Shameless: Khanna Invokes Epstein to Defend Platner

Yesterday, Ro Khanna wanted everyone to show “grace and redemption” to a Nazi-tatted violent creep whose sexting affairs had continued almost all the way up to his campaign launch. When others criticize his close buddy Graham Platner, however, Khanna doesn’t show much grace. In fact, Khanna edges into mudslinging and defamation in order to avoid accountability for his endorsement of Der Oysterführer. 

It started with a discussion on Mark Halperin’s 2Way podcast yesterday, where Khanna’s endorsement of Platner received considerable comment, although not necessarily the main topic. The discussion centered on the 2028 presidential race and which Democrat would fill the “Bernie Sanders” lane. Khanna’s name came up, but his recent endorsement of Platner would raise enormous questions about his judgment, and not just on that topic, but also on Israel and the Epstein files. 

“I will tell you, over Israel, over Epstein and over Platner, Ro Khanna has inspired deep ire,” says @MarkHalperin about senior Democrats’ antipathy toward the progressive congressman from Silicon Valley, who’s emerging as a Democratic presidential contender. “I’m not talking… pic.twitter.com/BZ0l0ARxp3

— 2WAY (@2waytvapp) June 12, 2026

For those who do not recall, Khanna revealed the identities of four people named in the Epstein Files. Or, at least that’s what Khanna thought he’d done. As it turned out, Khanna named four men who had nothing to do with Epstein, as did Thomas Massie at about the same time, turning a political coup into a cuckoo faceplant for Democrats. 

Khanna decided to embrace the suck, so to speak, and this morning accused Halperin and his guests of being part of the “Epstein class” as well:

I welcome the hatred of the Epstein class. https://t.co/54KoHWH06H

— Ro Khanna (@RoKhanna) June 12, 2026

This is nothing more than blatant and disgusting McCarthyism. And what’s more, it’s particularly hypocritical in this moment, because Khanna has spent the last couple of weeks campaigning for a man who not only wore a Nazi SS tattoo for eighteen years and had repeatedly lied about it, but the same man abused at least one ex-girlfriend and serially cheated on another. 

The real hypocrisy in Khanna’s attack, though, relates to Herr Totenkopf’s Kik account and his refusal to answer any questions about it. Platner had an active account on the platform known as a “predator’s paradise” until this month, using a half-naked profile pic for his communications. As I wrote yesterday, Newsweek reported that as of June 2, the only change to the account was removing the photo:

The Kik profile of Graham Platner remains active as of early Tuesday, but no longer features a shirtless photo of the Democratic frontrunner in Maine’s 2026 Senate primary.

The profile for Platner on the anonymous messaging app, Phustle0331, removed a shirtless snapshot of the Senate hopeful late Monday afternoon following reports that he had sent sexually explicit messages to multiple women while married. …

Kik, an instant messaging app that launched in 2015, allows users to access the platform without providing phone numbers or valid email addresses. In 2023, the National Center on Sexual Exploitation dubbed Kik a “predator’s paradise.”

“Kik has little to no protections in place to prevent all this grooming and child sexual exploitation,” the nonprofit group said. “The only real safety settings Kik provides is the ability to block or report a user. This places almost all the responsibility on the victimized children and users, whose age, inexperience, fear, or other vulnerabilities is often a barrier when it comes to identifying and reporting abuse.”

While Khanna descends into McCarthyism to address his critics, he pointedly hasn’t asked his good pal Platner to release all of his Kik threads over the years. Khanna is actively campaigning for a middle-aged married Democrat who maintained a Kik account all the way through the Maine primary, despite being a married man who had supposedly reformed from his “dark years.” Khanna demanded voters show Der Oysterführer “grace and redemption” while Platner keeps hiding his activities on a “predator’s paradise.”

If Khanna wants to expose predators, why is he campaigning for someone who’s at least predator-adjacent? Why hasn’t Khanna demanded that Platner release his Kik files as a condition of Khanna’s support? The reason is that Khanna doesn’t actually care about predators; he just uses them to gain power, in whatever way they serve Khanna best. 

Khanna is a despicable figure in American politics, whose mask of reason has not just slipped with Platner, but dropped and shattered altogether. In that sense, he might be the perfect candidate for the radical-Left “Bernie lane” in 2028, but that says more about the progressive movement than anything else. 

Editor’s Note: The 2026 Midterms will determine the fate of President Trump’s America First agenda. Republicans must maintain control of both chambers of Congress.

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