Rep. Ro Khanna went on national television Sunday and said what Democrats spent weeks avoiding: he never should have endorsed Graham Platner for the U.S. Senate in Maine. The California Democrat told NBC's "Meet the Press" he regrets backing Platner, the populist insurgent whose campaign collapsed last week under the weight of a sexual assault allegation, one that arrived after a long trail of warning signs Khanna and his party chose to ignore.
The admission matters less for its candor than for what it reveals about a political class that treats vetting as optional when a candidate checks the right ideological boxes.
Host Kristen Welker pressed Khanna directly on his record with Platner, ticking through controversies that predated the assault allegation: a tattoo resembling a Nazi symbol, online posts blaming survivors of sexual assault, and New York Times reporting that detailed allegations from ex-girlfriends describing emotional abuse and aggressive behavior. Welker asked why none of those earlier red flags had been a breaking point.
Khanna's answer, as reported by Fox News Digital, was blunt, up to a point:
"For me, the line always was sexual assault or sexual violence, and as soon as that came out, I was the first person to withdraw my endorsement. But I will say I got that call wrong, and if there is some self-reflection, is that we all need to see the signs earlier of people who may engage in domestic violence. I wasn't the only one. You had Planned Parenthood. You had Sen. [Elizabeth] Warren. You had the entire Democratic Party. But I did get that call wrong."
When Welker asked flatly whether he regretted the endorsement, Khanna did not hedge:
"Yes. I got that call wrong. I endorse a lot of people, but when I make a mistake, I take accountability. And I think what people want is the humility to take accountability if you make a call that's wrong."
Fair enough. But accountability arrived late. Just last month, Khanna appeared on CBS' "Face the Nation" and offered a very different posture. At that point, the New York Times had already published its reporting on a pattern of emotional abuse. Khanna minimized it:
"My view is that, even according to the New York Times piece, they said there was no harm, no injury. There was toxicity, and there was verbal intimidation, which I condemn, but Graham has made it clear that there was no evidence of violence. That, to me, is a red line."
So the red line was violence. Everything short of it, toxic behavior, verbal intimidation, posts mocking assault survivors, a tattoo evoking Nazi imagery, fell below the threshold. Khanna personally campaigned with Platner in June even as those controversies swirled.
Last week, a report accused Platner of sexually assaulting an ex-girlfriend in 2021. Newsmax reported that the accuser, Jenny Racicot, told Politico that Platner arrived at her home intoxicated and forced her to have sex after she told him to stop. In a subsequent CNN interview, Racicot described the encounter as rape.
Platner suspended his campaign on July 8 via a social media video, denying all allegations. Just The News reported that Racicot, 41, had previously dated Platner. In his video, Platner blamed the "corporate media" and "political establishment" for acting as "judge, jury and executioner."
The suspension quickly became a formal exit. National Review reported that Platner submitted his withdrawal to the Maine secretary of state before the July 13 deadline, ensuring his name will not appear on the November ballot. In his withdrawal letter, Platner wrote: "My name may have been on the ballot, but that ballot line belongs to the people of Maine."
The Racicot allegation was not the only one. Breitbart reported that a second accuser, conservative commentator Lyndsey Fifield, publicly alleged that Platner repeatedly removed condoms without her consent during their 2013, 2014 relationship, a practice classified as sexual assault in Maine, California, and Washington state. Fifield stated: "He would pull condoms off. He would do it in a sneaky way. He wouldn't tell me."
Khanna's Sunday mea culpa tried to spread the blame across the party. He named Planned Parenthood and Sen. Elizabeth Warren as fellow endorsers. Sen. Bernie Sanders also backed Platner and, according to Newsmax, withdrew his endorsement only after the Racicot allegation surfaced, stating: "In light of these very serious allegations, I have recommended that he step aside."
But the pattern of troubling behavior was visible well before anyone alleged assault. Platner's resurfaced Reddit posts had already drawn scrutiny for mocking a teenager's suicide attempt and endorsing political violence. A tattoo resembling a Nazi symbol had been flagged publicly. The New York Times had published allegations from multiple ex-girlfriends describing emotional abuse and aggressive conduct.
None of it moved the needle for Khanna or the rest of the Democratic establishment, until the word "assault" entered the conversation.
That raises an uncomfortable question the congressman's Sunday contrition did not fully answer: what kind of vetting are Democratic leaders performing before they lend their names and fundraising networks to candidates? Khanna acknowledged that "we all need to see the signs earlier," but the signs were not subtle. They were published in the New York Times.
The New York Post reported that Platner met privately with Senate Democrats in Washington to do damage control after his sexting scandal. During that meeting, Platner told senators that "the worst of the rumors we've all heard are not true." Warren reportedly pressed him on whether additional allegations, particularly of criminal wrongdoing, would surface. Sanders did the same. Platner assured them no "credible" accusations were pending.
Weeks later, the Racicot allegation landed. Platner's private assurances proved worthless.
Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont told reporters after the meeting that Platner "was very explicit that he accepts the right of Maine voters to ask him questions about his personal life and his responsibility to answer those questions." That framing, treating a cascade of misconduct allegations as mere "personal life" questions, captures the permissive attitude that let Platner remain viable far longer than he should have.
Platner's exit leaves Democrats scrambling to field a replacement against Republican Sen. Susan Collins, the longtime incumbent. Maine law gives the party until July 27 to name a new candidate. National Review identified potential replacements including Nirav Shah, the former Maine CDC director, and Shenna Bellows, the current Maine secretary of state. Former state senator Troy Jackson was also mentioned, though he faces his own allegations of mistreating women.
The compressed timeline is a self-inflicted wound. Democrats had months to reckon with Platner's baggage and chose instead to rally behind him because his populist, anti-war, Medicare-for-All platform energized the progressive base. Khanna said as much on Sunday, pivoting from his regret to a defense of Platner's politics:
"I think what is important, though, is to understand his politics. He was opposed to foreign wars, for Medicare for All and why the progressive movement, more broadly, why these issues are resonating."
That line is revealing. Even in the middle of apologizing for endorsing a man now accused of sexual assault by multiple women, Khanna could not resist arguing that the underlying political project was still sound. The candidate was the problem, not the movement.
Khanna is not just any backbencher. He has positioned himself as a populist voice within the Democratic Party, criticizing his own leadership for backing "status quo" candidates while working-class voters get left behind. He has made early moves toward a potential 2028 presidential run, building a national profile through media appearances and high-profile endorsements.
The Platner episode complicates that project. A congressman who wants to lead the country endorsed a Senate candidate despite a Nazi-symbol tattoo, Reddit posts mocking a teen's suicide attempt, and published accounts of emotional abuse from multiple ex-girlfriends, then went on national television to explain away the abuse allegations as mere "toxicity" and "verbal intimidation." Only when a sexual assault allegation made the position politically untenable did Khanna reverse course.
That is not the judgment profile of someone asking voters for the highest office in the land. And the Platner saga is now a permanent part of Khanna's record.
Khanna told Welker that "what people want is the humility to take accountability if you make a call that's wrong." That sounds reasonable in isolation. But accountability without consequences is just rhetoric. Khanna still holds his seat. He still commands a national platform. He still enjoys the benefit of the doubt from a media ecosystem that treats Democratic mea culpas as acts of courage rather than evidence of prior failure.
The people who paid the real price in this episode are the women who came forward, Racicot, Fifield, and the unnamed ex-girlfriends who spoke to the New York Times, and the Maine voters who watched their Senate race implode because a national party prioritized ideology over basic due diligence.
Khanna says he got the call wrong. The more honest admission is that he and his party didn't want to make the call at all, not until they had no choice.
