How Amy Gertner's 20-Take Video Out-Performed Graham Platner's Own Response

Why Confessing Kills Blackmail

Molly McPherson 0:00

You can't blackmail someone who confesses first. Right? So think about that as we talk about the crisis response of Graham Plattiner. He's the Democratic candidate right now trying to unseat Republican Susan Collins in the state of Maine. Graham Plattner has become a national story, not just because the Democratic Party, the machine, is not behind him, but because this is a guy who has a Reddit problem. In other words, Reddit keeps coming back to haunt him. For many candidates, Reddit would be kryptonite, but not for Platner. Except over the weekend, Platner had to deal with an old story that popped up on Reddit months ago. I saw it on Reddit, and I was a little surprised that it was not out. And I was wondering when it was going to come out, and it came out over the weekend. Private mistakes, texts with other women while married, appear in a story for the Wall Street Journal. The Wall Street Journal gets firsthand information from a former campaign worker from his staff. We'll get back to her in a moment. Gets picked up in the New York Times and frankly gets picked up everywhere. And it's still a story at the time of this recording on Tuesday, June 2nd. Now, I cover stories like this for a living. Not the scandal per se, but how the scandal reveals a response. And I've covered Platinum before, specifically when Governor Janet Mills of Maine, who at the time was also running to become the Democratic candidate. You remember Janet Mills, she's the one who stood up to Trump in his, I believe, the previous ballroom when he threatened to take her to court. And she said, essentially, come at me. He took that popularity to try and unseat Collins. She ran up against the Plattner machine because a lot of things that Graham Platner has been doing from a response point of view has worked very well. Where Reddit should be kryptonite for any other candidate with what has been uncovered with Graham Plattner's past. His playbook has been a very powerful one because it matches his communication style, which is very authentic, direct to the main voter type of style. It's resonating with a lot of people. And it shouldn't be of surprise that he has the same digital team that brought New York mayor Mamdhami to his position as well. But it's not just the PR and the social media behind him. This is who Graham Plattner is. And he's gotten away with it until this weekend. So let's talk about it. So there's a lot in the news about Graham Plattner anyway. This morning I was listening to MPR. They did a follow-up story because they interviewed him, an in-depth interview where they spoke about his character the day before this revelation about texting with women during his marriage, early in his marriage, came to light. Now, you don't have to be a main voter to find this story interesting because it is an old style sex scandal. Thank President Clinton. Thank Senator John Edwards. Think a million times over. We could talk about a lot of people. But this one has a digital age twist to it. Specifically, it's the digital that's creating the scandal, but also the digital, which is part of the response. So I want to look at this from a breakdown point of view, not a takedown, but a breakdown of what is happening within this crisis response. Because I think there's a lot to learn here. Because this is not a perfect response. Grant Plattner has done an amazing job responding to a lot of the landmines that have happened in his campaign, the Nazi tattoos, what he said about women in the past, all brought up again on Reddit. But the Plattner playbook mirrors the Plattner campaign style, which is very direct, very progressive, very straight to the voter. Except this time, he changed the place.

How The Story Reaches Mainstream Press

Molly McPherson 4:33

So, first, how did we get here? So we have Platner. Many of you already know the story of Plattner, marine combat vet. He is an oyster farmer, he's a populist, he is a political novice. But in his past, he's always been a bit of a radical. In his high school yearbook, there was an reporter from the main monitor who went to school with him who brought to light his class superlative that he would be one of the member of the high school class that would be the first to start a revolution. He marries Amy Gertner in 2023. I believe she's a teacher, if I remember the stories correctly. But early in their marriage, Amy finds texts with other women. And these texts did show up on Reddit because I did see them on Reddit a couple of months ago. So they do the couple thing. They go to therapy, they talk about it as a couple, they have the hard conversations, but they stay together. Then the campaign takes off. Internal vetting happens in last August, right before his big rally with Bernie Sanders from Vermont. Amy tells a senior official about the techs, and she has concerns about those texts getting out. That official was Genevieve McDonald. So she's the political director of the campaign at the time. She has history in Maine. She was a state senator, I believe. She also was a lobster woman. She's worked on a campaign in the past to make more gear that fit women. And she now works as a lobbyist in Maine. So you can imagine that there is definitely some dialogue online on Reddit where people have opinions about her. But at the time, the campaign's call was this: it's private, it's handled, it's not disqualifying. They move on from it. They don't want to make it a deal. But as I mentioned in the beginning, I saw these posts on Reddit and I was waiting and watching. When does this hit the mainstream? Because it has to. You can't suppress this for that long. And if I'm being honest, I'm surprised it was suppressed as long as it was. But Genevieve McDonald leaves the campaign in October, the same time the Reddit post about the Nazi tattoos comes out. And her take for leaving was really about judging Platner as a character candidate. And she did not align with the character. But then last weekend, the text that Amy shared, Amy Graham Plattner's wife, shared with McDonald's, appears in the Wall Street Journal. And then it lands

The Real Trigger Is Broken Trust

Molly McPherson 7:23

everywhere. So the inciting incident isn't the sexting itself, it's the broken confidence. That's not brought up in a lot of the stories, but people may notice it. But in the mainstream press, it's really about Graham Plattner and Graham Plattner as the candidate. But let's look at it. It's the wife trusting someone, and then someone went public. Does this sound familiar? So the betrayals happened many different times in political sex scandals out there. But the one that just comes straight to mind when this story happened for me was Linda Tripp. That may not be a name that's familiar with some people, but for many in a certain generation, people who were around are of voting age during President Clinton era. Linda Tripp was the woman who was tied into the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Many people know Monica Lewinsky now because she was able to build her brand around the fragments of her reputation after her reputation was imploded during the scandal. It was at a time where everyone blamed Monica Lewinsky. And that was a part of the playbook from the Democratic Clinton point of view. It was to attack the right wing, the vast right wing Republican majority back then. And it was also to diminish her and to label her as the problem because we couldn't make it about the president. We had to label an intern as the problem. So she's built this amazing brand from the wreckage of when that happened. So Monica Lewinsky, as this affair was happening, told her co-worker, so a much older woman, a mom, they worked together in the Pentagon because Monica Lewinsky was sent to the equivalent of the government Siberia by going to the Pentagon from the White House to the Pentagon, where she worked with Linda Tripp. And Tripp started baiting her to get more of this story out. And then she secretly recorded Monica Lewinsky while encouraging Monica Lewinsky through the relationship, also trying to room the relationship that they were best buddies, like trusted buddies. But in the end, Tripp betrayed Monica Lewinsky. She revealed the affair by handing the tapes over to a prosecutor. There was also a book editor involved. It's messy, but definitely go back, re-watch any of the documentaries about it. But Tripp's lifelong defense, she's also the late Linda Tripp. She's since passed away. She was always the whistleblower. She was the one that needed to bring this to light because the public needed to know. However, history did not label her as such. She was not the truth teller. She was the villain. And the reason why she's labeled as villain is because she betrayed Monica Lewinsky. Betrayal runs so deep in our culture. It's the reason why we have cancel culture. It's the reason why I have the crisis management career that I have, because I work in the business of betrayal. Because I know so many of these crises begin with betrayal, which is exactly where the Grand Platiner story or crisis begins. Now, in fairness, it begins with his character and what he did. But when it becomes public or when the public piece starts, it starts with the betrayal. So let's look at the pattern here. Because the public doesn't just judge the act, it also judges the telling of the act. And that's typically how it's looked upon. The person who breaks the confidence often uh pays the steeper price than the person whose secret got told. In today's uh culture and narrative, that's not necessarily the case, and particularly with Platiner, because Platiner is not just running the opposition from Collins' team, the Republicans. In a sense, like Collins can just do this with the response because he's running against his own Democratic Party who wanted to see him gone as well. So I don't want to litigate McDonald's character here, but that's what Reddit's for. And Reddit is doing the job. And or if you look at any uh commentary or chats in the press in Maine or anything political in Maine, a lot of people have very strong opinions about McDonald. So she is definitely going to have her critics out there. It doesn't matter what the reason is, but the moment that you're the person who breaks a confidence, the story becomes partly about you. And even if the general national public isn't talking about Genevieve McDonald, because certainly that's not the above the fold of the story, but it's a part of the story. And why it is, it's because it's part of the response. And it's the best part of the response, if you ask me, because it's what Amy Gertner, Graham Plattner's wife, did with that information. Now, the framing here is that I don't think people are interested in McDonald's at all, but there is an interest in what she

Amy’s Video Response Goes Live

Molly McPherson 12:59

did. Amy Gertner posted this video to X.

SPEAKER_03 13:04

Hey everyone, it's Amy. Um, I wanted to make a statement today, and oh, sorry, I'm getting eaten by bugs. Um, I wanted to make a statement today in response to a couple of news articles that are out there about my marriage to Graham. Um, if anybody knows me and Graham personally, you know that we got married in 2023. Um, we live in Sullivan, we've got two dogs, and we love each other deeply. So it makes me really angry, um, disappointed, and I find it really shameful that there's a group of media outlets and people who are willing to spread gossip um instead of talking about real issues that Graham is is running on, like health care and education and child care. Um I'm walking up and down my road right now, and this is like my 20th take. This is very hard to do. But um I just really wanted to make sure that everyone knows that Graham and I have a great marriage. Um being married is hard. Being newly married is hard. Being newly married and going through infertility is hard. Being newly married, going through infertility, and a Senate campaign is is hard. Um I don't even know if I have the right words to describe what we've been going through, but um our marriage counselor helps, uh, my personal counselor helps, Graham's personal counselor helps, um, and we work on our mental health every day. Um no marriage is perfect, and I I don't want a perfect marriage, I want my marriage, and I want to be married to Graham. Sorry, Black List. Um I knew the man that I married is wonderful and dynamic and probably a genius. Um I knew the man that I married had been through an immense amount of violent active combat. And um, he's been in therapy for years. I just I admire the fuck out of him. Um so when there are news articles about our marriage, it's just extra shitty. Can I say that online? I hope I can. Um it's extra shitty because people in Maine want affordable gas. They want to be able to see their doctor when they're sick. Um, they want to be able to send like their kids to a nice school, uh, a nice daycare facility, um, and raise families the way that they want to. So I think I'm feeling angry today. Um and I don't normally make public statements, but it's really important for me to tell all of you out there, especially people who are voting in Maine, that I think it's shameful behavior to spend time and energy and resources on negative ads and negative stories on RAM when all he's trying to do is improve the lives of people who work for a living. Um, and and that's it. He doesn't have any other agenda, which is what I think people are trying to dig up. Um and this is a long video, so uh I hope my editing team isn't too frustrated with me. Um I hope that everyone's having a good Saturday. Graham and I really care about the state of Maine. We really love it. We we were born and raised here, and I think we deserve better. I think Mayners deserve better. And I don't know what else to say. So if you're editing this video, I'm really sorry. Thanks for watching.

Molly McPherson 18:01

So notice there's no hiding, there's no lawyered statement here. She's just walking in the backwoods of Maine and she's swatting at flies. It very much matches the optics of Graham Platner and how he's been running his campaign. Very raw, very authentic, very direct to camera, direct to Maine voter. But she's also speaking like a wife and someone who's a bit of a novice on social media. She said, This is my 20th take. I'm gonna hand this over to the social media team because that means I don't know what I'm doing here. But what I know what I'm doing here is I am supporting my husband, Graham Plattiner. And here's why. What she did not do is mention the text, not once. She redirected to the strength, the character. She talked about him as a vet. She talked about their therapy, she talked about the man she chose and why. Separately, she names the betrayal. So she puts the two together. I stand by the man as someone who I trusted did not stand by me and betrayed me. There is where trust builds. This is very native to 2026. It may not be her instinct, but she pulled it off. But it is definitely Graham Plattiner's instinct to be very raw and very real.

When Graham Drops His Own Playbook

Molly McPherson 19:26

But here's the catch. Just when his wife nails the playbook, Plattiner abandons it. This has been a part of his entire brand. I did a whole post about it. The Platinum Playbook is my playbook. It mirrors my indestructible PR framework. Own it, explain it, promise it. Grant Plattiner has been doing that to the letter until now. Why?

SPEAKER_01 19:54

He even did it in the NPR interview that aired right before all this broke. You talk about the culture of attacking right now. I mean, those who are criticizing you are going after your history, right? Online. Reddit posts that have been deleted, but did say racist things, did blame the victim for sexual assault, and then you yourself revealed a tattoo on oh, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 20:20

Well, I was just saying we have talked about the Reddit post since October.

SPEAKER_01 20:23

Right.

SPEAKER_00 20:24

Everybody in Maine knows about that.

SPEAKER_01 20:25

And they've also come up at pretty much all your town halls, right? Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:28

I talk about it and I talk about it very publicly.

SPEAKER_01 20:31

I'm curious why you think voters chose to either forgive you for those posts or look the other way.

SPEAKER_00 20:38

Well, I think it's mostly forgiveness. Because when I explained it, I just pointed out that look, I've not always been who I am today. I grew up in the infantry. Things that are seen as virtues there are generally not seen as virtues in the normal world. And then I had to struggle with how do I come out of that and integrate back into society. And I think a lot of people recognize that the ability to transform, the ability to change, is kind of just a normal human trait. I mean, I don't think there are a lot of Americans that want the world to think that everything they ever said when they were 25 is who they are forever. And I don't think anybody believes that's how people work. So that's why. You know, we don't really talk about it much here in Maine anymore. The only time it ever comes up is when journalists come in from the outside or when I leave Maine. Then people want to talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 21:27

But it also still comes up with your own party. I mean, just a few days ago, Congressman Jake Oschenklas said the tattoo that was once on your chest that you've now covered up that resembles a Nazi SS symbol should be disqualifying. And he wants Maine voters to agree with him, meaning not choose you.

SPEAKER_00 21:45

Right. So I guess he wants to choose Susan Collins. Interesting choice for a Democrat. One, Jake Oschenklas lives in Massachusetts, Massachusetts. So I'm not gonna I'm not actually all that worried about what he thinks. Uh also, what's disqualifying from? The record is the fact that Susan Collins has not represented the people of Maine. The fact that we are seeing our healthcare system collapse in the state, that's disqualifying. It's very clear that here in the state of Maine, the voters really do understand that I am who I claim to be. I'm a very real person, warts and all. If people in the Democratic Party in other states don't like me, that's not really my problem.

Molly McPherson 22:29

He doesn't deny, he doesn't hide, he explains, he stays in the room taking the questions, answering the questions. That's what accountability looks like. That's strength. In my business, this is what I say to my clients when I'm asking them to take accountability. It takes a strong leader to admit a weakness. It's the leaders who can't admit a weakness that become weaker. That's also the Platinum playbook. But right when it matters, he dropped his own playbook. And it's disappointing. And I bet it's disappointing to a lot of voters, but it's also surprising for a playbook that works so well for him. Really, as far as a political candidate goes, I would say he was one of the best ones to utilize it. I can't think of anyone better at the moment. So here we have Platner dropping the playbook and his wife picking it up and running with it. But they should have both been working from the same playbook. His response should have mirrored Amy's response. Amy's response was mirroring the response up until that point. Her entire response was about the partnership. That's what she was selling. That's what Platner should have picked up and run with. Instead, he went against

The Vrabel Warning Against Denial

Molly McPherson 23:48

it. So in my head, I'm thinking, what other story does this connect to? Yesterday I just did an interview with the national newspaper about Mike Vrabel. I've spoken about Mike Vrabel a lot. Not because I'm an obsessive Mike Vrabel fan, even though I am a fan, we are a Patriots household, but it's the crisis response to his sex scandal that I find interesting because he fumbled it right out the gate. So if we take Mike Vrabel and we take Graham Platner, what's the difference? Mike Vrabel's playbook, when he was exposed in the New York Post for having an affair, or at least at the time, being at a high-end luxury resort in Sedona, Arizona, with Diana Rossini, who's a report, NFL reporter for The Athletic prior to that ESPN, when the New York Post likely called them up, cornered them on the story, likely never told Vrabel what they had on them. Vrabel was kind of tricked into a playbook of denial. You remember, he said that it was laughable. If anyone would think this is a story, if there was anything there, that laughable comment, not only did it start his entire downfall, but it also exposed what he was trying to do, which was cover. He's essentially lying about the affair. It was covered. They both said that they were there with friends. But deeper than that, the laughable comment was the contempt. It was the contempt for the people who actually found it an interesting story. Because what he's missing and what he's trying to do is to judge people for saying, How dare you think that there's an affair here? I've mentioned this before. The Vravel story is not a pearl-clutching story where people say, an NFL coach is having an affair. Oh, no. Reasonable people would look at an NFL coach who's been married over 20 years and go, all right, textbook, not shocked. But looking at an NFL coach who's supposed to be a leader, who brought his team to the Super Bowl last year, and we find out that this guy, who we're all loving and get behind and getting behind, lied. That's what he did. He lied. And he's been trying to cover for it since because he's still not taking full accountability, which is the reason why it's still a story. The reason why Grant Plattner was able to walk away from these stories, granted, the topics are there, but it's he's not, it's not these, the Nazi tattoo, what he said to women on Reddit, it's not like he's dragging it with him on the campaign. He could set it down and walk away from it. Yes, the press can go back to it and they can mark it, but it's not something that's like a barnacle around Graham Platner. So that's why it is so surprising that he pulled out the Vrabel playbook and said that it's gossip and chastised the press for calling it a story. Oh, you follow me, you know that is the wrong take. Never, ever, ever blame the press. I have said this, oh my gosh. The blaming the press is the worst page of the playbook. As if there's any crisis response, manual for 2026, which I have right here, it is tearing that out of any playbook. Never blame the press for reporting on a story. What I've been saying for years, which doesn't quite apply anymore, sadly, in this age, never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel, which means they can print endless stories. But even worse now, they can post endless stories. And it's going to keep going on and on. Because of course the press is going to cover this story. That's their job. And we don't want to criticize an institution and journalists who do their job.

Why Blaming The Press Backfires

Molly McPherson 27:41

So now let's look at the party or the distance, specifically the distance. So he says twice that he never picked them. He's saying, I don't own this guy. This guy is not a part of what I'm dealing with right now in New Jersey. We're dealing with other issues there. The context is planter is not a favorite son. The party picked Governor Janet Mills. Congressman Barney Frank from Massachusetts, who retired to a gunkwit, Maine. Two weeks before he passed away, he was on hospice. He did an interview with the New York Times, I believe, where he heavily criticized Graham Plattner. He felt that Janet Mills, the establishment, was the establishment candidate, not Graham Plattner. And when I read it, he was saying that Plattiner is a very dangerous candidate. He was for Governor Mills. So look at how Amy Gartner, Graham Plattner's wife, is directing everything towards Graham's character, why Kim and other Democrats, because it is a Democrat playbook, is directing away. Same technique, opposite loyalty. So the framework payoff. So here's the framework payoff, indestructal PR framework. Own it, explain it, promise it. Planter ran it to the letter until now. Amy is using the playbook solo for her. That's why she comes out looking so good. He didn't need to abandon it now because now that now was the time to really double down on that playbook. Because the texts are already out there. They came out this weekend, but they were out months ago. They knew this was coming. He already ran the playbook for this problem, which was a character problem. He already did the work. So by by suddenly dropping the tactic, he now undid so much of the work. So let's contrast it to the old playbook. If anyone watched The Good Wife with Juliana Markley's, that's such a great show. But that TV show was based off of Silda Spitzer, Silda Wall, now, who stood by her husband, Elliot Spitzer. He was the governor of New York. He was brought down in an escort scandal, another juicy scandal from the past. I have these flashes that come in. Socks, client number nine. Also, Ashley Dupree. Also, Alex Earl. Go ahead and connect those dots. Fascinating, fascinating. But the old playbook is that she stood behind her husband, but did so reluctantly. If you look at her, just standing there so forlorn. She looked empty. She looked lost. She looked wounded. She looked betrayed. Now compare it to the sex scandal of right now. Mike Vrabel, Amy Vrabel, his wife for over 20 years. They both went to Ohio State together. We don't see her. We've seen paparazzi shots of her traveling in airports, but we haven't seen her. She's not standing by him, even though he just came out with a press conference where a reporter asks, How do you balance your uh home life, your public life with your job? Which was a bait to talk about what was happening. And he said, I love my wife, I love my boys, I love my family. I'm standing behind my family. But we don't see Amy necessarily standing with Mike Vrabel. That's why there's a Mike Vrabel problem. But Amy Gertner is standing behind her husband, Grant Plattner. And that is incredibly powerful. That's a playbook that works. Our culture rewards raw overpolished. Our culture rewards people who can expose weakness, people who can admit the problems and show it. It does not reward someone who labels it as gossip, which again, why he did that. And I don't know if Graham did it, or if he was pressured to do it, or someone on his campaign insisted this was the right thing to do. Whomever was behind it really doesn't matter. It was the wrong choice. And for Amy Gertner, the easy hit for her would have been why should my husband crumble over private text when there are other politicians out there doing things a lot worse and pay nothing for their sins. And I get that impulse. People always want to do that when I'm working with clients in a crisis. They want to find the other people. They want to grab onto them almost like a life buoy, but it doesn't work. The someone else's worse tactic never saves you, ever, because it's not a strategy. It's a feeling because they're feeling weakened and they feel weak in the moment, and they have to grab onto something almost like a life buoy. So they bring down someone with them. All you're doing is bringing you both down. But the person who does it, who does the grabbing, goes down a lot further faster. And Amy, who had every reason to take the shot, didn't. And that matters. It kept her on the marriage and it kept her in the state of marriage. And that's why it landed. That's why it worked. So Grant Plattner's campaign, I think we're going to see a lot more of Amy.

Own It Explain It Promise It

Molly McPherson 33:14

What can we take away from this breakdown? Most people watching this are not main voters, but there is something to glean from this. One from a professional point of view. Grant Plattner is showing us a playbook that works and a playbook that doesn't work. He abandoned the working one for one that really cuts into his character. He's buoyed now by his wife, who took the playbook that worked and used it to almost perfection because she focused on the character of her husband and also discussed the betrayal. And by doing that, she kind of left Genevieve McDonald, the person who leaked to the Wall Street Journal, out to dry. Now she has to explain herself for betraying. But there's also a life lesson in here, too. Put yourself in the shoes of an Amy. What do you do when someone hurts you? You can attack, you can go low, or you can go high. She's going high. She's taking the high road in this. And the high road works. And the adage that I bring into work with clients, but also to my kids, when they have to make a decision for something really difficult, the harder thing to do, the more difficult thing to do is usually the right thing to do. Exposing yourself in your marriage like that is tough and putting yourself on camera, but she did it. She could have sent out a statement. The statement would not have worked as well as her walking in the main woods. But now let's look at what Graham Plattiner did and think about that in your own life. What if someone doesn't take accountability and they blame something else? Graham Plattiner blamed the press and called it gossip. That doesn't work. And this is going to hold him back. Even though the polls still show him in the lead, there could be more things that come out. It could really hurt him. Right now he's still in the lead, but he doesn't quite have the momentum that he once had. He doesn't have as much people behind him, as much social, as much algorithm behind him. Instead, we're seeing reports of him showing up for a campaign event and not a lot of people in the audience cheering him on. That's what starts to happen with these types of responses. You just limp along. So the takeaway for everyone looking at this, either from a professional point of view or a personal one, is when you are faced with a story about you, the only thing that you can control is whether you face it first. If you own it first, then you are allowed to explain it first and make the promise. Everyone else and every response behind that has to follow your lead. But if you say nothing, you silence, only rely on delegates to tell your story, it's still going to follow. So we'll see what happens to Grand Platinum. So that's all for this week on the podcast, but not for Grand Platinum, because we're gonna keep watching this one.