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{"id":25480,"date":"2026-07-07T16:47:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T16:47:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/bernie-sanders-says-he-told-graham-platner-to-step-aside\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T16:47:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T16:47:14","slug":"bernie-sanders-says-he-told-graham-platner-to-step-aside","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/bernie-sanders-says-he-told-graham-platner-to-step-aside\/","title":{"rendered":"Bernie Sanders says he told Graham Platner to \u2018step aside\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said he told Maine Democrat Graham Platner to end his Senate bid on Tuesday, in the wake of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2026\/07\/06\/graham-platner-sexual-assault-allegation-00987737\" target=\"_blank\">a POLITICO report<\/a> that a woman who Platner dated said he forced her to have sex with him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have spoken with Graham Platner about the best path forward for Maine. In light of these very serious allegations, I have recommended that he step aside,\u201d Sanders said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>Platner has denied the allegations.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s Sanders\u2019 first public remarks about Platner since the Blue Light News report, and it comes after he\u2019s stood beside Platner in the wake of other scandals. Numerous other elected Democrats and officials <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2026\/07\/06\/democrats-abandon-graham-platner-endorsements-support-00988421\" target=\"_blank\">called on Platner to step down<\/a> on Monday night.<\/p>\n<p><i>This is a breaking news story that will be updated.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said he told Maine Democrat Graham Platner to end his Senate bid on Tuesday, in the wake of a Blue Light News report that a woman who Platner dated said he forced her to have sex with him. \u201cI have spoken with Graham Platner about the best path forward for Maine. In light [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25480\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}