Wednesday afternoon on CNN’s The Arena, panelist and New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor — who won a Pulitzer Prize for her investigative reporting on the #MeToo movement and had her exploits turned into a movie — outright scoffed at the disturbing claims of abusive behavior against Maine Democrat senatorial candidate Graham Platner by ex-girlfriends, ascribing them to disagreements in relationships between two consenting adults. Needless to say, it’s doubtful Lyndsey Fifield (whom, as I’ve repeatedly disclosed, is someone I’ve known for years) would say her relationship with Platner just over a decade ago was something to wave off. Host Kasie Hunt had just finished a monologue also seeming to defend Platner on the grounds that, if Republicans elected Donald Trump despite a whole host of allegations against him, then Democrats could do the same. Asked what she made of “our political moment that voters are willing to overlook” tawdry details, Kantor declared as though she’s the judge and jury that “the accusations against Graham Pla tner are not classic MeToo accusations” because “[t]hey’re not about a boss and a young female employee being subjected to sexual advances.” WATCH: New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor – who wrote many of the #MeToo stories – DEFENDS Graham Platner and DISMISSES the allegations against him by @LyndseyFifield and other ex-girlfriends because they were not “abuse” and women saying they just “did not like what” they saw… pic.twitter.com/qMSSXa3XNU — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) June 10, 2026 “[T]hey were mostly made in the context of consensual relationships. There are these, like, very sensational texts about sex. There are allegations from former girlfriends that are not — the way my colleagues reported them were not like classic abuse allegations,” Kantor asserted with such gross dispassion. She went on with gross dismissal of his Nazi tattoo and Reddit posts blaming women for rape: “They were mostly like being his boyfriend gave me a view into him, and I did not like what I saw. His character was scary. He had this Nazi tattoo, etc.” As for Fifield’s story, Kantor too may as well have told her to suck it up because at least Platner didn’t do what Trump bragged to Billy Bush about doing: “There was one allegation of crossing a line physically, but I think that means that these are pretty different accusations than, say, the one that — the ones that President Trump faced. And, of course, in the Access Hollywood tape, President Trump bragged about grabbing women against their will.” She concluded with utter shamelessness: “And so, I think it speaks to the kind of confusion of the long post MeToo moment in which, like, gender related accusations get bundled together. But they’re actually very different.” Thankfully, right-of-center CNN commentator and pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson pushed back (although not in the same way, say, Scott Jennings would have) (click “expand”):      You know, one of the things that Graham Platner said in his comments that you showed earlier in the show was they want to make this just about one moment. But what I’m struck by is it’s not just about one moment with him. It’s not just about one time where he grabbed someone’s wrist. It’s about a time where, as your colleagues reported, he took her and he put her in a room and he closed the door, allegedly, and would not let her out. It’s about the texts to — up to six other women who are not his wife.     So, the problem for Graham Platner is that it’s not just one thing. And when he says it’s not about me, he’s really hoping that it’s not about him. He’s really hoping that the midterm is about Donald Trump, and he may get his wish, ultimately. But I feel like there’s a chance that Democrats look back at a moment like this, where they had someone run against essentially nobody strong in that primary — like, the sitting governor backed out — are they leaving seats on the table in a very favorable environment by choosing candidates who simply are not the A-Team? Showing how absurd Kantor’s partisan spin was, even liberal CNN political commentator and former Garland Justice Department spokeswoman Xochitl Hinojosa warned her fellow Democrats not to become too interwined with Platner: CNN’s @XochitlHinojosa warns fellow Democrats to not be overly enthusiastic supporters of Graham Platner because, if they want to run in 2028, it could be used against them.... “I don't think it really gets him anything for Democratic leaders in Washington to be defending him.… pic.twitter.com/kC2VK1EYoB — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) June 10, 2026 “One warning I have for Democrats is...we need women in order to win in 2028. If you are eyeing a run for presidency and you are going out there and campaigning for Graham Platner, I would say that is pretty bad advice that you have been given right now, because, at some point, you yourself will be needed. You need to make the case to women directly. Let Graham Platner do his thing in Maine...I don’t think that national Democrats need to go out there on a limb for him at this point,” she argued. Former Michigan Republican Congressman Peter Meijer tore into these attempts to defending his bad behavior as well as the particularly offensive nature of minimizing it under the guise of his post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from serving in the Marines: .@PeterMeijer on Graham Platner: “Well, the idea too, that — ‘well, he’s — he’s — he’s taking responsibility for his actions, he’s transformed.’ I mean, the allegations of texting multiple women while he’s in a relationship and cheating on his wife — I mean, those are within the… pic.twitter.com/xD6yAmMupz — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) June 10, 2026 He also rejected the comparisons between Platner and Trump because the latter is a singular, history-defining figure (click “expand”): Boom: @PeterMeijer on why we should stop with the Donald Trump/Graham Platner comparisons... “And you’ve seen a lot of Republicans who say, ‘oh, well, Trump can do this, and he can get away with it. So — so can I?’ No, he’s Teflon Don. This guy is a unitary, standalone figure.… pic.twitter.com/OdMJjFmU6K — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) June 10, 2026 And you’ve seen a lot of Republicans who say, “oh, well, Trump can do this and he can get away with it. So — so can I?” No, he’s Teflon Don. This guy is a unitary, standalone figure. The political laws of gravity do not apply to him. They apply to a lot of folks who want to be like him. And those folks end up vastly underperforming him in the polls. And I think, yes, absolutely, there’s an anti-incumbent, there’s an anti-establishment sentiment, and that’s an easy thing to play up. It’s also an easy thing, as you’ve seen with his talk about, you know, Epstein class, and that it’s an easy thing to start to slide in from anti-establishment to anti-Semitic and go down a very dark rabbit hole of conspiracies. I guarantee you watch for when the next shoe drops, who he starts to blame, and how dark this campaign gets. The Epstein files consumed the next block as Bill Gates spent the day testifying behind closed doors to the House Oversight Committee plus an Epstein-focused excerpt of a new book by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan came out, so of course Kantor weighed in. This time, though, she seemed way more concerned about those mentioned in the files, regardless of whether they did anything wrong (click “expand”): Well, I was riveted by Maggie and Jonathan’s excerpt. Their book is called Regime Change. I think it is going to be a blockbuster. And what was so interesting was that you could really see President Trump losing control of the Epstein story, paragraph by paragraph, as they give this internal account of the Trump team trying to deal with it. And part of what is so fascinating about it is that, listen, we’re living through a presidentially led backlash to Me Too, right? The President has appointed himself the chief opponent of this movement. But then what happened is it turned out that people really cared about the Epstein files. They were grossed out by the by, the idea of young women being manipulated by the powerful and the wealthy, and part of the lasting power of Me Too, is that there’s a lot of empathy, especially for very young victims. And so, to see the President sort of hit by, you could almost call it a backlash to the backlash was really interesting. To see the relevant CNN transcript from June 10, click here.