Speaker 1: And hello, welcome to the Big Podcast on this Tuesday,
the seventh day of July, Year of Our Lord, twenty
twenty six. My name is Tom Sullivan. So we got
a mixed bag of things. The President is in Turkey
at the NATO meeting. There's more bb Nett and yeah,
who is talking about his relationship with Donald Trump? But
I want to start with last night. It was by
far the big, big, big breaking story because New York
Times interviewed a woman by the name of Jenny Rassiot,
and Jenny lives in Maine, and previously she talked to
The New York Times, but this time she said that
Graham Platner, the Democrat who is running for the US
Senate from the state of Maine, raped her. And up
until now this Graham Plattner has been excoriated about what
a bum he is in his background and what he's
done wrong, and he has a Nazi tattoo and he
should know that that is what it is. And he's
had other he said that he's no choir boy, and
he's had other women say that he's been terrible, but
nobody's gone to the R word, the rape word before
and now Jenny Raciot says, yes, that is what happened.
So interesting that I've offered had a personal measurement for
these kinds of stories. If one woman comes forward and
says that person sexually attacked me, I will listen to her.
I will, but it comes down probably ninety nine out
of one hundred times to he said. She said, But
if a second woman comes forward, I'm sorry, but that
puts the thumb on the scale of I believe the victim.
If you get more than that, you're absolutely might as
well just throw in the towel. Well, that's kind of
where we are. We don't have three, but we've had
other women that have come forward and said that. Graham
Plattner was, I don't know. Let me look at the
words now. These are the words from the New York Times.
Graham Platner, a combat veteran, has spoken openly about his
past struggles with post dramatic stress disorder, depression drinking, that
his behavior years ago does not reflect who he is today,
that there have been a number of women that have
come forward and accused him of being a bad boyfriend,
acknowledging all of that, but that he was a fun
and caring partner but they found his actions intimidating and disturbing.
Those are the words the New York Times put out.
But this lady says, no, no, no, he raped me.
So now the question is every Democrat, especially to the
further left you go, the more they were committed to
Graham Platner. The guy who really is committed to Graham
Platner is Bernie Sanders. Well, in the last twenty four hours,
Bernie Sanders has said it's time for him to step down.
You go down the list of the who's who the
Democrat Party and Chuck Schumer, Senator Gillebrand, Elizabeth Warren, who
says he's my kind of man, all of them, they're
just they're lining up to say step down. And what's
really important for them is this is one of the
states that the Democrats have to win if they want
to take control of the US Senate. So it's a
Bible race for the Senate. He has until next Monday
to step down or his name will be on the
ballot regardless of what he does after that. So we've
got a long list of Republicans, I'm sorry, democrats that
I could play that say step down. These are Democrats
I don't have a Republican on the list here, but
I thought we'll start with the interview. Jake Tapper from
C and N did an interview with Jenny and this
is how it went.
Speaker 2: It was a night where him and I were texting
back and forth and he had taken something that I
said as an invitation and that's not how I meant it.
And I quickly clarified, and he sent the message back
indicating that he would come over, and I said, no,
don't come over, Like I'm not in the mood, don't
come over.
Speaker 3: And I was more stern with that message.
Speaker 2: And then I didn't hear back from him, so I
thought that that meant he got the message or gave
up on it or whatnot.
Speaker 3: And so.
Speaker 2: Like half an hour later, I heard a noise outside
my door and then he came in. He just came
into my house. It was unlocked. I live in an
area where you don't usually have to lock your doors.
Speaker 3: I do now.
Speaker 2: So he came in and I realized, Okay, he didn't listen.
He's in my home and I was laying on the couch.
It was probably pretty late at night, and I was
getting I was already ready for bed.
Speaker 3: I just wasn't in bed, and.
Speaker 2: So he had kind of like jumped on top of
me and indicated that he had intentions that were sexual
in nature. And I remember just at first being like, hey,
I'm not into this, like don't. I'm not in the
mood like don't whatever. And it got to the point
where I was like, Okay, I feel like I've said
this enough times, like he's not listening to me or
he's not hearing me.
Speaker 3: And I looked at him and I remember.
Speaker 2: This very specific look in his eyes and I could
smell alcohol, and I was like, this is different. He
is heavily intoxicated, like and that blank stare was kind
of like a photographic memory that I still have of
that night and his that was me recognizing what the
situation was. And this wasn't just like, oh, hey, somebody
showed up and I'm gonna tell him go home. Like
he was heavily intoxicated, had intentions with me and wasn't
listening when I said.
Speaker 4: No, and you were saying no, don't, no, don't over
over and over.
Speaker 2: I remember, you know, obviously I've had to recall a
lot of this. This is something that I tried for
many years to forget and so small details, you know,
might get past me. But yes, I remember very specifically
saying I'm not into this. In my message previously, I
told him I had had an old back injury, and
I remember saying, like, I'm not in this. I've had
a long day, my back hurts, like like I was
in that kind of mood, like to leave me alone mood.
Speaker 3: And there was a little bit of like a scuffle
like altercation.
Speaker 2: The house that I live in has like this antique
sewing kit that I kept beside the couch, and that
got knocked over. He like backed into it or something.
It was maybe pushed into it by me or something
happened in that moment, and that thing got.
Speaker 4: Spilled, and you remember pushing him away.
Speaker 2: I remember potentially pushing away with my legs like and
then as he backed into it, it's spilt and all
of the sewing needles and tape and yarn and everything
went everywhere. Everything had fallen onto the floor. And in
that moment, I evaluated my safety. Like a drunk person
who's blackout drunk is in my home, has these intentions
with me, you know, has already caused this amount of
destruction and not listening to me, and so I basically
felt safe at just complying.
Speaker 5: You normally use protection, yeah, and this time he didn't,
and you didn't want that, and he didn't care.
Speaker 2: No, I don't think my words were falling on deaf
ears or drunk.
Speaker 4: Ears, and you were still saying don't do this or
I'm not into this.
Speaker 2: I remember specifically him like grabbing at my chest and
I like hit his hand and I said, don't touch me.
And I remember that during the altercation.
Speaker 4: He kept going yeah.
Speaker 3: And it was this weird mix of like.
Speaker 2: Coming in and out of I don't think consciousness is
a word, but like coming to and kind of falling
back into that drunken I don't know what I'm doing
state and yeah, and he just he would apologize in
those moments and then go back to doing.
Speaker 3: What he was doing.
Speaker 4: So he was aware that he was doing something wrong, yes,
saying sorry.
Speaker 2: I feel like he was in moments. So after everything ended,
I ran to the bathroom which was just beside my bedroom,
and I was in there for a while and just
trying to like comprehend things. And when I came back out,
he was asleep in my bed, and at that point
I didn't know what my options were, like, obviously, I
don't want this person in my house.
Speaker 3: And when I, you know, earlier, had.
Speaker 2: Realized how drunk he was, I knew that he'd driven
over that way, like, I'm surprised he made it to
my house and if I woke him up and sent
him home, like I am now making the decision to
put somebody that drunk on the road. And I didn't
want to live with the fact that, like if he
got into an accident or hurt somebody else. So I
was like, I'm going to let him sleep, and the
second he wakes up on my tom to leave, and
so he slept.
Speaker 3: I lay there in like a state of panic all night.
Speaker 2: In the morning, he woke up and he went to
go put his arm around me, and I was like whoa,
and realizing this person doesn't know that what happened wasn't okay,
And so I remember taking his arm and throwing it
back at him and I said, are you fucking serious, Graham?
And he's like what And I'm like, do you not
remember what happened last night? He's like no, I'm like, okay,
I need you to get dressed and leave and never
talk to me again, like nothing that happened was okay,
And he did. He just got up and got dressed
and left and didn't seem concerned. He left, He didn't
he didn't talk to me. And I waited a couple
of weeks because I knew that with what had happened,
I could have gotten pregnant, and I wanted to wait
and to make sure that wasn't the case.
Speaker 3: And so I.
Speaker 2: Wait until that happened, and I sent him kind of
like a final send off message.
Speaker 3: And what did I remember.
Speaker 2: I remember a few pieces of it, and I remember
saying that like, nothing that happened that night was okay
or consensual.
Speaker 1: So that's just part There were twenty more minutes of
the interview, but that's that's the essence of it. So
she's accusing him of rape and that he wandered off,
And so Tapper asked her about are you coming forward
because of a political reason? And this is her answer.
Speaker 5: Just to underlie the point, You're not coming forward because
you have any political motivation.
Speaker 3: No, not at all.
Speaker 2: That was actually one of the huge reasons that I
didn't come forward and still struggled, like that was a
huge moral conflict to feel.
Speaker 4: Like because you'd like a Democrat to be in the Senate.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like the things that he speaks about. They're important,
They're important to people. I'm one of those people.
Speaker 1: That's a whole different story. There was another woman that
came forward that was a Republican activist, and they immediately
dismissed her as saying she's doing it for political reasons.
This woman likes Graham Platner, likes what he has to say,
and would like she's a Democrat and would like a
Democrat to win that race. So out of all of this,
the Democrats have turned on him. I mean one thousand percent.
Now the clock begins on when does Graham Plattner step
down the pressure on him? We're not talking about There's
not even a Republican that I could play for you.
Republicans are just keeping their mouths shut and sitdying back
and watching. There's a reporter, Michael Shepherd out of the
Banger Daily News who says that he hasn't stepped down today,
but it's coming soon.
Speaker 6: Yeah, we're not expecting anything today. We think that it's
something that's certainly under consideration. I think that people and
Democrats here in Maine are certainly thinking that this is coming.
Of course, Bernie Sanders pulling his support today is a
big blow for the campaign. On the ground, I'm not
seeing much in the way of support or a path
forward for this campaign. So I think it's a matter
of time whether he does it today, tomorrow, by the
Monday deadline, Democrats are well on their way to plotting
the way forward here.
Speaker 1: You heard what you said, Bernie Sanders also, who was
his biggest supporter, said you've got to drop out. Donna Edwards,
former congresswoman Democrat from Maryland.
Speaker 7: Well, I think these recisions are snowballing, and it's just
a matter of time, not a lot of time for
mister Plattner to make the decision that he does not
have the political support to.
Speaker 3: Remain the nominee for Maine.
Speaker 7: And there is still enough time to substitute a nominee
and bring somebody credible forward who can defeat Susan Collins,
and you know, for the good of the order, I
think mister Plattner really owes it to the people of
Maine to do that. I mean, it's not just that
the allegations are unsettling, it's not a surprise that he
denies them. But Jenny Rascott is incredibly She's very credible,
and there was so much corroborating evidence in so much detail.
A woman never goes out in front like that if
she's not telling the truth.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, there was and is a lot of
coroborating evidence. But Graham Platner, he's sticking with it.
Speaker 8: I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious and false
allegations against me. Any accusation of non consensual behavior is
categorically false.
Speaker 1: Well, the problem with that is that's what they all do.
They deny. But again, the betting is that he will
step down, and they're already lining up other people. These
are all big Democrat spokespeople that I'm playing for you,
Dave Weigel, a big liberal guy over at Political He's
got names and how they're going to line them up
to go against Susan Collins.
Speaker 9: It's up to the main Democratic Party, which Plattner had
pretty good control of but before the scandals that really
started blow up his campaign. This is this is county officials,
this is elected delegates the party there was at the
convention after Platner had headed off Janet Mills as she'd
quit days for the convention because she was going to
lose there. And so as we're talking, there's already jockey
going on to be the credible Platiner replacement. Among main Democrats,
there are people who ran for Governor Vrvshaw, people are
for Congress Jordan Wood who are making it known, they're
getting that, they're getting some calls, and they're willing to
run to replace Graham Platner if he drops out, which
most Democrats expect me to do. You're also seeing progressives
who supported Plattner who really thought they pocketed a victor
against the establishment of victory for populism in the Bernie
Sanders mold argue that whatever happens our revolution, which Bernie
Sanders Founders said this a couple of minutes ago, whatever happens,
this should there should not be an excuse for the
party establishment to put in Janet Mills or somebody else
from a more centrist wing of the party. And that
I just mentioned arov Shaw, he'd be someone like that
who progresses did not endorse Platner, had endorsed Troy Jackson
for governor Key and third the primary. But this is
this is where we're heading. Everyone is accepting that this
is if I can paraphrase Mark's paraphrasing Hegel history repeating
as farce. This is a lot like the Joe Biden
exit in twenty twenty four, where Democrats have made their
peace and they're now kind of coping and reckoning with
how a much less democratic process in a primary can
get the candidate they want into the into the ballot November, so.
Speaker 1: He doesn't have to but they're hoping that he steps
down before Monday. And if he doesn't, I can I'll
bet you a large luncher to drive up window that
there are more accusations coming forward. I just usually if
there's one, there's many others that will be showing up.
So Platner, what's really important about this is, again there
are four seats that the Democrats think they can win
for the US Senate that would give them control of
the US Senate. That is critical. If Donald Trump wants
to nominate anybody federal judges, Supreme Court judges, anybody for
his cabinet, anybody for high level government, that you have
to go through the Senate, and if it's controlled by Democrats,
he's not going to get very far, so nothing like
a good old fashioned sex scandal. In politics, the President
is in Turkey at the NATO meeting going on today.
President Trump is not trying to mend fences. He is
calling out NATO for a number of things. One, he's
been on their case about would you spend more money
on defense so that you don't have to rely upon
the United States to be your police force. And secondly,
remember that you never showed up for my efforts in Iran,
and I haven't forgotten. So the President is not mending fences.
I have to ask you. Here's what's been bothering me
about this, not only for the President, but also Pete
Haig says, telling especially Germany to rebuild their forces and
to get strong. I'm not so sure. I like the
idea of Germany rebuilding their armed military, their armed forces.
At some point down the road, one of those countries
is going to go haywire again. I don't, but specifically
because World War Two. I know it was a long
time for most of us before we were born, but
it wasn't that long ago in world history. I don't
want Germany in Japan actually going out there and rebuilding
their forces we'll watch over your country for you. I
don't want to spending all that money. Mike Pompeo, former
Secretary of State, commenting about the President and NATO.
Speaker 10: If there's a single thing with Trump, President Trump and NATO,
it is folks, get serious.
Speaker 4: Do you need to be a trusted partner? Will be
with you.
Speaker 10: We're happy to support NATO and the collective defense effort,
but you have to be a partner that's worthy of that.
You can't just sit back and let us carry the
heavy loads. So if there was a single thing he's
going to focus on, it will be to continue not
just to get them to spend money, but to focus
to spend that money well to build their own forces,
that is people, armies, navies, air forces, do the things
necessary to be a good partner inside of NATO, and
the United States will be with you.
Speaker 4: That I think will be his top priority.
Speaker 1: And call me crazy. I have great respect for Mike Pompeo,
but I don't want them. I don't want Germany rebuilding
their forces army, navy, et cetera, et cetera. I just
think it's it's it's not the smartest thing to do.
Kurt Volker, former ambassador to NATO. Oh, but before I
get there, get to Kurt Volker. So they had this
big arrival I mean big rival ceremony. Huge. I mean
Donald Trump, I know, the United States were the world superpower,
but he lands in Turkey and they had I don't know,
a hundred horses soldiers leading the presidential motorcade down the
street to this facility where they're having the big meeting
and pomp and circumstance over the top. And I was
surprised because I would have thought Donald Trump would have
been beaming from ear to ear because he loves that stuff.
I don't know. He just got off almost a ten
hour flight, so maybe he was maybe he was just tired,
but he was kind of looking like he wasn't all
that happier. Maybe it's his poker face when he meets
with the NATO forces because he's not happy. And the
part that cracked me up was they had this big,
long carpet from the time he got out of the
limousine that he had to walk down this long carpet
to do a review of the Turkish military. And it
was light blue, it was like baby blue, and it
looked about as long as the blue reflecting pond in Washington.
I swear it was about the same width and it
was blue and it was long, and I thought, oh
my gosh, that looks like the reflecting pond, the blue,
the blue color that's been messed up with in Washington.
So yeah, Kurt Folker, let's see what he has to say.
Speaker 11: Well, I think we've already begun to see some of that.
Speaker 12: If you remember, President Trump at the G seven summit
meeting just a few weeks ago, joined the G seven
Summit statement that referred to Russia as the aggressor and
called on sanctions on Russia.
Speaker 4: And support for Ukraine.
Speaker 11: I think we're going to see support for Ukraine coming
out of NATO as well, including a continuation of this
program whereby European anma in Ukraine and buy American arms
and ammunition and transfer them. And President Zelensky has been
playing this success very well. I would argue he has
been making a real impact on Russia's finances and their
fuel and logistics, and we're impacting their ability to continue
the war and at the same time calling for an
immediate CEA's fire, which Putin rejects. But this is a
very good message for playing it to President Trump saying, look,
I want peace, but Putin doesn't want peace, and trying
to get President Trump to be more forceful in putting
some pressure on Vladimir Putin.
Speaker 1: We almost forgot about the Russia Ukraine war. But the
President's going to be meeting with Zelenski in Turkey, so
that's bringing it forward to a head. The other thing
the President wants to do is it's actually President Erwan
of Turkey wants to buy F thirty fives are very,
very most the best complicated, top of the technology fighter jet,
and Ertwan has a history of playing both sides. He
has bought fighter jets from the United States in the past.
He has also bought fighter jets from the Russians. And
what we don't want is for Russia to get their
hands on the technology of our F thirty fives. Admiral
Stavritas is cautioning.
Speaker 13: Exactly what you did, which is to say, the inherent
tensions going into this summit. It's the discussion of Greenland,
it's the quote lack of support unquote as the President
puts it. Although European base has provided five thousand sorties
that did support the war in Igran but presidency sat
as lack of support. And above all, as you and
I have talked about in the past, he feels Europe
and Canada are not spending enough. And so that's a
big basket attention going into it. That's kind of the
bad news, if you will. The good news also on
display increasingly Turkey appears to be kind of coming together
and toward the alliance. That's actually a good thing. Secondly,
you're going to hear a lot more later today about
the pledges. The Europeans have made two hundred and fifty
billion and counting. It's a huge chunk of money being
added to their defense budgets. And then thirdly, and I
wouldn't necessarily put a huge amount of money on this,
but maybe some of the European countries will come to
the Persian Gulf and help us open the straight afore
moves mind sweepers, escorts, gotta missile frigates, that's possible. Those
are some things I'm watching. So again, good news, bad news.
You just heard a lot of the bad news from
President Trump's perspective.
Speaker 1: Okay, so, but what about that F thirty five that
Turkey wants.
Speaker 13: They want the F thirty five because it's the best
fighter in the world, full stop F thirty five lightning
joint strike fighter, So they want it. That's good from
our perspective, creates leverage. The bad news is that they
also bought very sophisticated ear defense systems from the Russians,
the so called S four hundred. The problem is if
the same nation is operating that very sophisticated American jet
and that very sophisticated Russian ear defense system, it's conceivable data, performance, quality,
stealth could kind of leak.
Speaker 3: Back and forth.
Speaker 13: So where are we The US have held off providing
that weapon system, the F thirty five, to Turkey for
a couple of decades. Now it appears there's a technical
solution to kind of create a firewall. I mean jump gouts,
jumps evable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I don't know. I hope that we don't
sell the F thirty five, but we'll wait to see
what the president does. So bb let Yahoo was interviewed
today and was asked about the relationship with Donald Trump
and with America. Thought you'd want to hear some of it.
Here's a piece of it.
Speaker 14: Yes, I have actually spoke to him several times about it,
and I think that everybody understands it. Notwithstanding the personal
friendship that President Trump has with Erdban, it doesn't make
Turkey a friendly or a friendly state to the United States,
to the country. It's a regime that's infected with the
Muslim brotherhood, which hates the United States. He harbors Hamas
or Haramas, terris, he supports them, he finances them. He's
thrown his opponents in jail, all of them. He throws
more journalists in jail than anyone can understand. So he's
not exactly a model ally of the United States. But
even worse than that, he threatens Greece, a NATO ally.
He occupies half of Cyprus, another NATO country. And the
most important thing, and I put it right on the table,
he threatens to destroy my country, the one and only
Jewish state is Number two says that we have no
place among the nations, and you know what that means.
And his number three, the Terior Minister, says that he's
looking forward to be the governor of Jerusalem.
Speaker 4: Hello, you know, sovereign country.
Speaker 15: Yeah, what Prime Minister. The President said this morning. President
said this morning that they are great friends, and not
just the two of them, the countries of the United
States and Turkey, and that Turkey is perhaps a better
ally than other so called allies. So he is considering
giving the country these planes F thirty five.
Speaker 14: Well, as I said, it would destroy the power balance
in the Middle East, because because Turkey I think has
aggressive aspirations, I mean they ultimately say that they want
to restore the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire not only
included Turkey, it included many other countries, included Syria, and
included pieces of Jordan, included all of present day Israel,
included some Gulf countries. So this is not a force
for peace and stability. And if you give you know,
this kind of radical regime that admittedly smiles to America
when it is necessary, well, smiles to the President of
the United States when is necessary. When you've give them
that power, you're going to see aggression in its way.
I wouldn't do that, all right.
Speaker 1: So Bbe is watching the President at the NATO meeting
very carefully. He doesn't trust Aradawana, he doesn't trust Turkey.
And it's true Turkey is a NATO member, but they
are the only Muslim majority NATO members, and the Muslim
Brotherhood does not like the United States, does not certainly
does not like Israel. So we'll keep an eye on
all of that. Meantime, Wall Street decided to do some
serious selling today, especially the tex stalks that have been
bouncing around. They bounced down again today. Dow Jones Industrials
down one hundred and thirty at fifty two thousand and
nine to twenty five, SMB down thirty three, Nazdack down
three hundred two, Gold fell forty three dollars down to
four thousand and one twenty four, and oil. The Treasury
Secretary today canceled Iran's license to sell oil. So we
said a few weeks ago, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, Iran,
go ahead and sell your oil out there. We'll take
we'll lift those sanctions. Well they were put back on
again today, so oil prices were up about three and
a half dollars to seventy two dollars and some change
for West Texas Intermediate. So that's it for today. Thank
you for coming by. We will be back tomorrow. I
hope to see you though,