The Present Illness

Rigor Tortoise? Mitch McConnell’s Health and Bye-bye Graham Platner

• Alyssa Burgart & Arghavan Salles • Season 1 • Episode 41

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Is Mitch McConnell dead or alive? Let's talk about out-of-hospital cardiac arrest and critical illness in older folks. Graham Platner drops out of Maine race in wake of credible sexual assault allegations. There were plenty of red flags. 

Trump at NATO


Mitch McConnell - proof of life?


Graham Platner


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Credits

  • Production by Arghavan Salles & Alyssa Burgart
  • Editing by Alyssa Burgart
  • Music by Joseph Uphoff
  • Social Media by Arghavan Salles

Don’t take medical advice from random people on a podcast. This show is for informational purposes, is meant to be fun, and is certainly not medical advice. Please, take your medical questions to a qualified professional. Nothing we say represents our employers or anyone else. 

SPEAKER_04

The fact that Scott Jennings thinks we would believe that he had a 20-minute conversation with Mitch McConnell on policy issues. By the way, not asking Mitch how he was doing or like what happened. Like, that's what we think that your conversation was, that you just jumped right into what's happening with Iran and Maine. And so I'm like, it's not credible. It's not credible. We're smarter than that. Hey there, fellow nerds. Welcome to another episode of The Present Illness, the podcast where two physicians try to make sense of a world that's a little febrile. This week there's been a lot of diarrhea, by the way. We'll get to that. And definitely underdiagnosed. I'm Arga Von Salz, a surgeon scientist and friendly neighborhood, and your friendly neighborhood, uh Doom Scroller in residence. And I'm Alyssa Berghart, an anesthesiologist and bioethicist who tracks news and health a lot like their EKGs full of spikes and surprises. The present illness is where we dig into public health politics, culture, and ethics for the scalpel in one hand and a mean in the other. And as a note to our listeners, we often talk about topics that can be intense, they can be a lot. So if you need to take a break, that's always, always an option. Absolutely. Um a big thank you to everyone who's listening, wherever you have found us. Um, and extra love to our subscribers and those who follow us on any of the various platforms with a special warm welcome to anyone who just stumbled in from Trump's erratic musings at the NATO conference that's happening this week. Okay. So you know, our listeners don't know, I've had a I've had a hell of a week with the OR. So I am not as deeply connected with what is happening in the news, but I did hear some random NATO comments, like why you know, as you're like pushing a bed through the hallways, you hear things. And um, I I don't really know. I have no idea what happened. So you'll have to educate. I'm gonna I'm gonna give you a quick summary because CNN made like a nice convenient little supercut of multiple erroneous, absurd, offensive things that he said. Um, so we're just gonna listen to a short clip.

SPEAKER_07

Is this he's fired done? Is the MOU dead? That's a very interesting question. To me, I think it's over. I don't want to deal with anything but the scum. I told this one yesterday we had 111 missile shot by the Islamic Republic of Japan. It was shot at the aircraft GCOC.

SPEAKER_04

Correct. So he starts out calling the Iranian scum, saying he's not really interested in the MOU, the ceasefire. Um, and then yeah, he says that the Islamic Republic of Iran, uh sorry, of Japan um launched 111 missiles. I wonder how Japan feels about that. There have been a lot of jokes, I'll tell you that much. Um and uh and I don't know how they feel about it. He right just before I paused it, he said the JCPOC. So the previous nuclear agreement was the JCPOA, and he's now called it the JCPOC, but let's keep listening, shall we?

SPEAKER_07

What a terrible, what a terrible deal. I call it the Obama nuclear waste deal. I don't want anything to do with Spain. Cut off all trade with Spain, please, including visits. Okay, we don't want anything to do with you, it's number one on TikTok. I am.

SPEAKER_04

Okay, this is a thing he's been saying for a while. So it the he did say he doesn't want any more trade with Spain. He did say that. You heard that correct. And he said no travel, right? Like he's yeah, I think he was saying like he doesn't want anyone from Spain coming to the US, is my my sense. Who knows? I mean, whatever. It's anyone's guess. Um, and then he is talking about tic-tac. Um so he has been going around this week saying that he's got the best account on TikTok, except for half the time he calls it tic-tac. Let's carry on.

SPEAKER_07

Number one on TikTok. You have a question for President Putin?

SPEAKER_04

Important to note, he's sitting next to Zelensky.

SPEAKER_07

Do you have a question for President Putin? Not not Zelensky. What would you like to ask him? Because I'm gonna ask him that question.

SPEAKER_04

And so because him and Putin are just they're buds, they chat a lot, it sounds like. I think it's because he's you can't see it, uh, and listeners can't see it, but he was pointing to Zelensky when he said, Do you have a question for President Putin? And then I think he realized his mistake, and then that's why he corrected himself and said, Not Zelensky, Putin, I'm gonna see Putin later. Um my gosh. So yeah, he's doing really well. That uh cognitive functioning is going really strong. That's why he's acing all those cognitive tests that are given to him by his physician. And I'm gonna be honest with you, like, you know, as someone who is currently deeply sleep deprived from being on call last night, um like you know, when you're really tired, your brain doesn't work as well. But like I think my brain's still working better than that. Yeah, I bet it is. The Islamic Republic of Japan. I mean, that's a new one. No one's heard that one before. Um we're just inventing things now. Offending new nations, less confabulations, if you will. Correct, which are not a marker of any sort of illness whatsoever. Um, anywho, yeah, that's what's been happening. Um, and you know, the as he said, like Iran did restart attacks. Um, someone made a great joke saying that they saw our defensive capabilities during the Belgium US soccer game, which is the game that we lost, our team lost one to four. Yeah. So uh they were like, they saw that we had no defensive capacity, so they just went right back to bombing us in the Strait of Carmos. Anyway, um, and then the US has started counterattacks as well. Um so yeah, great news for all who care about peace or don't want our um money to be spent on bombing people in other countries and also polluting the earth. Um, anyway, that's uh yeah, that's enough of that one. Um well, speaking of bombing bombing countries and ruining the environment, uh I I thought we should talk about Mitch McConnell today. I'm so delighted to talk about Mitch McConnell because, which is not usually the case, um, but he people's reactions and commentary on his situation has been very funny um of late. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Well, so for folks who, you know, if you've been living under a rock just happily living your life blissfully unaware of American politics, uh, you may not know who Mitch McConnell is.

SPEAKER_04

He's the guy that kind of looks like a turtle and he is the Senate majority leader. Um for for quite some time. So yeah, he he was the Senate majority leader for uh many years, got got a lot of things done for the Republican Party. Um, he has since stepped down from that role. But um, for context, uh, you know, we are recording this on July 9th. And just for context, a year ago on July 1st is when McConnell helped to pass the big, nasty, terrible scumbag of a bill that takes away healthcare from just millions and millions of Americans, in addition to, you know, all sorts of things throughout the government, just letting the president have lots more authority, letting the government run amok, run amok. Deregulation everywhere. Um so just a few weeks ago, on June 14th, Mitch McConnell was found down in his home. So an unwitnessed event of some kind. Um, as physicians, it seems not unreasonable that it may have been an unwitnessed cardiac event. Um it's unclear how many minutes he was down, but he was found unconscious. Uh, I listened to the audio of the um EMS people responding. They, you know, resuscitate him and transfer him to a medical facility where he is presumably receiving the best ICU care that money can buy. Yes. And I I I know we're gonna talk about that, but I also want to point out for folks that when you say resuscitate, my understanding is, I mean, this has been widely reported that they did CPR. So it's not like, oh, they just put in IV and gave him some fluids, but they actually had to crush his chest. Yeah. And also for folks who, you know, one of the things that we think about as doctors when we're thinking about how likely it is that someone is going to survive a cardiac arrest, having like if you're in a hospital, like if I'm taking care of you and you're having anesthesia and you happen to have a cardiac arrest, like you're going to get immediate care. If you're in an ICU and you have a cardiac arrest, you're going to get immediate care. If you're in a hospital generally, you're going to get care within a few minutes, um, you know, as soon as somebody sees that you're down. Now, if you are not in the hospital, if you have a witnessed event, right? So you're like at the grocery store, there's people around, imagine that bystanders care to do something. If you happen to have an event, someone's hopefully going to call 911. Presumably, those folks are going to respond as quickly as possible. The further you get away from that, the furthest away you can get is an unwitnessed cardiac event, cardiac arrest out of the hospital. So you're out of the hospital, you're at home, no one's in the home, or no one sees you. And that just means that every minute that you are not getting cardiac output to your brain, your brain is dying, the rest of your body is dying. And so, unless somebody gets high quality chest compressions and oxygen delivery, um, the likelihood of survival is very low. Um, so anyway, so it's been now a little over three weeks. And there's just, you know, several weeks went by and just nobody knew what happened. Nobody knew where he was.

SPEAKER_03

He just kind of wasn't showing up to stuff. His staffers keep saying everything was fine. And then um, you know, just in the last couple of days, and like I've been in the OR a lot.

SPEAKER_04

So, like I said, I'm not I have not been deeply in on the news, but even this made it to me was that that Mitch McConnell um has been hospitalized in the ICU. And um we work in a hospital, like and I I spend a lot of time, even though I'm a I primarily take care of pediatric patients and see certainly see many children who are in the ICU. I also do um ethics consults at the adult hospital. I spent a great deal of my residency. I spent many, many, many months in my residency taking care of adults in an ICU, um, including people who had unwitnessed cardiac uh arrest events. And then my ethics practice takes me to our IC our adult ICUs very often. And so um, like it's not it's not like great odds that this gentleman is the fact I'm going to assume that it is true because I do not yet have evidence to the contrary. I'm going to assume that he is still hospitalized and that he is not dead. Although there are rumors abound that maybe he is already dead. I'm gonna assume that he is in an ICU, he was resuscitated successfully, they got him to an ICU, they started, you know, putting him on a cold protocol to see if they could preserve any of his brain, and now they're trying to see what's gonna happen. Um I mean, I think that is the most optimistic version of events that have taken place that there has been zero transparency around. Um just for our listeners, they I looked up the data on out-of-hospital cardiac array. So bad. Yeah, in general, I mean, like it doesn't take a genius to understand that if you collapse somewhere where there's no one who's gonna do CPR for you, the chances of you surviving are not high. In particular, keep in mind that he is 84 and pretty frail 84, right? We've all seen all, but a lot of us have seen him freezing on camera for seconds where it seems like he's having maybe a TIA, or we're not really sure. When he collapsed recently, or I forget how long ago that was. Yes. And so he his his health is poor to begin with. Like they're it's not just the age, it's that he's 84 and in poor health from everything that we know. Yeah. So this is not the 84-year-old that's out like riding his bike all over Washington, D.C., like right. Yeah, living his best life. No, this is not. This is someone who was his health was has been deteriorating for years now. And um, the likelihood of survival without major brain damage for someone in his age group for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest is less than 5%. Um, one of the studies looks like about one to two percent. Um, so well, so this issue with the the you mentioned his staff. His staff has put out two statements very similar to each other, saying that he's been in touch with his staff on Senate business. Yeah, no, it's not credible. Yeah, it does not credible at all. And when I say in a hospital trying to see what happens, when I say that as an ethicist, it's they are trying to determine will he open his eyes?

SPEAKER_03

Does he know his own name? Um, will is does he have the capacity for speech anymore? I mean, when you have, well, first of all, looking at I I had also looked up that data and like, you know, the older you get, the more frail you are, the numbers keep going down.

SPEAKER_04

He also, you know, again, all the things that you said. And um, you know, but a lot of times when you have folks that have been in the ICU for this long after a severe out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, it is like, is there any brain function left? Is this person going to be capable of ever again breathing without a ventilator if that is not something that's already been demonstrated? Um, and so you can have people who are not dead by neurologic criteria. They still have brainstem functions, they're still able to like cough and gag and maybe stimulate the ventilator. They have some sort of respiratory drive. There may not be a lot else happening. So even under the most optimistic of circumstances where he survives to hospital discharge, I think the likelihood of that happening without profound neurologic disability is extremely low. Agreed. Um now that said, I would really love to know actually what's going on. Um, obviously, for because of HIPAA, which you know we both deeply respect. Like I'm I'm not a fool. I know we're not gonna get a lot, but we're clearly being lied to by his staff. Um well, not only that, but this is today we're recording on Thursday. I think it was on Tuesday. Is that right? No, Monday, that uh Laura Loomer said that her sources said that he was brain dead. And Laura Loomer, for people, for people who don't know, is a nut job. I mean, I don't mean that in an ableist way, but she's a weird person, uh, and not I would call I would consider a reliable source. So if it were just that, I would have been like, okay, who knows what that means. But Desiree Townsend, who is the journalist who has been doggedly following the story, and she's the one who uncovered that EMS audio that you mentioned, she said her sources are telling her the same thing.

SPEAKER_03

Well, so this is why I'm saying what I'm saying, right?

SPEAKER_04

Like he may not be, he and I'm only gonna say this because I've worked with many journalists over many years about how to talk about brain death. And so um if he has been declared dead by neurologic criteria, he is dead and he should have been immediately removed from a ventilator and they should have stopped. Now, it is possible that there are other things happening. Now, it may be that he is I love the Princess Bride. Do you know that? Do you know that? They see the the magician and he's like, he's not completely dead, he's just mostly dead.

SPEAKER_03

Um so it is also possible that Mitch McConnell is mostly dead. Um, but if you still have any sort of uh brain stem function, right? It is not a diagnosis of death. And and again, like I'm only bringing up this level of detail because I think it's important, but also because a lot of journalists really who are not healthcare trained really struggle to to talk about this in a way that is accurate in an area of the law that is very specific, of health law.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, and I agree. We don't know what either of these people or their sources mean when they say he's brain dead. Do they know, do are they able to distinguish between brain death and a medically induced coma or an otherwise coma otherwise? I don't know. So, you know, and the other thing I just want to preempt is that um Argivon and I talked about this a little bit before the podcast.

SPEAKER_03

Like, I want to exist in a society where I can generally believe that most people are doing their best and that most people most care about other people. And I would like to have a government in which I do not feel this hope for the death of people who are leaders.

SPEAKER_04

Like as a physician, it is it is deeply counter to like who I am as a person to like have glee that someone might be dead.

SPEAKER_03

And yet here I am. I feel this way, and I'm just I'm acknowledging that I have these feelings, and I find a lot of this discourse incredibly funny because he's a horrible fucking person.

SPEAKER_04

And it's and he's demonstrated it for a long time. He's been in the Senate almost as long as you and I have been alive, um, having been first elected in 1985. And he has voted against healthcare access, he has voted against um paid leave. I mean, he has voted against all the things that you and I strongly believe everyone should have, um, and the things that he's benefiting from himself right now, right? Like he's benefiting from health care that he has because taxpayers pay for his salary and his benefit. Okay.

SPEAKER_03

And if I were the doctor of anybody, I would, of course, I want all people to receive excellent care, no matter who you are, no matter where you're from. I think that that's a fundamental physician, ethical commitment that we have as physicians.

SPEAKER_04

So he's also really, really, maybe in single-handedly the person who's most responsible for the course being the way that it is today.

SPEAKER_03

For our whole last episode. The whole episode is thanks, it comes to you by compliments of Mitch McConnell. Correct.

SPEAKER_04

Blocked Merrick Garland, eliminated the filibuster. He, I mean, Amy Coney Barrett, talk about being fast-tracked. I mean, he just plowed her through. Um, all sorts of things, including like the uh the gutting of the vote, voting rights act. I mean, there is so much that is awful and that has been tearing at the fibers of our democracy that this man is responsible for. And so I I don't actually like feel glee at anyone's death, and I don't think you really do either, but I think the um idea that someone who actually cares about those things may now have an opportunity opportunity to get into the legislature because he has finally it's worth noting that even before this episode, he had indicated he was not going to run for re-election. Breaking news 84-year-old chooses not to run for re-election. So I'm gonna read you some fun things. So Scott Jennings uh posted this tweet on July 7th. And so, Scott Jennings, who's from Kentucky, I spoke to my old friend Mitch McConnell this morning, the senior senator from Kentucky, and he's recovering in the hospital. We talked for just shy of 20 minutes about all caps, Iran, Ukraine, back to regular caps, the unfolding situation in all caps, Maine. My visit to the TR presidential library and even a little bit of Senate history. I told him we want to see him back at work as soon as possible. So this uh the internet became unhinged after this. So, like between Twitter and threads, there are there's just gold. So uh Thomas Massey wrote, I spoke to McConnell for about 20 minutes this morning. He said we should end the war with Iran, quit giving aid to Israel, and stop spying on Americans without warrants. And he's really sorry about how my primary turned out. Um Ken Popat said, I just spoke to Mitch McConnell and he said that my call is very important to him and he's experiencing unusually high call volume. And then he played an instrumental version of Sympathy for the Devil for 20 minutes. That's a good one. Um, this is from Bubblegum and Confetti. I had a 20-minute conversation with Mitch McConnell this morning, and he said that he's coming out of his cage and he's doing just fine.

SPEAKER_03

The leftist lawyer said, I spoke with Mitch McConnell for 20 minutes this morning, and he said he would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for all you meddling kids. Well, hello, Dolly J said I spoke to Mitch McConnell for 20 minutes this morning, and he said that mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. I thought you'd like that one.

SPEAKER_04

I thought you'd like that one. Um the Leslie, the Leslie Gar. I don't know if that's how you say it. Um I talked to Mitch McConnell for a good 20 minutes this morning, and he said, beep. Um vintage B study said, guys, I spoke to Mitch for 20 minutes this morning and he told me not to take Sky Rizzy if I'm allergic to Sky Rizzy. Good looking out, Mitch. Um this one's uh extra, extra dark. Um the only people this is from the Garden Witch. The Garden Witch Sitch. The only people having 20-minute conversations with Mitch McConnell right now are Satan and Charlie Kirk. Um I think you're gonna like this one. This is from Renan comedy. Um, I wasn't a fan of Mitch McConnell, but the jokes about him dying are really gross. People think it's okay because he's 84, but that's actually still quite young for a tortoise. It's true. Anyway, I pulled a bunch of these from uh I meant to I meant to take a picture of her thing, but a TikTok artist that had like thrown them all together. So I'll put a link to the whole to her beautiful presentation of all of those in uh in the show notes. I would like to add a couple because there were um a lot of people more on the left or progressive side who were um projecting lots of positions onto Mitch. So uh Sarah Ironside said, I spoke with my dear friend Mitch McConnell for 20 minutes this morning, and he told me he supports universal healthcare, free college, raising the minimum wage, and housing for all. And uh Derek Guy, who's this uh menswear fashion person who follows so great. I spoke to my old friend Mitch McConnell this morning, the senior senator from Kentucky. He said he wishes men would stop wearing slim fit suits, adopt animals from their local animal shelter, and build affordable housing in walkable neighborhoods. Um these are all things, if you follow him, these are all things he he posts about a lot. Um, Matt Bernstein, who I really like and respect, said, uh just got off the phone with my close personal friend Mitch McConnell. We spoke for six hours. He told me he is gay, all caps, and might be interested in exploring polyamory all caps. I look forward to him returning to work as soon as possible. Um caps is really what nails it. Yes. Um, okay, two more. This this one says, uh, and these are all in my carousel on Instagram, and I'll put them, I'll put a link to it in the show notes. I am hearing that on his deathbed, Mitch McConnell received the light of Islam and unhesitatingly recited the Shahada. Even now he looks down on the Ummah from the gardens of Jennah. Truly, there is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet. Um, you know, supposedly that's what Mitch was saying. Then there was, okay, the last one I want to share is I just got off the phone with Mitch. We spoke for about 20 minutes. He said it's really hot in his new place, but he's been welcomed there as a hero. And another person, I don't have that tweet in the carousel, but another person said similar that you, you know, it's very hot where he is, and Reagan's there too. Um, anyway. Yes. Oh man, comedy. Yeah. Well, and you know, I think it's also like, what are we gonna do but laugh at this point, right? Like, what what is there? Well, I think it's the absurdity of like it's not just Scott Jenks. So Scott Jenks, for people who don't know, is a uh commentator on CNN and he lots of terrible, despicable positions that he takes. But for him to say that to lie. No, for him to lie, right, to be clear. To say that he spoke to Mitch McConnell for 20 minutes about like policy issues is about as credible as all these other tweets that you and I read. And that's why people started doing this, because it was so absurd that they think anyone would believe that given everything we described about what we know about the situation and what happened to Mitch McConnell, it is nearly impossible for these things to actually be happening. And he's not the only one. John Thune also said he had a long conversation with him. And the Republican Whip also said he had had a long conversation with him. There's multiple people on the on that side of the aisle who said the same thing. And if you want to think of a conversation as, you know, listen, if you ever have a family member or a loved one who is hospitalized in an ICU, go sit with them. Talk to them. We don't know what might be getting inside their brains.

SPEAKER_03

So, but if you want to call that a policy conversation, I don't think that that's believable.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah. And and some of these folks have have said that they spoke to um Mitch McConnell rather than with. But some of them have said they had a conversation, which implies a two-way communication. Um, and there's been a lot of jokes too about like the other side's only the whispering of a ventilator. Correct. Yeah. Where it's a bedside nurse, really nothing. Dee dee dee doe do.

SPEAKER_05

Dee dee de doe.

SPEAKER_04

That, by the way, is the specific alarm that some ventilators make in the ICU. Correct. I mean, I also I'm like, I spent I spent uh many, many hours yesterday listening to the sweet, dulcet tones of a ventilator. So yeah. Anyway, so yeah, I think um, I think that's why people have come out with all these jokes. It's because the fact that Scott Glennings thinks we would believe that he had a 20-minute conversation with Mitch McConnell on policy issues. By the way, not asking Mitch how he was doing or like what happened. Like, that's what we think that your conversation was, that you just jumped right into what's happening with Iran and Maine. And so, like, it's not credible. It's not credible. We're smarter than that. Um, anyway, so I don't know, right? Like, we don't have, as you said, information on what's actually happening with Mitch McConnell. But the other thing I want to add is that his wife, Elaine Chow, left the country. So I you you tell me more, because you probably know more about it. Because I was like on a break from the OR and I was like, I should look at the news and like try to prepare for something. And um, and I saw that she like didn't come back. She was like, his condition didn't warrant me returning. And then I'm like, lady, I listened to the audio of him being like, anyway, go ahead. So she no, she left. Um, from what I the sources I've seen, she left the country three days after he was found down. Oh, I think went to China. And then, yeah, and then she reportedly came back on Monday, the same day that Laura Loomer and Desiree Townsend were posting about this brain death, these rumors about him being brain dead. Um, and so not only did those two posts about the brain death rumors, but then Elaine Chow comes back, and the very next day we have this coordinated campaign of all these supposed conversations that Mitch McConnell had from the presumably the ICU. Like, who is that alert? Even even forget all the other things, like let's say he, I don't know, fell off a bike and and was found immediately and hadn't hit his head and whatever. Like, still, if you're in the ICU for three weeks, you're usually not like cogent. Um, and I just to go back to the CPR point, part of the reason I I did make that point earlier is that even in a young, healthy person, that high quality CPR will result in asternal fracture and rib fractures. And that has consequences for your body, even at a young healthy age. And so he likely had, if he had high quality CPR, um, these rib fractures, pulmonary contusions, those take time to heal. Anyway, it's all size logic. Yeah, and also like, I don't know, even if this was somebody else who like would maybe be more likely to survive or more likely to have less neurologic damage or whatever, like recovery from the ICU under the absolute best of circumstances is traumatizing. It is exhausting. I think people like have no idea how hard it can be to recover until they're in that situation.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

Um, anyway, whatever. I um I am doubtful that we will ever hear from Mitch McConnell directly ever again, let alone for 20 minutes, uh, about policy. And many people have said if it's that, if it's if he's really doing all that, then why doesn't he just post a short clip? Hi, all here I am from the hospital, recovering nicely, right? Or like a lot of people have asked for a photo of him holding today's newspaper.

SPEAKER_02

Um, another thing that people have suggested.

SPEAKER_04

Well, the problem too is with AI, like you could make that right. So here's the thing a lot, not a lot, but I've seen a few people suggest that maybe like Scott Jennings isn't lying, and maybe he had a conversation with some AI bot that was made to sound like Mitch McConnell until he thought he was talking, you know, wouldn't that be possible? That is actually possible. Um, you know, I don't know. I think it's more probably more likely that he's lying, but it is possible that he was having some conversation with someone he thought was Mitch and it was just like AI-generated voice. Um so anyway, we yeah, I agree. I think it's unlikely that we will ever really probably see or hear directly from Mitch McConnell ever again. But I one of the things that bothers me about the situation, there's multiple things, but one of them is no even the worst person I think deserves dignity and death. And that is not what's happening here, right? Like, look at all these jokes that people are making. Because what else are they gonna do in this situation? In the meantime, the folks in Kentucky are being denied adequate representation because what should happen when someone, an elected uh senator, is incapacitated is that there should be a special election. Now, that has to happen by August 3rd. And if they play this charade out until after August 3rd, then there will not be a special election. And I guess, like to be fair, this is probably how he would want to go out, right? Is manipulating everyone and everything. But it is really disconcerting for Kentucky voters that they likely have a purely incapacitated senator who is supposedly representing them and therefore is not representing them, so they don't have adequate representation. But I mean, you know, the other thing, and we're we're not gonna get into this in in a bunch of detail, but there's the um the Republican congressman from I think New Jersey, Tim No, Tom, who was out for like months, yeah. Four months missing, you know, and it's it's very um disconcerting that folks can just sort of like mysteriously disappear from their positions where they they're supposed to be looking out for a huge population. And like I fully very supportive of people who have disabilities having reasonable accommodations, being able to do um to to flex their work in ways that are are are that will work for for the job. Um, but this idea that like this guy was just missing, missing votes, missing all these things, not being able to do the fundamental parts of that role. Um, it's concerning that we don't have a, we clearly don't have a good process for that. Right. And and it's um deeply, deeply apparent. You know, there's so many people that we take care of, where they're in the ICU or their children are in the ICU, and they lose their jobs because they don't have sick leave, they don't have, they have an hourly job, they don't have health, they lose their health insurance because they lose their job. And um whereas people who are in these elected positions have access to some of the best health care in the world, they are not losing their jobs. Their jobs are clearly not even under any sort of threat in this situation, and I think it just further highlights the immense disparity in who is allowed to have illnesses, who is allowed to have uh grace through those illnesses, who is allowed to have um the time away they need to recover, heal, maybe not heal, um, and who doesn't. And so that's just another, especially for for Mitch McConnell, having done so much, so much to reduce access to healthcare for decades. Um, it is especially egregious. And Tom Cain is the person you're talking about who's a representative from New Jersey, and he had himself voted against paid sick leave. Yes. Um apparently, I believe, on multiple occasions. So and not harmed for it at all. Correct. And he still got the time that he needed. And by the way, maintained his insider trading while he was so um ill that he couldn't show up to his job. Um anyway, I agree. People with health conditions, including depression, deserve accommodation and deserve adequate leave. And I just wish that these folks would vote in the same way that they benefit from. Yeah. Well, anyway, I think that's enough about um about Mitch McConnell, but uh we will drop some links in the show notes where you too can have a little bit of an inappropriate laugh about how absurd this entire situation is. Um, Argivon, where are you taking us? All right, so the other thing, there's so many things to talk about, as you and I discussed before we uh hopped on here today. But I thought we could have our other main topic today be the fiasco that is the main uh Senate race. Um, with Graham Platner having just, again, we're recording on Thursday, July 9th, just last night, said he was finally said he was gonna suspend his campaign. And so let's just do a little rundown memory lane and just and really quick, where this is this is uh in Maine, the state of Maine. Right. And this is for the seat that Susan Collins currently has, right? Correct. Okay. Um, this is on the Democrat side to try to take over that seat from Susan Collins. And this is the Nazi tattoo guy, right? Yes. It's part of his long and uh terrible journey to becoming a candidate here. So, you know, this is not for folks who paid any attention at all to this race in Maine, um, likely out of a sense of vengeance for against Susan Collins for all the terrible things she's done. Uh, you've heard of this name before. Um, I think he first became more widely known outside of Maine in the fall because of that tattoo that you mentioned. Um, and it is a it's called a toten cop tattoo that he obtained in 2007, and it's a Nazi symbol that was on Nazi uniforms. Um now he was a Marine at the time, went apparently went to a tattoo parlor with some fellow Marines. His version of the story is he saw this image on the wall, he liked it, he got it. He supposedly had no idea, supposedly being the keyword there, uh, what it was. And um, this came to light in the fall, and it was very concerning to a lot of people, mostly marginalized people, mind you, who were told, like, ah, he says he didn't know what it was, like, and then he went and um had it altered so it looks now like some kind of Celtic symbol, which is fine, whatever. But he only did that because he was in hot water over it. Um, and that was I think I think that should have been, in my personal opinion, that should have been the end. That should have been the end. Like you have a Nazi tattoo on your body. That's enough. And that like you didn't progressive career. And that you like didn't remove. And I and I say this as somebody who has like, I know a lot of people, including people in my family, who were like in the Marine Corps, joined when they were very young. They have almost universally come back with some very bad tattoos.

SPEAKER_03

Now, I'll be honest with you, not Nazi tattoos, but a lot of them look pretty bad.

SPEAKER_04

Um, and so it's interesting. Like, I am not surprised. You were a young person, you went off to war as a basically a teenager or whatever. I don't know how old he was when he went. Um getting a tattoo, not super unusual, getting some bad tattoos, perhaps even a rite of passage. Um, but like you're grown-ass man now. You didn't figure out what you're and you're claiming to be progressive. But um, I think the the issue that you're raising is if he let's just say they I mean, I think I think he's he knew what it was. Even if he didn't know the day of, at somewhere along the line, 2007 was almost 20 years ago. Somewhere along the line, even if you believe that he didn't know the night of, he became aware of what that tattoo was. And even if, let's say he didn't have the money to change it, I don't know, then at least once it came to light, you could say, either I made a mistake at that time, my beliefs were based on inaccurate information. I have since updated that information and my views, and I no longer stand for what that symbol stands for. I have not had the resources to do anything about it, but now I'm going to do XYZ thing. Like you could say that. I think people would understand. Um, at the time, a lot of people were talking about how Democrats have put their candidates through too many purity tests, and there were questions about what does that mean? What does the word purity mean here when we're talking about a Nazi symbol tattooed on somebody's body? Exactly. But those voices are the ones that won out, the ones who are saying, well, you know, what's the big deal anyway? He says he didn't know what it was and he seems like a good guy. Let's just run with it. So that happened. I mean, that is exactly how it played out. I mean, I also like, I just also feel like I mean, don't you think he signed Glorious Bastards?

SPEAKER_03

I mean, I feel like it's a very testosterone-fueled Nazi movie. Like, I mean, at some point, somebody. Anyway.

SPEAKER_04

Yes, it's hard, it's very hard to believe that he wouldn't have known somewhere along the line, again, even if he didn't know the night of, which I think he probably did, but even if he didn't, somewhere along the line he had to know. Um, and we're gonna come back to that in a minute. But the other, another thing, so he's had just a series of scandals, let's just be clear. Another thing is that um that I actually didn't look into until today, but that he had these like posts from Reddit from years ago that were apparently not good, right? So I knew that. I was like, okay, I don't know what the details are. He's already, to me, in my mind, I'll just be honest, once I heard about the Nazi tattoo, I was like, this guy's a goner for me. Like, I'm not interested in him. If people in Maine choose to vote for him, that's you know, they're right. But like to me, his candidacy in my mind was already like dead at that point. Um, but so here are just like a handful of things that he has said on Reddit. So there was a question about, um, let me pull up what the exact question was uh about black people. Um God. And I heard that there were Reddit posts, like I saw and I just didn't want to, I just didn't read them. Yeah, exactly. I didn't either, but I I did for this. And um the question was this is in 2013. What is one question you have always wanted to ask someone of another race? Um and he wrote, Why don't black people tip? And he went on to say that I work as quote, this is a quote, I work as a bartender and it always amazing amazes me how solid this stereotype is. Every now and again, a black patron will leave a 15 to 20% tip, but usually it's between zero and five percent. There's got to be a reason behind it. What is it? Maybe it's because you're a guy who has a fucking Nazi tattoo. Just a little bit of racism there. He also um maybe your service is absolutely terrible and the people have spoken. Sure. Anything's possible. Or maybe you're only paying attention to the black people who leave you a small tip because you're racist. He's just yeah, I mean, I'm obviously being facetious, like he's terrible. Yeah, yeah. No, I'm just saying there's like probably multiple contributing factors here, um, all related to racism in some way. Um with regard to women, um true warning here for sexual assault. He said women should this is a quote, take some responsibility for um themselves and not get so fucked up they wind up having sex with someone they don't want. Oh, sorry, that they don't mean to. So the exact quote. Nothing like a little light victim blaming. Yeah, nothing like just promoting that rape culture as strong as you can. Cool. So we're racist, we're a rape apologist. Cool. What's next? Okay. He um has called for arming of the working class. So, like, you know, most progressive people are wanting fewer guns, not more guns, but he's like, yes, more guns. He has used the R word, which we've talked about before, um, is inexcusable. He has called rural rural Americans, quote, racist and stupid. Isn't he supposed to be like the working class guy? What the hell? Isn't that why the Democrats were all like hot for him? Because he had like a scruffy beard and was like, I'm I'm a man with a job. Basically, he looks the part of what like some progressive circles think is a successful candidate in this day and age. It's a white guy who he was an oyster farmer. So he had this history, as we talked about, he served in Afghanistan and Iraq. And then, and then he worked for a company that was the successor of Blackwater. Um, that also for some people is like maybe that's enough. Maybe that's enough. Maybe that's not our progressive. Candidate right there. But this guy, this guy, people were like, oh, he's an oyster farmer from Maine and he seems cool. So this seems like a good time for me to play you a short clip from the Wall Street Journal where they spoke with the two consultants, Democratic consultants, who found Graham Platner. And yeah, they went and looked for him. Exactly. They were there, this is currently what they do is they look for promising candidates and they found Graham. And they didn't do a Google search first. This is going to be part of the conversation.

SPEAKER_01

Okay.

SPEAKER_04

Um, that I think is befuddling at best. Uh, and I will put a link to this so people can watch it, but how smug these two are it's worth noting this is from uh last month. So before his uh campaign was uh suspended, but all right. This is coming from the Wall Street Journal. Okay. Sorry, give me one second. Pineapple. Oh, I see. And I don't think we've said yet that his campaign was suspended for sexual. I said it at the beginning of this section. Oh, not for sexual assault. I just know that's what I meant is like the I know. I'm okay. You'll get there. I didn't mean to bury the lead, but I did bury the lead. I mean, listen, you know I know how to do it. I know how to bury a lead real good. Get it, bring your shovel, folks. Yeah. Um, pineapple. I do want to just uh before I play this clip, because I buried the lead a little bit. The reason he finally the thing that pushed him to suspend his campaign was um an allegation of rape. So that's just important, and we're gonna come and talk more about that in a second. But here are the consultants who are interviewed about like kind of how they found him and they get asked about this vetting. So let's listen.

SPEAKER_08

Makes a successful candidate.

SPEAKER_01

Uh somebody who uh feels authentically part of the reflects the culture of the district that they come from. Um, it astounds me how many uh Democratic candidates are recent transplants to their districts. How did Okay, so he's from me? Okay, great.

SPEAKER_09

Do you find Grant Platner? I mean, we went through thousands and thousands of prospects. How did you go about vetting him? Why did you we paid uh why are we laughing?

SPEAKER_04

How did you go about vetting him and the response is laughter? But okay.

SPEAKER_09

Uh yeah, we paid a we paid a nice firm a whole chunk of money and got some stuff back.

SPEAKER_04

Paid a firm a chunk of money and got some stuff back? So this is last month. What has happened at this point is they have they know about the tattoo, they know about the Reddit. Like we know, everyone knows about the tattoo and the Reddit posts, and there has been, we're gonna talk about it in a second, but there's been a major article in the New York Times alleging inappropriate behavior with women. That's all public at the time that this is posted.

SPEAKER_09

Some of what you've seen on the news, we got back, other stuff we didn't.

SPEAKER_04

Also, like, I'm sorry, why are you paying a consulting firm to vet your candidates if they clearly suck at their job? I'm sorry. You can literally be like, oh, get a smart young person who knows how to search the internet, who's like, get, you know what, find me a TikTok sleuth and make her put her in charge because she will find it all. Well, not only that, but he's acknowledging here that some of this stuff was found by whatever vetting they did, but let's keep listening.

SPEAKER_08

Um did the vetting process turn up the tattoo that became so controversial. No. The Reddit posts.

SPEAKER_04

I just want to point out he was kind of like shrugging. Like for people who aren't seeing it, we'll put a link to the video, but he's kind of like shrugging and like thinking there was a pause there before he said no. Like it's just not very credible.

SPEAKER_08

That turn up in the vetting process.

SPEAKER_03

We're thinking really hard.

SPEAKER_09

When the firm sent us a thing and it had some of the papers, but it didn't have all of them.

SPEAKER_04

Like, how is it that hard to sit there and think, again, this was in June, those Reddit posts came out long ago. And the question is, did this vetting firm bring up those Reddit posts? And the answer is just a very long pause before he was like, well, it's talking about them. Well, so this is the thing, right? Is like they either look like they're idiots and they hired a firm that sucks at its job, or they hired a firm that did a did a sufficient job to identify these major problems with this candidate, and they just ignored it. It seems like maybe both. Yeah. Yeah, maybe a little bit of both. We're almost done with this clip.

SPEAKER_09

And what did you think about that? I said none of this will or should stop him from becoming a U.S. senator.

SPEAKER_04

I'm sorry. Can you pause? Because I need to vomit a little bit. None of this will or should stop him from being a candidate. I don't know how much money these individuals were paid to find this man. There's another clip that wasn't part of this where they they talk about like why they picked him. And I'm not exaggerating. What they say is that they saw a video of him out on a boat, and he seemed like cool, basically. Like those weren't the exact words, but like we saw this video and he seemed like a good guy. He seemed like a guy that we could train as a pony to say things. I guess. Well, here, can I can I read you? Um, I was I was reading uh something this morning from Noah Brlatsky at um Everything Is Horrible. And I thought I would just read a quote from uh a piece that he had out today, and I'll I'll put a link to it. Um the thing, so this is on Platner and how he's you know, everything that's happened. The thing is, though, that there is no Platiner without the scandals. There's not some way to separate the Platner policies and the Platinum testosterone effect from the actual things that Graham Platner said and did with his life up to the point where he started to run for Senate. People vote on the whole package. That's as it should be. Because if a candidate has shown horrible judgment in the past, if a candidate has hideously abused their power and to harm those who trusted them, if a candidate has lied remorselessly throughout a campaign, then that candidate is not someone you want making life and death decisions. It's not someone you should trust with power. This is who Plattner is. It is who he has always been. And if you think that there's not more potential revelations, more ugly Reddit posts, more sex, and yes, more accusers than you are naive. Yeah, and that's exactly right. Um, so we got through the tattoo. Then on June 4th, the New York Times puts out this article where they've talked to multiple women who had relationships with Platner over a long period, like their relationship spanned a long period of this man's life. And they're describing some really volatile and violent behavior. Um the highlights, I'll let me just read a couple of short highlights. Um, and I think part of the reason this wasn't the end of his campaign about a month ago, is that one of the main people they talked to is a conservative woman. So they said that she was lying, um, that, you know, she had a clear agenda to oppose him. And so, you know, we should discount um what she said. But here's what she said. She said that he was rough with her, uh, leaving her shaken and sometimes afraid. She did say he never hit her or punched her, but according to New York Times, she said he regularly grabbed her by the shoulders, sometimes hard enough to leave marks, and on one occasion yanked her out of a cab by her wrist after an argument when she wanted to stay in the car. During one argument, she recalled he twisted her arm behind her back, shoved her into a bedroom, and held the door closed from the other side so she couldn't get out, telling her to remain there until she was quote unquote calm. Um that was one, that was the woman I was talking about, who was the um conservative um person who they whose comments they basically tried to discredit by saying that she was motivated by a political agenda. Um, but she was not the only one in that article. And one of the women, um, Jenny Rasicott or Rasico, I'm not exactly sure how it's pronounced, um, is the one who more recently came forward and talked about this allegation of rape. Before I get to that, I do just want to add one thing, which is that um Lindsay Fifield, who's again this conservative uh woman, said that he referred, that Graham Plattiner referred to his tattoo as, quote, my Tottenkoff, end quote, um, years ago when she was with him. So again, not only do we like logically believe, right, as thinking people, that he knew what it was, but she specifically alleging that he referred to it by name, um, really going against his assertion that he didn't know what it was. Now, for his part, when that article came out in the New York Times, he said that he had PTSD, uh, which, you know, is very common among veterans, um, and anxiety and depression, and had rough patches uh with women. He also um he also told uh Ms. Fifield that he would, if anybody intruded into his home, he would rape that person. It's very that's a really specific and very, I mean, gross and terrible, but also what? Yeah, very violent and very specific. Um, yeah. So that there's that. And then the other thing that came out in the article was that he had um texted, so he's married, um, and he apparently had been senting explicit text messages to other women um even after he was married, and that's something that his wife found out about. One thing that happened around the time of this article is that his wife made a video um basically in support of him, which I found particularly distressing that she was forced to do this labor. Or I mean not forced, maybe she chose, I don't know, but she was the one doing this labor to kind of try to repair his reputation after he had clearly betrayed her. Um, so that was terrible to see. Okay, so fast forward now. Um, this other woman, Jenny, who was in that article, came forward and spoke with Politico in a piece that came out a few days ago where she details that they were in a relationship, she and Grandpa Clatner, and there was a day that or a night that he was drunk, and she told him she did not want him to come over, but he showed up at her house drunk anyway, and then forced himself on her. And um, you know, she said no, she did not want to do that, but he persisted, and um that she afterward broke it off with him, that she sent him a message telling him that, you know, she did not want to see him again because of what had happened. She has multiple contemporary contemporaneous accounts or at least accounts. Well, some contemporary contemporaneous accounts and other accounts of people she's told well before he became a candidate. So, like, you know, six months later, a year later, whatever. And they're all detailed in this political article. I find the story to be incredibly credible. And part of the reason she came forward in this way is that she saw the reaction to the article, the New York Times article that she was a part of, and she saw that no one was listening really to her part of the story because she hadn't wanted to come forward and tell the whole story. But people were fixating on this other woman being conservative, and so they were discounting everything. And so she felt forced essentially to come forward. And she describes something that's very common, which is that she hesitated to come forward because she agreed with his political beliefs and at least what he was saying, right? That he was gonna, that he was running on health care for everybody, you know, living wage, all these kinds of things, and that she supports those positions. And so she hesitated to come forward, but she's very concerned about him. So she decided to come forward in the end and tell um her story. And then immediately, of course, he and his campaign tried to discredit her and said that this wasn't true. So this was earlier this week, and they said these allegations, you know, the thing that people say, these allegations are totally false, and I will be proving the, you know. And so this was really the straw that broke the camel's back. And lots of Democrats um from all levels of government revoked their endorsement of him. There were calls immediately for him to be replaced. If he dropped out of the race by July 13th, the Democrats would be entitled to put a different candidate forward for this election that is, mind you, just in a few months. Um, and so it's like a few days. Yeah. So the entitlement of a man like this with this background to think that he could have all of those skeletons in his closet and still, and still face all this scrutiny and still be the candidate and think that he could win. But I'll tell you what, you know, I'm I really would just love to have zero candidates who are rapists and zero candidates who are racist. Somehow like challenge impossible, it seems, for our legislators. Well, apparently those things neither, neither, what did they say, could nor should they will not and should not. Well, they do and they should and they are, and they have. Um, but it just took all of these things. I mean, it's incredible.

SPEAKER_03

Imagine the 999 other people that they could have picked. I would just love to see that list. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04

I mean, I'm curious now. I mean, Maine's not a big place. Yeah, but there had to have been, I mean, I've I've thought this since I first heard this man existed. There had to have been someone better than him in the entire state of Maine. And it turns out there's this guy, Troy Jackson, who I have not vetted in any way. So I'm not saying anything, but that's the person who a lot of Democrats have pivoted toward um since this happened. But this news came out um earlier this week, and he didn't say that he was suspending his campaign until yesterday. But he did say it. And so I think that will give the Democrats an official opportunity to put someone else forward. Um, but before we wrap this up, I do want to share a little bit of what he said because I think it's important. What Graham Plattner said? Correct. Um I heard his I heard him dropping out that he was like kind of an obnoxious, whiny brat about it, but I didn't read it. Yeah. So I'm gonna I'm gonna play you a short clip, but pineapple, because I thought I had it and then it's maybe it's on TikTok. Let me just look. I don't know. Who knows where it is? Um, or maybe I didn't say give me one second. Many seconds.

SPEAKER_01

It's like 11, maybe as many seconds as you need, baby.

SPEAKER_04

Thank you. Um, yeah, he posted this like 11-minute thing. It's like nobody wants to fear.

SPEAKER_00

Everyone, it's cramplatter here.

SPEAKER_04

Hold on. Is that the right? That's the long thing, but somebody had oh, I know where to go. Sorry, give me a second. As many seconds. Um wrong place. Come on, internet Unrelated, you know, Heather Cox Richardson is in Maine, and um people have apparently been asking her to run, and she was like, not gonna do it. I mean, she probably already gets enough death threats. She's you know, it's interesting. I watched it just to see what she would say, and she said, um it's just not her. She said the job itself is not the skill set that she has. And she's using the skill set that she has in the best way that she can think to do it. Um how weird. Because the thing is it's 11 minutes, we definitely don't want to watch the whole thing, but there was like a clip of it that I thought I had saved, and either I'm just not like seeing it or it's not there, but just the very beginning of it in the other colour.

SPEAKER_00

And it most certainly is not. We're not doing it, yeah. That's suspending campaign.

SPEAKER_04

That's good enough. Okay, pineapple. Lay it on me.

SPEAKER_00

We are suspending campaign operations. This is incredibly difficult because I know that some will think it's a dimension of guilt, and it most certainly is not. We're not doing it because of the allegations, we're doing it because of the structures that are being taken away from us by those in power. It's not the false allegations, though, that have brought us to where we are. It's the fact that they're being used by the political establishment. Who picked you to put structural pressure on us.

SPEAKER_04

I mean, it's an 11-minute statement, and so that's not the entirety of it. But what you can clearly tell, I think, is that there's no apology there. There's no concern for harm that he's caused, there's no accountability whatsoever. Um, there's just, well, I guess this is what I have to do now because people are forcing me to do it. Um, somewhere else in there, he does say it's not in that specific click, but but he talks about how uh what the people of Maine deserve and that they're not being allowed to have it with him because of like external. I mean, he kind of implies like external forces, like just literally zero accountability, as has been the case every time these stories have come out. It's worth noting that right, he's denied everything all along the way. Um, there's not been a single thing where he's been like, well, maybe that's not fair. The Reddit posts, he said, um, let me tell you, I don't want to put words in his mouth. Um, but he said um many of them were quote, stupid joke comments, end quote. Um, you know, I mean, I just and then in a statement to Politico, he said he was, quote, fucking around on the internet at a time when I felt lost and very disillusioned with our government, who sent me overseas to watch my friends die. I made dumb jokes and picked fights, but of course I'm not a socialist. Oh, he he has said that he was a communist. Um, I'm a small business owner, Marie Corps veteran, and a retired shit poster. So this is what he's done every time is basically make excuses for his behavior. He's never said, yeah, that was wrong. I shouldn't have done that. Which, like, why is this so hard? Well, I mean, but you'd you would have to you would have to care about the the other the people you'd impacted, I guess, if you were gonna apologize. And I think really the um question for the Democratic, Democrat establishment is how is this what's acceptable? How is this the bar? Like, how is the bar so very low that in their own words, these consultants knew at least some of this stuff, and they were like, it's fine. This is fine, because he has the look that we think people in Maine will respond to. How offensive is that to people in Maine to be to be believed to be literally so shallow that we're like, well, you know, we we had him wear a plaid shirt and we told him not to shave his neck beard. Yeah, and he's an oyster farmer. So that seems good enough. I don't know. It's it's deeply, deeply upsetting. And what has been also upsetting is to see the reaction uh of multiple so called leftist men who are upset because there had been in that text that she the the exchange. That Jenny had had with Graham Platner that evening. She had said something like her glute needed to be massaged or something, something flirtatious, borderline, sexy, whatever. And that wasn't part of the political article that had come out. And so Ryan Grimm, who folks may know, was saying that this was journalistic malpractice to not have included that text as though it was like some critical piece of information when like saying my butt is sore is really not an invitation for rape. It's also not an invitation for sex. Like, what are you even talking about? And he's not the only one. There's been other men as well who have, yeah, anyway, reacted very inappropriately to someone sharing a story that she clearly did not want to share, but felt obliged to because of how things are going and wanting to minimize harm. And I don't know when, if ever, men, even like supposedly progressive men, will see women as actual humans whose bodily autonomy deserves to be respected and whose opinions matter and whose experiences matter, but that time is not today in 2026, as far as I can tell. Wow. Well, goodbye, Graham. Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out. Good frickin' riddance. And I hope that whoever takes over that candidacy after him is excellent. And also beat Susan Collins. Um because a lot, a lot of people on the left side of the aisle have excused all of this behavior by Glam Graham Plattener for the sake of beating Susan Collins. And we just have got to do better than that. This is not a purity test. This guy was failing many different tests for morality and character. Um, and we can't just give all that a pass for the sake of maybe beating Susan Collins. Yeah. Um anyway. Yeah. Um there were so many things in the news that you and I said we we could try to talk to. But do you want to give us just a couple of one-liners? We'll put some links in the show notes for folks. Um Yes, I do because there was just so much, as as always, but like, I mean, I I feel like there are many compelling stories that we just, you know, didn't have time to address um this week. So things for folks to look up, look into um that uh we've been following are as follows. So Nolan Wells is a an 18-year-old black um child who went boating with his friends last weekend, Fourth of July weekend. All his friends, at least in the pictures, are are white. And um, and everyone else returned back from that trip. Uh, they went to an island off the coast of Mississippi. Everyone else came back. Nolan did not, and um, and he died. It is totally unclear what happened, except that he was abandoned by the friends who took him to that island, and they had his cell phone for reasons we do not understand. Um, there's just a lot that's unknown. Um the supposed friends have deactivated their social media accounts. The stepmother of one of the friends is a judge, and she deactivated her social media accounts. Um, it's honestly it's suspicious. It's very suspicious and it's very concerning. And of course, this poor young man um is no longer with us because of whatever happened. Now, the um sheriff had done a absolutely sick over this pineapple. Uh the sheriff had done some kind of supposed investigation and said that they think preliminarily that he drowned. I I don't put any sort of weight in that at this point. Um, and part of the reason that I wanted to mention him is just that he is not the only young black person who has gone missing or been found dead. And these stories do not get enough attention, um, and certainly nowhere near as much attention as if it were, as if he had been a white person out with three black friends. Can you imagine? Like someone actually said this on um Twitter. They said if three black people took a white man on a boat expedition and didn't return with him, the president would be making a speech right now. Um, so that's Nolan Wells. Um, and I I hope that people will follow the case, and I certainly will be following it. Um another very sad news story is that a man in Texas was shot and killed by ICE. His name is Lorenzo Salgado Arajo. And um, his son found out by hearing a clip that was posted on social media, and he recognized his father's voice as he said, They're killing me. Um, and that's another case that just has not gotten enough attention. Um, folks will recall we've talked about Alex Pready and Renee Good on this podcast, and both of those are white people who were unjustly obviously murdered by ICE and got a lot of media attention. Um, not that that brings either of them back, but at least there was some attention to this problem and outrage um and continued fighting against ICE that really must be abolished. But um, there really has not been as much attention on this story. Well, and as as we've mentioned on multiple episodes of the show, you know, we've last year was the the deadliest year if for people in ICE custody. And so I also think that it's it's so essential that we elevate these stories of what the lawless behavior um amongst ICE officials, and there needs to be an you know independent investigation. Um because we're we're all being desensitized to the death of these people, and the media is helping to support it when they're not successfully elevating these stories. Right. And um there was another story when you're talking about deaths in ICE. I mean, there there was an Afghan refugee who had supported the US forces who died um in ICE custody um of an anaphylactic reaction, unclear exactly to what um that also just Oh, yeah, people not being able to get medical, appropriate medical attention. I mean, it's this constant, it's terrible. Yeah. Um, so I the last thing I'll say about about um Lorenzo Salgado Arajo is that apparently ICE transferred his body to um the hospital or then the morgue without any of his identification. So the family's having trouble reclaiming the body, um, which is just adding another betrayal. And I just want to tie this really quickly back to, you know, what when we were talking about Mitch McConnell and how everyone deserves death and dignity, dignity and death. And um, this is such a gr an egregious example of how even in death, we cannot respect these these folks' bodies. I mean, that's yeah, because immigrants aren't human, apparently, according to our government. Um, I mean, like we talked about the aliens.gov. Um, okay, the last kind of thing to put on folks' radar is that there is a cyclosporiasis outbreak. This is a uh parasite that the CDC used to track and is no longer tracking, as of you can guess last year. Um, but there have been a number of cases. It's hard to know exactly how many, again, because they're not really tracking. So the latest numbers that I was able to find um today are from a couple weeks ago, which was like not quite 200 cases, but there's probably many more than that. So this is a um diarrhea. This is the diarrhea I was referring to in the opening. Um it causes, it's rarely fatal, um, but can cause explosive diarrhea, which obviously can cause dehydration and all sorts of other issues. Um, so that's happening, wouldn't it be nice if we had a functioning CDC? But I guess that boat sailed a year and a half ago. Um, so those are at least a few of the stories. Um, obviously there's lots more going on in the world, but those are a few we wanted to draw your attention to. I think with that we should talk about something good. So, do you want to share what you recommend for folks? Your take to and call me in the morning. Oh my gosh, absolutely. We gotta we gotta lighten the mood at this point.

SPEAKER_01

Okay.

SPEAKER_03

You know that I love an animal and I love anesthesia.

SPEAKER_04

And the internet now knows this about me too. And so I keep getting uh, you know, different videos of different kinds of animals and like veterinary anesthesia, which I think is fascinating.

SPEAKER_03

I'm like, ooh, what's the what's the the glare, what's the glottis like on a giraffe? Well, now I've seen it.

SPEAKER_04

Um so I will put a clip of uh a giraffe being anesthetized and how totally cool and weird that is. Um and then random fun fact, Ringo Starr of the drummer from the Beatles, um, turned 86 years old. Uh also from our uh young, when we were young folks, he was the uh the original Thomas the Train video that was like on PBS. He played the um like the he played the conductor, like the friendly conductor. And it I anyway, I always think of Ringo Starr and I think of Thomas the Train. Okay, great. Happy birthday to Ringo Starr. Yeah. Um what about you? Okay, I just have one uh that I am going to pull up here. So there's a trend that's been happening. I might even be late to this trend on TikTok where people are dancing to a song that I remember from my youth. And I will put a link to one of the videos, but they they have like these dance circles and everybody like takes a turn. It's I don't know, somehow it's very soothing. Um, but this is the the song um that hopefully folks will recognize.

SPEAKER_02

So every time there's like different people doing every time it comes on my page, I watch the whole thing. I just I love it so much.

SPEAKER_04

Uh very nostalgic. And also, like, I just love a good dance circle. Um, anyway, so that's that's what I would recommend uh for folks. I'll put a link in the show notes. Dancing, I think that's it. It's already too much. That's it for this week's episode. If you didn't like what you heard, this has been the Secretary Kennedy podcast. And if you liked it, don't forget to subscribe to The Present Illness, leave us a review, and tell your friends.

SPEAKER_03

We know that you don't like Senator Kennedy because you've been listening to us.

SPEAKER_04

Um, follow us on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube at The Present Illness, and you can stay on top of all of our TPI-related news. We will be back next week with more headlines, hot takes, and doom scrolling, hopefully wrapped in some laughs until then, agitate, hydrate, and take a nap.

SPEAKER_03

And we'll see you next time on the present illness.

SPEAKER_04

Production by Argivon Salas and Alyssa Berghart, editing by Alyssa Berghart, social media by Argivon Salas, original music by Joseph Uphoff. Don't take medical advice from random people on a podcast. This show is for informational purposes. It's meant to be fun, and it's certainly not medical advice. Please take your medical questions to a qualified professional. This podcast is our hobby, doesn't represent our employers or anyone but ourselves.

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Alyssa Burgart, MD, MA

Host
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Arghavan Salles, MD, PhD

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