Mamdani guru Morris Katz tries to save face after Platner vetting disaster and gets immediate backlash: Twerp from Tribeca

WASHINGTON — Morris Katz, the star Gen Z political guru behind Mayor Mamdani and Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner, has offered a groveling, belated mea culpa over Platner’s campaign implosion after he was accused of rape.But one former ally isn’t buying it, branding him a “twerp from Tribeca” — and suggesting there’s more dirt on Katz’s failure to vet Platner before backing him to run against Republican Sen.Susan Collins.

In an interview on “The Ezra Klein Show” released Friday, Katz — a co-founder of lefty consulting group The Fight Agency — acknowledged the campaign’s lapses in judgment.But, he claimed, “there is no standard vetting process that would have found the credible allegation that ended the campaign,” referencing a rape accusation from ex-girlfriend Jenny Racicot.“That being said, in hindsight, knowing what we know now, the Reddit posts alone probably should have been enough — or should have been enough,” Katz told Klein.

“The tattoo should have been enough.The initial New York Times story on troubling behavior should have been enough.”The Marine-turned-oyster farmer had to apologize for past Reddit posts — including disparaging a Purple Heart recipient and telling sex assault victims to “take some responsibility” — and also had to cover up a Totenkopf tattoo — a Nazi SS symbol, inked on his chest nearly two decades ago.“I think it should have been a red line,” Katz said in the Times interview of the Reddit posts.

“He talked about it being one of the things he regretted saying the most, that it was indicative of a time of his life when he was lost and angry, and that it was in no way reflective of who he was.Even after the campaign’s implosion, Platner — unlike Katz’s comments to the Times — maintained that Racicot’s allegations were not credible, dismissing them as well as earlier accusations of physical abuse that ex Lyndsey Fifield leveled in the Times as entirely false.But Kat...