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Platner Sexting Scandal Complicates Dems' Hopes Of Recapturing Senate; Sexting Scandal Could Presumptive Dem Nominees Senate Race In Maine; TX GOP Sen. Candidate Ken Paxton To Meet With Thune This Week; California Voters To Whittle Down Candidates In Governor's Race; Mayor Karen Bass Faces Tight Re-Election Race; Iran Suspends Talks With U.S. Over Israeli Strikes In Lebanon. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired June 01, 2026 - 12:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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WOLF BLITZER, CNN CO-ANCHOR, THE SITUATION ROOM: Ted Turner sadly died last month at the age of 87, but the mission of CNN continues right here in the Situation Room, as well as across the entire network. And let us say together, Happy Birthday CNN. And thanks very much for joining us this morning.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR, THE SITUATION ROOM: Inside Politics with our friend and colleague, Dana Bash, starts right now.

DANA BASH, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: Could one candidate's personal drama cost Democrats the Senate, or are we living in a scandal-be- damned political era?

I'm Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines at Inside Politics.

Democrats today are once again wrestling with what to do about Graham Platner, the populist fire brand challenging Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins in a must-win race for Senate control. At issue now are multiple news reports that Platner's wife, Amy Gertner, told a campaign aide last year that her husband sent sexually explicit messages to other women early in their marriage. They were married just in 2023. Both Platner and his wife went into damage control mode. Platner called it gossip, journalistic malpractice, and a distraction.

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GRAHAM PLATNER (D), MAINE SENATE CANDIDATE: It's no surprise to me that the establishment media outlets are just going to run gossip instead of wanting to talk about the things that actually matter in this race, which are the material realities that the Mainers are working with.

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BASH: And in a statement provided to CNN, Gertner, who you just saw there. She's Platner's wife, said she felt deeply hurt and betrayed by the former campaign aide who spoke to news outlets about the messages. But the question now for Democrats is bigger than sexting, because this isn't Platner's first controversy and he's repeatedly said there will be no more scandal.

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MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Are there other skeletons from your past that still may emerge in this race?

PLATNER: No. My life is not very complicated, and there -- no, there is not anything else coming.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: That was January, now we're June 1. And I'm joined by a terrific group of reporters, including Manu Raju, who asked that question, which didn't age so well of Graham Platner.

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Not so much. And look, this underscores the real concern that Democratic leaders had going in to this race. They were worried about this novice, untested candidate, and why they -- Chuck Schumer, went be -- went and recruited Janet Mills, the governor of the state, someone who has won statewide, a Democrat they believed could win over more moderate voters. And we know is -- Mills said on the campaign trail, so there's no -- I don't have any tattoos, she would often say, meaning that, you know, reference, of course, is Graham Platner's tattoo, they had Nazi imagery that he later removed.

But the question is going to be ultimately if this turns into a personality contest, and if Graham Platner can sustain what is certain to be millions and millions of dollars of paid attack ads against him. He has not faced that really yet. Janet Mills did not have the money to launch that paid attack --

BASH: Which is why she dropped out.

RAJU: What if she couldn't get enthusiasm. She was struggling to campaign trail. She didn't have money, and Republicans have just started that campaign, those attack ads on air. Can he withstand that? That's going to be the big question for Democrats, and why they're so concerned about more controversies like this.

BASH: So, Platner not only said that to you in January, he talked to Lulu Garcia-Navarro at the New York Times much more recently.

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PLATNER: I certainly went through my struggles and which I'm sure we'll talk about. But I also know for a fact that, like, I've never been close to money, I've never been close to power. I don't think anything I've ever done has been outside of the realm of like what people do when they struggle.

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BASH: Dasha, there is a whole conversation going on nationally, but most importantly for this race in the state of Maine, particularly among women, and John King did a terrific piece, which we had on the show on Friday about the struggle that progressive women say that they're having on whether or not to support him, because they do have a sort of playing the long game and thinking about Democrats taking over the Senate.

Among the people he was talking to, a Substack piece was kind of going around these text chains, and it's written by a woman named Stephanie Brock, and the Substack is entitled, Platner: You couldn't script this. Except, yes, you could.

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I'm just going to read part of this lengthy Substack, which was fascinating. It's about a pattern of behavior that every woman who has ever dealt with an emotionally immature man recognizes instantly. Nothing is ever addressed until it's exposed. Then it's minimized. Then there's a story. Then there's a reinvention. Then there's a new audience offering new validation. I want to name what it actually is, because I think we've been too polite about it. It's toxic.

DASHA BURNS, HOST, "THE CONVERSATION" PODCAST: Look, I think so much about the story actually underscores for me how much we are living in the Trump era of politics. These women are pointing out a pattern that we have seen over and over again in the last decade with people as -- with as much power as the president. And yet, here we are still, and I think Graham Platner, in the sound bite you just played, blaming the media, saying it's the fault of journalists who are covering this -- it's being overplayed is using the Trump playbook.

In response to this, there's not apologies. There's not a consideration of dropping out. I think Democrats have also started to shift to see -- wait a minute, Republicans aren't shying away from this stuff. They're not scurrying away to the corner when something like this happens. And so, you know, maybe why should we? And Platner is by no means a traditional Democrat. He's not from the establishment, and I think he's handling this in that way. For better or for worse, this is the era of politics we're living in.

BASH: That's exactly right, and that is really one of the key things that we all need to keep in mind. And I've been thinking about this since the story broke over the weekend, that it's not just this singular candidate trying to play the Trump playbook, it's the whole Democratic Party trying to figure out now, after 10 years, how they try to kind of sort of balance an imperfect candidate with the need to win.

Listen to my conversation with Senator Andy Kim about that.

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SEN. ANDY KIM (D-NJ): The character and the transparency about the different candidates is going to come out. That's part of a campaign. And the voters will decide what it is that they ultimately think in terms of their ability to trust those candidates.

BASH: What do you think?

KIM: Well, look, right now, for me, like I have not met him. I've never talked to him yet. But what I am -- what I do hear from people in New Jersey around the country is that they don't trust this U.S. Senate right now.

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EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: This is a question of theatrics and tactics. It's also a question of the positions that Graham Platner has, which he has expressed on trail and made him very popular among a large number of Maine voters. Obviously, his campaign is doing well. But he keeps talking about all of these things that happened at the Reddit post, the Nazi tattoo, these texts to women as saying, like, that was then, I'm not like that anymore.

Some of these things were three or four years ago, not that distant past. And he's running for a six-year term. One of the things that's on a lot of minds of Democrats -- Democratic officials, Democratic operatives, Democratic voters is the example of John Fetterman, who was elected in 2022 with a certain set of positions people thought he had, and now has been acting in the minds of many more like a Republican.

And so, when they're looking at Platner, it's not just how he is to women and how he treats the media. But it is -- the things that he's saying now, what is he going to stand for if he were to be in the Senate and if he's elected this year through 2032 and maybe beyond.

BASH: On the other side of the aisle, Republicans have a new candidate that they are going to have to figure out how to deal with, and that is Ken Paxton in Texas. Listen to his conversation with Maria Bartiromo on Sunday.

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MARIA BARTIROMO, FOX NEWS HOST, MORNINGS WITH MARIA: Well, what are you going to do about your own -- your own record and your own perception? The Wall Street Journal describes you as scandal plagued.

KEN PAXTON (R) TEXAS SENATE CANDIDATE: Look, that was all pushed by Karl Rove, and I understand how that works. And I get why -- why they said that, but the reality is they could say the same thing about Donald Trump.

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BASH: I mean, it's also his ex-wife, who happens to also be an elected official in Texas. What are you hearing from your Republican Senate sources about what they're going to do about it?

RAJU: I mean, the big question is, how much money are the Republicans -- the Republican leadership specifically going to spend to save John -- Ken Paxton, because they had planned, or they made the case to Trump, they had pleaded with Trump not to get behind Paxton because they were concerned it could cost hundreds of millions of dollars to prop him up, because of all those controversies he has from the past. And there is a hope, a demand in some cases that Trump's operation, MAGA Inc, which has not really dipped into much of its gigantic war chest here in the midterms to pay for what will be a massive investment to get Ken Paxton over the finish line.

So, the big question for Republican leaders, will they have to come in and add some more money? Will they decide this is Trump's problem? Let's deal with it, because obviously, if they lose Texas, that makes their chances of holding on the majority so much harder. So that's a tricky calculation because it is so expensive in Texas.

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BURNS: Yeah. One Republican senior operative called me after the Trump endorsement and said, you break it, you buy it. They are furious that there's going to have to be this resource funnel into Texas now, when there are so many other races they're concerned about. Look, Ken Paxton is not only climbing uphill with his own baggage. I mean, Republicans have a ton of headwinds that they have to deal with.

The thing that I'm hearing that is the lever they're going to pull the most is simply attack, attack, attack. The economy is not doing great. There's not a lot they can run on that the White House is being very helpful with. What they can do, and what, you know, James Blair and the White House political operation is very good at is going after their opponents, and you can already see that in Texas with the way they're dealing with Talarico.

DOVERE: And you can see Talarico, a lot of Democratic operatives have sworn off investing him in a big way, but he is raising money on his own through his grassroots stuff. And it's a question of whether Paxton can keep up with that if he is not bailed out by the Trump funds or anything else.

RAJU: And that's exciting, Democratic leaders have not said how much they would spend to help Talarico as well.

BASH: Yeah. All right, everybody, stand by. We are on the campaign trail in California, where two of the most watched primaries in the country are being held tomorrow. Will a Republican be in the governor's runoff, and will a former reality star be a step closer to running one of America's largest cities? Stay with us.

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BASH: It's the final day of campaigning in California before voters choose candidates for two really consequential races. California governor and the successor to term-limited Gavin Newsom, and also the mayor of America's second largest city, Los Angeles.

CNN's Elex Michaelson is in California and is following both races, has done so from the beginning. You're on the campaign trail now, Elex, in San Pedro, that's the neighborhood that you're in L.A. Karen Bass, who is the L.A. mayor who wants to remain the L.A. mayor is campaigning there for re-election.

I do, though, want to start with questions about the statewide race, and of course, that is for governor. There's so many candidates on the ballot, but if polls are any indication, it now seems as though, the question is, which of maybe three candidates will make the runoff. Democrats Xavier Becerra and Tom Steyer, Republican Steve Hilton. What are you hearing?

ELEX MICHAELSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT & ANCHOR, " THE STORY IS WITH ELEX MICHAELSON": Well, and I think there's polling to indicate that it could be any of those three, although most polls seem to suggest that Xavier Becerra probably has a spot in the top two, and so there's a real competition now between Tom Steyer and Steve Hilton. You know, for months there was this theory that there could be two Republicans in the top two and lock out the Democrats. Now there's a very real possibility that there's two Democrats in the top two locking out a Republican.

Steve Hilton, who is a former Fox News host, came on with me on our show. The story is last week. And I asked him about that possibility. Take a listen.

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STEVE HILTON (R), CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR CANDIDATE: I think the most likely scenario, looking at the polls across the board is myself and Xavier Becerra. But as you mentioned, Tom Steyer is moving up. He's got a lot of money to spend. And so, I think it's incredibly important right now for everyone who wants change in California, not just Republicans, Democrats, Independents, to understand that we've got to get the only change candidate with the realistic possibility of getting in the top two is me.

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MICHAELSON: Now, the other high-profile Republican on the ballot is Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco. Hilton now directly reaching out to Bianco supporters with a message saying essentially, he can't win, so you need to back me, or else we're going to get locked out of the top two, Dana.

BASH: So, that's the horse race and the personalities. What are you hearing from voters? What is really driving their decisions?

MICHAELSON: Well, I think for a lot of Democrats they have been disappointed with the field, which is part of the reason that they have held off in voting. We had a situation, you know, we voted for about a month in California, where Democrats have been holding on to their ballots until the very last minute, until the last weekend.

Only in the last few days have we seen Democrat turnout start to surge when people are saying, OK, I guess these are our choices, we're going to have to make a decision one way or another. We actually saw a lot of Republicans turning in their ballots earlier than Democrats this time around, which is not usually the case when it comes to absentee or mail-in voting.

BASH: That's really interesting. It certainly isn't. People are maybe frozen in what to do on the Democratic side. Let's talk about where you are at a Karen Bass event. She is the sitting mayor. She has two main challengers, one from the left, Nithya Raman, one from the right, Republican Spencer Pratt. What theme is standing out in those campaigns?

MICHAELSON: Well, all of them are trying to make the argument that they are the agent of change because people are clearly dissatisfied with the status quo in Los Angeles. Bass is trying to make the argument that, because she now knows the system better, she can change it from within. Raman is making the argument that Bass couldn't make the changes, but I'm a Democrat, like you, and so I'm going to get there faster, and Pratt is making the argument we've got to blow up the system. The system is clearly not working. We've given them the chance, and so we got to do something radically different.

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Remember, here in terms of the Los Angeles mayoral primary, there is no partisan identification on the ballot. It doesn't say Republican, it doesn't say Democrat, but yet, a lot of voters know that Spencer Pratt is a Republican in a city with 13 percent Republican registration. I talked to Pratt about that recently. Take a listen.

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SPENCER PRATT, LOS ANGELES MAYORAL CANDIDATE: Everyone that supports me is a Democrat, period. Every meeting I go to, all the groups of -- when they say, oh, they're going to put the Democratic machine against sort of -- they should find out that machine's actually meeting with me for brunch, for lunch, for dinner.

MICHAELSON: Why are you a Republican?

PRATT: Well, you want to break some news here.

MICHAELSON: Sure.

PRATT: It's in my, you know, I've told this before, and this is the only time I've ever said this. So, this is breaking news. Everyone's going to freak out. When I was a hated reality star, I got so many death threats. I had so much security and police, and what did they tell me to do? Get a gun. This is real. I know people don't like guns, but L.A. was dangerous if you're hated. So, I got a gun, my wife got a gun, and then we needed CCWs. The only people that supported a CCW was the Republican.

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MICHAELSON: It's interesting that Bass, on this final day of campaigning, has a bunch of events scheduled, Raman has a bunch of events scheduled. Spencer Pratt doesn't have any public events scheduled. We're told that he's going to be doing interviews. We hope we'll get an opportunity to talk to him. We'll be talking to the other two over the course of this day, but very different strategies. As Spencer Pratt has really leaned into social media and TV and interviews, and not necessarily the traditional campaigning that we've seen before, Dana.

BASH: Reality star who knows how to go viral? That is definitely what we're seeing there. Those were great interviews. Thanks for bringing them to us and giving us an update on all things California. We'll be talking soon, Elex.

MICHAELSON: Thanks.

BASH: And up next, Iran is reportedly suspending talks with the U.S., sending oil prices soaring even higher. What will that mean for voters' pocketbooks with the midterms looming. Stay with us.

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BASH: Iran says it's suspending talks with the U.S., blaming ongoing Israeli strikes in Lebanon, despite a ceasefire. Iran's announcement comes after President Trump requested changes to a proposed short-term agreement that would have reopened the Strait of Hormuz. It also comes after the U.S. and Iran exchanged strikes overnight. Now, oil prices are spiking dramatically as investors lose hope that a deal to end the war is imminent. Brett crude -- Brent crude, rather, is up almost 7 percent.

My panel is back now. Dasha, what are you hearing from your sources in the White House about this? And most importantly, for this conversation about how worried they are about the effect on people's pocketbooks and then ultimately the polls?

BURNS: I mean, look, the people around the president understand how damaging this is for Americans and for Republicans politically, but President Trump is not in that same head space. He told his daughter- in-law, Lara Trump, in an interview recently that he is in no hurry here, and this is really a legacy play for him. This is something that he has his eyes set on, and he's not letting some of these domestic issues deter him.

BASH: And I just want to listen to some of the ways that his top advisors are sort of explaining the current state of things economically and how Americans feel. First, let's listen to the Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, over the weekend.

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SCOTT BESSENT, TREASURY SECRETARY: Gasoline prices are down, I think about 5 percent now, and they will go back down. And again, that we understand that they -- that there is a disturbance here, that it's uncomfortable for people, but we're going to get to the other side of that.

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BASH: And then there's one of the president's top economic advisors, Kevin Hassett, and the question that he was asked was about a 15-year high in credit card delinquencies.

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KEVIN HASSETT, WHITE HOUSE NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL DIRECTOR: There's not any kind of threat -- financial threat to the credit card companies that they don't feel like they're heading towards default scenarios. One of the reasons is that people are spending more on gas, but they're also spending more on everything else, not just groceries, but restaurants, and so on. And I think that that's a sign that you would see when people are optimistic about the future.

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BASH: Let me just translate that. I'm sure people got it, but so the question was about credit card delinquencies. His answer was about a threat to credit card companies, not about the people who have to put so much on their credit cards in order to survive. And then he talked about the fact that it's effectively good news that people are spending so much, because it says something nice about the economy. I can see in some scenarios that that is an understandable argument, but people are spending a lot because it costs a lot more.

DOVERE: Right. Because to buy the same things that they were buying six months ago, a year ago, three years ago, however far you want to go back, costs more money now.

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