Key Facts

Has Platner responded to the allegations?

In an MS NOW interview, Platner was confronted with the latest allegations and he said they were not true. After interviewer Chris Hayes read out a snippet from the article, the Democratic candidate responded: “There are some allegations in this piece that I just want to be kind of unequivocal about, are simply not true. Anything alleging physicality, anything alleging that I knew what my tattoo was, these are the statements of someone who’s politically motivated.” Platner noted that the reporting about him “struggling, not being a good boyfriend, certainly self-medicating with alcohol,” is something he’s been “very up front since the beginning of this campaign that that was a pretty dark period of my life after I came back from my combat service.” He added there are things in the article he “absolutely will take responsibility for…But those serious allegations are just not true.”

What Do We Know About Platner’s Sexting Scandal?

Over the weekend, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, reported that Platner’s wife, Amy Gertner, told his Senate campaign last year about sexually explicit texts he sent to several women to ensure they didn’t impact his campaign. Former Maine state legislator Genevieve McDonald, who also served as the Platner campaign’s political director until October last year, told the Times that Gertner reached out to her before a rally with Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., to inform her about the texts he sent to as many as a dozen women. McDonald also told the Times the Senate is “not a training ground for redemption,” and instead a “place for proven leaders with moral clarity and integrity.”

How did Platner and his campaign respond to the sexting scandal?

After a campaign event on Sunday, Platner was asked about the reports and said he wasn’t surprised that “establishment media outlets” were running “gossip” instead of issues that “actually matter in this race.” The Democratic candidate, who was standing with his wife, accused the Times and the Journal of “journalistic malpractice” and claimed that they ran stories without any evidence “besides the gossip from a former staffer” He added: “I’m confirming that what Genevieve McDonald said in the New York Times is not true.” His campaign also released a video statement from Gertner in which the Democratic candidate’s wife said she was “really angry, disappointed” that her disclosure was made public and she “[finds] it really shameful that there’s a group of media outlets and people who are willing to spread gossip instead of talking about real issues that Graham is running on.”

How have betting markets reacted to Platner’s scandals?

Platner’s odds of winning Maine’s Senate race against Republican incumbent Sen. Susan Collins have plummeted this week on election betting markets. Bettors on Kalshi predict the race is now a toss up with the Democratic candidate’s odds falling from 72% last month to 55% early on Friday. On the crypto betting platform Polymarket, Platner’s odds have a similar drop, falling from 78% in on May 23 to just 54% as of early Friday.

Crucial Quote

“Let’s be very clear: This is a lifelong G.O.P. operative who’s dedicated her career to electing Republicans.” Platner’s campaign told the Times about Fifield, who has worked for Republican campaigns in Virginia.

Tangent

Platner’s odds of winning one of Maine’s Senate race have plummeted this week on Kalshi. The GOP nominee (expected to be longtime Sen. Susan Collins) is now the 52% favorite, a dramatic change from the 72.7% odds Democrats held on May 22.

WHAT TO WATCH FOR

Maine’s primaries are June 9.

Further Reading

Progressive Leaders Brush Off Graham Platner’s Sexting Controversy: ‘He Has Grown’ (Forbes)

Graham Platner And His Wife Dismiss Reports Of His Alleged Sexting As ‘Gossip’ (Forbes)

The mammoth triumphal arch President Trump wants to build would sit under one of the most complex sections of the national airspace — directly in the paths of flights in and out of Ronald Reagan National Airport and just a few miles from the site of a catastrophic midair collision last year.

The Trump administration said on Thursday that the Federal Aviation Administration had compiled preliminary findings from an initial review of whether the proposed arch presented any risks to Washington’s airspace.

But the extent to which those findings, which have yet to be made public, will influence the administration’s plans to move ahead with construction as planned is uncertain. According to a New York Times analysis, the arch as currently planned would warrant further study under at least one F.A.A. guideline.

The F.A.A. had been looking into the administration’s plan for about a month to determine whether the proposed 250-foot structure — a height chosen to commemorate 2026 being the 250th year since American independence — would pose any hazard to flights in and out of Reagan National.

But in recent days, the National Park Service, acting on behalf of the Trump administration, appeared to change tack, quietly asking the F.A.A. to conduct a feasibility study — an advisory review that is normally preliminary and that, according to the F.A.A.’s own procedures, is usually given lower priority than official evaluations.

The reason for the new request, which administration officials defended as routine, was not immediately clear. Though the F.A.A. requires proposed structures over 200 feet to submit to a formal evaluation to determine their impact on local air traffic, feasibility studies are voluntary.

Some aviation experts said the administration’s decision to pursue one at this stage could indicate that possible problems had been identified with the height of the structure, which climbed from 250 feet in the initial filing to 259 feet in the feasibility study request, making the top of the arch sit 288 feet above sea level. In that case, they said, asking for an advisory study could be a strategy to avoid the potential black mark of having Mr. Trump’s pet construction project labeled a risk to flight safety.

It could suggest a project “ran into some issues and is more complicated than they had hoped,” said Michael O’Donnell, an aerospace consultant who previously worked as a senior F.A.A. official focused on air traffic safety.

The change in approach may reflect the sensitivity with which the federal government has approached potential risks in the airspace surrounding Washington since a midair collision last year that killed 67.

In the wake of that accident, in which an Army helicopter flew into a commercial jet 278 feet up in the air just southeast of Reagan National Airport, the F.A.A. shut down much of the surrounding sky to most helicopter traffic. It also instituted new prohibitions against pilots relying on “see and avoid” methods to avoid hitting planes going in and out of the airport.

An airspace of unparalleled complexity

Should the arch proceed as planned, some aviation experts said it could be just the latest complication to befall a section of airspace already considered one of the nation’s most complicated.

Reagan National poses special challenges to pilots navigating the surrounding airspace. Planes cannot fly below 18,000 feet over the National Mall — a wide swath of Washington sitting just north of the airport — and the Naval Observatory, where the vice president lives, meaning that pilots routinely have to make tight turns when ascending from and descending to the airport to avoid them.

Flight restrictions for special events and security surrounding movements of government officials are frequent. Noise concerns in the surrounding metro areas push planes to tightly follow the Potomac River. And two of the airport’s three runways are short, which reduces the margin of error for flights landing or taking off — and contributes to the congestion of Runway 19, which is the nation’s busiest commercial runway.

The Reagan airspace has “just about every congested airspace issue that you can have,” said Dennis Tajer, a 737 pilot who is a spokesman for the American Airlines pilot union. “And we know the tragedy that happened — there’s room for error, but not much.”