, plugged my nose and would have voted for him anyway. I think we are in a time of existential crisis in this country and I think Republicans fall in line. They don’t fall in love. Democrats want to fall in love and not fall in line. The Republican Party — the bar is so very low — I can’t believe that they want to try to assume the moral high ground of the Republican Party,” she said.
She did not say whether she would feel comfortable voting for Platner if she lived in Maine amid the new allegations of sexual abuse on Tuesday, though all the hosts agreed he should exit the race.
