Platner calls Fetterman an A-hole

Maine Democratic Senate candidate calls Fetterman a profanity at town hall as party infighting escalates

Graham Platner, the progressive Democrat in Maine's Senate primary, stood before supporters in Portland on Sunday night and called Sen. John Fetterman "an a**hole", out loud, on camera, two days before voters headed to the polls.

The remark, delivered in response to a supporter's question about whom Platner would work with in Washington if elected, captured the raw state of a Democratic Party increasingly at war with itself. Platner wasn't talking about a Republican. He was talking about a fellow Democrat, one who has spent recent weeks publicly challenging Platner's fitness for office.

The exchange is the latest in a feud that has grown personal, profane, and impossible for Democratic leaders to ignore.

What Platner said, and why--

At the town hall in southern Maine, a supporter asked Platner which senators he looked forward to working with in Washington. Platner framed the Senate as a place built on relationships and said he didn't want to go to the capital and "simply be nonfunctional."

Then he went further.

"I mean, as you can all probably tell, we got a lot of criticisms about the way this government functions. But in order for us to make it functional, we're going to have to do stuff. And you can't just go down there and be John Fetterman and just and just kind of just sort of be an a**hole."

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