Fetterman Blasts Bernie Sanders Over Backing Maine Candidate Accused of Rape

When a leading progressive senator is blasted for backing an accused rapist with a Nazi tattoo, it exposes how party elites protect their own until public outrage makes that impossible.

Story Snapshot

John Fetterman is publicly attacking Bernie Sanders for championing Graham Platner, a Maine Senate candidate now accused of rape.
Jenny Racicot alleges Platner entered her home drunk in 2021 and forced sex on her despite repeated objections; he strongly denies it.
Top Democrats and major groups have yanked endorsements and urged Platner to drop out, and he has suspended his campaign.
The fight over Platner shows how both parties’ elites move late and mainly to protect their own power, not voters.

Fetterman’s Attack on Sanders and the Platner Fallout

Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman is slamming Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders for promoting Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner even after disturbing warnings about his past. Sanders had been one of Platner’s earliest and strongest backers, praising him as a working-class progressive and raising money and attention for his campaign. Fetterman now says Sanders owes an apology to Maine voters and donors for helping elevate someone he calls a “predator” and a “total dirtbag,” language that has lit up conservative and liberal media alike.

Fetterman’s anger centers on the timeline. Platner had already faced questions over old online posts, sexually explicit messages, and a Nazi-style tattoo before the rape allegation became public. Despite those red flags, key national Democrats, including Sanders, Senator Elizabeth Warren, and Representative Ro Khanna, embraced Platner as a rising star and stuck with him. Only after Jenny Racicot’s detailed rape allegation aired and backlash grew did Sanders and others call for Platner to step aside, a delay Fetterman frames as proof that party leaders ignored warning signs until they became a political emergency.

The Rape Allegation and Platner’s Response

Jenny Racicot, a Maine woman who previously dated Platner, told Politico and then CNN that in late 2021 he came into her home without permission while drunk and raped her. She says she repeatedly told him to stop, described a struggle, and later cut off contact with him entirely. In a CNN interview with Jake Tapper, when asked if this was rape “by definition,” she answered “yes, absolutely.” She also noted they had consensual encounters before, but said that night was different because he ignored her objections and overpowered her.

Platner has given a categorical denial. In statements to the press, his campaign called the accusations “troubling, serious, and false” and insisted “any assertion of non-consensual conduct is entirely false.” He claims the most severe charges are politically motivated and tied to “coached and coordinated” efforts by out-of-state operatives, though he has not provided public evidence for that. No police report from 2021 has surfaced so far, and outlets like National Public Radio say they have not independently verified Racicot’s account. That leaves voters weighing one detailed accusation against a direct denial in a highly charged campaign.

Earlier Behavior, Nazi Tattoo, and Vanishing Endorsements

The rape allegation did not come in a vacuum. A prior investigation reported that several women described Platner’s behavior as unsettling and sometimes physically threatening during past relationships. One ex-girlfriend, Lyndsey Fifield, said Platner could be physically aggressive when drinking and claimed he knowingly wore a tattoo linked to Nazi symbolism, referring to it as his “Totenkopf.” Platner has admitted having a tattoo with Nazi symbolism from his time in the Marines but says he did not understand its meaning when he got it. That admission helped fuel fears that party leaders were overlooking serious character issues for a promising candidate.

Once Racicot’s account went public, the political collapse was swift. The Maine Democratic Party urged Platner to leave the race. National figures who had once hyped him, including Sanders, Warren, and Khanna, rescinded their endorsements and publicly recommended that he step aside “in light of these very serious allegations.” Campaign groups like the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and End Citizens United also backed away. Within days, Platner announced he was suspending his Senate campaign amid the storm, effectively ending a run that had once looked like a major progressive victory.

Base Support, Elite Damage Control, and a Broken System

Even with these accusations, Platner had strong backing from Democratic voters before the scandal. Reports note he won roughly seventy percent of the Maine Democratic primary vote and beat the sitting governor by a huge margin. That gap between early voter enthusiasm and later elite condemnation now fuels anger on both sides. Many conservatives see Platner as another example of Democrats preaching “believe women” while quietly boosting a man accused of abuse until they get caught. Many liberals see party leaders dragging their feet because a “star” candidate was good for fundraising and national power.

Research on American politics shows this is part of a wider pattern: many accused politicians keep their base support while party insiders treat sexual misconduct more as a public-relations problem than a moral line. In Platner’s case, national Democrats only moved hard against him after media coverage exploded and replacement deadlines loomed. Fetterman’s broad message cuts across normal partisan lines: if leaders wait to act until the headlines turn bad, they are protecting the deep state of party elites, not the people they claim to serve. For voters already convinced Washington is rigged for the powerful, this story offers one more reason to doubt that the system can police itself.