Sanders refuses to apologize for backing Maine Senate candidate accused of sexual assault

Sen. Bernie Sanders says he has no regrets about endorsing Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner, who dropped out of the race against Sen. Susan Collins after a former girlfriend accused him of sexual assault, and Sanders is already promoting Platner's replacement.

Sanders appeared on CBS's "Face the Nation" on Sunday and brushed aside questions about whether he should have acted sooner on what host Margaret Brennan called "warning signs" surrounding Platner. The Vermont independent, who was among Platner's earliest backers, told Brennan he moved to push Platner out only after hearing "serious allegations" and speaking with the candidate directly by phone.

Asked point-blank whether he regretted the endorsement, Sanders told Brennan:

"No, I don't think so. When we heard the serious allegations made against him, I wanted to get on the phone; I wanted to talk to him. I did. I asked, along with virtually all his supporters, that he should get out of the race, and he did."

That answer sidesteps the harder question Brennan was pressing: not whether Sanders eventually called for Platner to leave, but why he waited. The New York Post reported that Sanders waited a full day after Politico published the rape allegations before publicly calling on Platner to drop out. Sanders had endorsed Platner shortly after he entered the Maine Senate race, making him one of the candidate's earliest and most prominent supporters.

Sanders rallied with Platner weeks before the allegations broke

The timeline makes the "no regrets" posture harder to sustain. On May 25, Sanders held a "Fighting Oligarchy" campaign rally in Portland, Maine, with Platner appearing alongside him, as National Review noted in a June analysis of the race. Weeks later, the sexual assault accusations surfaced, and Platner's candidacy collapsed.

Sanders' organization Our Revolution withdrew its endorsement and threw its weight behind progressive contender Troy Jackson. The Maine Democratic Party faced a hard July 27 deadline to name a replacement, with Platner's withdrawal deadline set for July 13, AP News reported.

On Saturday, the day before Sanders' television appearance, 600 Maine primary delegates voted to replace Platner with Jackson, a former Maine Senate president and logger whom Brennan described as a progressive who had been allied with Platner before calling on him to exit.

The succession fight exposed tensions between progressive and establishment factions within the state party. Our Revolution's executive director, Joseph Geevarghese, issued a pointed warning: "To the Democratic establishment: This is not your opening." Former Maine CDC Director Nirav Shah pushed back from the other direction, arguing that every day without a nominee gave Sen. Collins more room to campaign unopposed.

Jackson gets the Sanders seal of approval with 100 days to go

Sanders wasted no time pivoting from defending his Platner endorsement to promoting Jackson. With roughly 100 days until the election, Brennan asked whether Jackson could realistically catch up to Collins. Sanders delivered a lengthy answer built around his standard economic populism:

"I think he can. I think what Troy and I've known Troy for many years. What? He understands that the people of Maine are sick and tired of a rigged economy in which the billionaire class is getting richer and richer, while we have more income and wealth inequality today than we've ever had in the history of this country. While 60% of our people, including in Maine, including in Vermont all over this country, are living paycheck to paycheck, trying to put food on the table, trying to pay for health care for housing, put aside a few bucks for retirement. Troy understands that. He's a working-class guy. He's from the working class. He is very articulate. I think he stands an excellent chance to win."

Sanders had previously backed Jackson in a gubernatorial primary, the New York Post noted, which means the senator's political operation already had a relationship with the replacement candidate. That prior connection raises its own question: if Sanders knew Jackson and considered him viable, why did he invest early credibility in Platner instead?

The broader pattern of progressive candidates reshaping Democratic primaries is not unique to Maine. Sanders also used the interview to voice support for progressive candidates Abdul el Sayed in Michigan and Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan in Minnesota, framing his endorsement strategy around working-class issues rather than candidate vetting.

"All I know is, Margaret, the candidates that we are supporting are standing up for the working class of this country," Sanders said.

No accountability, just a quick pivot

Sanders' approach, rally with a candidate, endorse him early, acknowledge that vetting may not always be thorough, then move on without apology when the candidate implodes, fits a familiar pattern in progressive politics. The emphasis stays on ideology and economic grievance. The human cost of a failed endorsement, including the accuser's allegations and the disruption to Maine voters, gets treated as a speed bump.

Fox News highlighted that Sanders rejected regret "despite warning signs," a framing that underscores the gap between what was apparently knowable and when Sanders chose to act. Sanders himself acknowledged on air that his endorsed candidates "may not always be fully vetted", a concession that amounts to admitting the problem while refusing to accept responsibility for it.

The internal fractures this episode exposed within the Democratic coalition are not limited to Maine. Across the party, tensions between progressives and moderates have intensified over everything from candidate selection to policy direction. Sanders' brand of endorsement politics, ideological loyalty first, due diligence second, keeps producing collateral damage that the party's establishment wing is left to clean up.

And the Maine race carries real stakes. Collins is an incumbent with high name recognition and a moderate brand that plays well in the state. Democrats needed a strong, clean candidate and months of runway. Instead they got a scandal, a rushed delegate convention, and a replacement nominee with roughly three months to introduce himself to general-election voters.

That kind of self-inflicted wound is not unusual in a party where progressive primary energy often prioritizes ideological purity over electability and basic competence. Sanders may feel no regret, but Maine Democrats, and the voters who now face a compressed, chaotic general election, are the ones living with the consequences.

National Review's Dan McLaughlin warned in June that replacing Platner would not be simple. "Pulling a Biden or Torricelli swap will not be that easy," he wrote. Democrats pulled it off procedurally. Whether they can pull it off electorally, with a last-minute nominee and a scandal still hanging over the ticket, is another matter entirely.

Sanders, meanwhile, has already moved on to his next rally and his next endorsement. The pattern holds: internal Democratic divisions keep widening, and the people who light the fuse never stick around to survey the damage.

When your vetting process fails and your answer is "no regrets," you are not describing accountability. You are describing its absence.