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Graham Platner’s wife Amy Gertner came to the defense of her husband’s Senate campaign on Saturday, but X’s reaction to the five-minute video smacks of damage control that didn’t counter recent allegations against the Maine Democrat.
“So it makes me very angry, disappointed, and I find it really shameful that there is a group of media outlets and people who are willing to spread gossip, instead of talking about the real issues that Graham is facing – like health care and education and child care,” Gertner said a few hours after the Wall Street Journal reported that Platner had sent sexual messages with several women after he and Gertner were married.
“Getting married is hard. Getting married and not having children is hard. Getting married, not being able to have children, and running for the Senate is hard.”
The wife who spoke up for her husband after the allegations against him – not the candidate – was caught by critics and social media users in response to the video.
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Senator Graham Platner is under fire, but it was his wife Amy Gertner who came out with a five-minute social media interview on the campaign trail denouncing the ‘attack’ while not denying allegations of infidelity in the new marriage. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
“Graham Platner admitted that he sent sexually graphic messages to more than a dozen women and had an account on the child exploitation app ‘predator paradise’, then asked his wife – the victim of his deviant behavior – to protect him,” National Republican Senatorial Committee press secretary Samantha Cantrell told Fox News Digital on Sunday.
Fox News Digital reached out to Platner’s campaign for comment but did not immediately respond.
“Looks and sounds like a hostage video,” one X user responded to the video. “blink twice if you need to be rescued, Amy.”
The controversy comes as Platner, a progressive oyster farmer and military veteran running to unseat Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who received support from national Democrats, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., once praised him, saying, “That’s my kind of man.”
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Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., called Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner her ‘type of man,’ a statement that drew criticism after allegations of infidelity surfaced. (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images; Sophie Park/Getty Images)
“I don’t know if I have the right words to describe what we’ve been through, but our marriage counselor is helping, my personal counselor is helping, Graham’s counselor is helping, and we’re working on our mental health every day,” Gertner added.
“No marriage is perfect, and I don’t want a perfect marriage. I want my marriage, and I want to marry Graham.”
But X users condemned the use of the wife to defend the Senate campaign.
“It’s not your wife’s job to defend your infidelity,” writes writer Emily Zanotti in X.
“The big problem here is that this story only covers what’s out there: the possible dozens of emails, text messages, and videos that Platner sent to who knows how many women, which the campaign is now praying is close to being leaked,” he added in another post.
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Another X user, who called himself 2028 Kamala Harris as vice president, criticized the fact the campaign “forced his wife to make a hostage video,” urging “Amy, please contact .@MEStatePolice so they can remove his guns from your home.”
“Shame on Graham for putting him in this position,” wrote another poster on X.
Despite the blowback, Gertner insisted they had a “great marriage.”
But critics noted that the video did little to address the allegations surrounding the Democratic Senate hopeful, particularly regarding the admission of mental health issues and infidelity in the new marriage.
“I have incredible compassion for the woman who just had a miscarriage who had to make a video defending her husband’s infidelity,” Moms Demand Action founder Shannon Watts wrote on X. “But a man who was injured in the war – according to him and his family – so much so that he said and did hurtful things for decades needs to recover, not run for the Senate.”
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Gertner’s video statement confirmed the mental health questions and did not deny the report.
“I knew the man I married was amazing and strong and maybe smart,” Gertner said. “I knew the man I married had been through a violent war. He’s had years of treatment. I just love how he came out.
“So if there are headlines about our marriage, it’s just sh—-. Can I say that on the Internet? I hope I can.”
Earlier on Saturday, Plattner’s campaign confirmed a controversial text exchange with Politico following a report from the Wall Street Journal that a former campaign aide seeking to advance the opposition’s investigation had leaked scandalous allegations.
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“They’re trying to make this woman a scapegoat when it’s clear she’s a coal miner,” Watts added in another X post, sharing a Facebook message from alleged caller Genevieve McDonald, who admonished those defending Platner’s campaign: “We’re not going to be this painfully stupid.”
“So I guess I’m angry today, and I don’t often make public statements, but it’s very important that I tell all of you out there — especially the voting public in Maine — that I think it’s disgraceful behavior to waste time and energy and resources on bad ads and bad news for Graham when he’s trying to improve the lives of working people,” Gertner said.
The irony of admonishing the “attack” was not lost on critics.
“Have you read your husband’s campaign attacks, press releases and X posts?” Former Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell wrote on X, responding to the campaign video post. “You think you all get a free ride to brutally attack others and not criticize yourself?”
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“Put on your big girl pants – you’re running for one of 100 Senate seats,” she added.
Among the “attack” posts noted by Grenell was one from Platner’s same account for Campaign X earlier in the day.
“Susan Collins is irrational and corrupt,” the campaign text read. “And in 157 days, we will defeat him.”
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Among her reactions to Gertner’s video was shock that the alleged infidelity in their marriage happened so soon after she admitted she “got married in 2023.”
Also, critics noted the scripted and repeated video of the reaction in which he admitted “this is like my 20 takes.”
Following the withdrawal of Maine Democrat Gov. Janet Mills from the primary, Platner was presumptively nominated by her party in the Maine Senate race ahead of the June 9 primary.
Rep. Jake Auchincloss, D-Mass., is the most prominent Democrat to publicly push back, calling Platner’s Nazi-linked tattoo (Totenkopf/SS Death’s Head) “inappropriate” and urging Maine voters to reject him.
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Collins is in the seat at stake in the closely held Republican Senate 53-47, having served for 29 years since Jan. 3, 1997. Democrats have long targeted Collins for a Senate seat, largely because of his checkered voting past that has historically not been a rubber stamp for President Donald Trump’s agenda.
