Scandals have always been a part of politics but the way politicians handle them has changed.
Transcript
SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
On Wednesday, Democrat Graham Platner ended his scandal-plagued run for a Senate seat in Maine. He released a video Wednesday night that made it clear he is leaving, but he says he is not done fighting.
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GRAHAM PLATNER: I know that some will think it’s an admission of guilt, and it most certainly is not. We’re not doing it because of the allegations. We’re doing it because of the structures that are being taken away from us by those in power.
DETROW: Scandals have, of course, always been a big part of politics, but the way politicians handle them has shifted. NPR senior national political correspondent Mara Liasson and congressional correspondent Barbara Sprunt are here to discuss how and why the political scandal has changed. Hi to both of you.
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Hi there.
BARBARA SPRUNT, BYLINE: Hi.
DETROW: So let’s start with the news of this week. Platner dropped out after a rape allegation was made public, but he had been surrounded by other scandals basically since the beginning of his campaign. So why exit now?
SPRUNT: Well, I mean, the big reason is because basically all of his allies abandoned him, and the campaign arm of the Senate Democrats said they wouldn’t put any more money into the race if he stayed on the ballot. But zooming out, I think the question, in light of his other controversies – and like you said, there have been many – is why didn’t he drop out earlier? And the answer is that times have changed. The scandals that would have sent candidates packing in the past just don’t have the same punch that they used to.
LIASSON: That’s true. Although despite that very Trumpian statement that Platner – you just heard Platner make, where it was the power structures, not his own behavior – the Platner case proves that not all scandals are created equal. A rape allegation is clearly still beyond the pale, at least in the modern, post-Clinton Democratic Party.
DETROW: Let’s talk a little bit more about the substance of what Platner was saying there. We heard him saying he was dropping out not because of the allegations, but because of a system that he framed as built against him and his movement. What was going on there?
SPRUNT: Yeah, Scott, this is literally a, you know, textbook example of how politicians respond to scandals in this era. Brandon Rottinghaus – he’s a professor at the University of Houston. He studies political scandals. This is what he has to say.
BRANDON ROTTINGHAUS: Politicians want to use scandals as a badge of honor to say that they’ve been in the fight, and the reason that they’ve been caught in the scandal is that they’ve been fighting for the people, for their base. They just pivot to the base and use that as a really big shield.
SPRUNT: And that’s exactly what you see in this sort of, like, long-winded, fairly self-indulgent video announcing his exit from the race. You know, Platner wasn’t showing contrition. He was making this about these shadowy forces stopping ordinary people from winning in politics, creating this us-versus-them framework that, I think, far transcends his own campaign.
DETROW: Platner wasn’t the only scandal that had news developments this week, Mara, he dropped out the same day a judge ordered President Trump to pay E. Jean Carroll $5.8 million after a jury found he sexually abused and defamed her. I know that a lot of this happened a while back, but still, a development like that just flew under the radar. Does that get to the question we’ve been thinking about in different ways for a decade now? Does Trump just go through these story lines in a different way?
LIASSON: I think he is different in degree, if not in kind. He’s the candidate who famously said he could stand on Fifth Avenue and shoot someone, and he wouldn’t lose any voters. He also bragged about grabbing women by the genitals, and he certainly survived that. But it’s also true that Republican voters are more tolerant of scandals involving personal behavior, and that could be because of Trump. But they also seem to forgive RFK Jr. and Pete Hegseth and Ken Paxton.
And even though there are exceptions to this – there are Republicans who lose in their careers because of scandal – it seems like Republican voters are more tolerant than Democrats are. Yes, Bill Clinton gutted his way through a giant scandal, but for the most part, Democrats seem to have a tighter red line on this than Republicans do.
SPRUNT: What’s been interesting to that point, I think, Mara, is, like, you know, there used to be sort of this idea in Democratic politics – and this is – I’ve talked to Democratic staffers and former members and strategists about this – like, that there were these sort of, like, moral absolutism lines that they didn’t want to cross.
And what’s interesting, I think, is that in just a short period of time, in the past decade or so, there has been a shift away from that towards this idea that Mara is talking about, which is, what is the ultimate goal of politics? It’s to win. And so Platner is a great example of this coming to a head and Democrats standing by him much longer than they would have in the past, given his controversies, until they could not any longer.
DETROW: I’m curious, what did Trump say about Platner?
LIASSON: It’s amazing that he had anything to say about Platner, but what he said – he was – he sounded very sympathetic on Platner when he was asked a question about him on Air Force One this week. Let’s listen to the tape.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: And it’s really a question of whether or not you believe the woman. A lot of people say big falsehoods. It’s – he’s in a bind.
LIASSON: So that’s Trump saying it’s a question of whether or not you believe the woman. Some people say big falsehoods. He sounded very sympathetic to Platner. And what’s interesting about that – instead of stepping aside and letting your opponents kind of damage themselves, he saw the Platner scandal in very personal terms. You know, maybe the woman should not be believed.
DETROW: Both of you have mentioned the idea – and I think news events this week bore out the idea – that there are still red lines somewhere here. What do we think they look like?
SPRUNT: Yeah, I think there’s this distinction. You know, like the public and the parties are much more willing to overlook personal misbehavior, like infidelity, embarrassing things that the candidates may have done in the past. But criminal allegations of sexual assault, of rape, are shaping up to be this kind of red line. I mean, and we’ve seen that bear out over the course of this year alone. Congressman Eric Swalwell, a Democrat, Tony Gonzales, a Republican – they both resigned earlier this year after sexual misconduct allegations.
LIASSON: Yeah, and it just makes voters more cynical about politics and politicians, and they already were pretty cynical to begin with.
DETROW: A lot of this comes back to hyperpartisanship, which has been the story of the decade. But what other factors do you think are at play?
SPRUNT: I think part of this is this fragmented media landscape that we’re in. You know, people get the news and the perspective that they like, quite possibly at the expense of nothing else. The news comes really hard and fast, scandals blow over much quicker than they used to. And I think that there are probably a good number of folks who, you know, stepped away from public service or resigned after embarrassing details about their personal life, who are now thinking, like, man, if this happened today, I probably could have ridden it out.
DETROW: That is NPR congressional correspondent Barbara Sprunt as well as senior national political correspondent Mara Liasson. Thanks to you both.
SPRUNT: Thank you.
LIASSON: You’re welcome.
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