Democratic strategist Morris Katz’s public mea culpa last week for his role in promoting and protecting Graham Platner didn’t sit well with at least one person familiar with the inner workings of the former candidate’s political operation.
“I don’t believe him,” Genevieve McDonald, who served as the Platner campaign’s political director until resigning last October, said of Katz. “I mean, consultants shouldn’t have main character energy. We have lost the plot when consultants are doing PR tours for themselves, for their own redemption, and that is what this felt like.”
Katz — one of the people most responsible for helping elevate Platner to national stardom — appeared on “The Ezra Klein Show” last week, saying he now believes some of the initial revelations about Platner, including his online history, should have been enough to end his Senate candidacy last year. Platner would go on to win the Democratic Senate primary in June, only to be forced out of the race weeks later after he was accused of sexual assault.
It was a notable admission from Katz, a rising star in his own right after helping mastermind New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s winning race in 2025.
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But it rang hollow to McDonald, who said Democratic voters were robbed of a real primary because top members of Platner’s campaign dismissed the seriousness of the candidate’s actions and failed to properly vet rumors of other potential misdeeds.
“I appreciate the recognition that those things should have been enough,” McDonald told NOTUS in an interview on Monday. “However, they weren’t enough in the moment, and so it doesn’t repair the damage.”
Katz’s admission that he misjudged the situation is an effort to protect his career rather than a genuine admission of wrongdoing, she said, and another chance for him to build out a political status that she thinks has a tendency to overshadow his actual political clients.
“We’ve gotten to a point where it seems as though I’ve read as much about Morris Katz as I have about the candidates that he works for,” she said.
Katz and McDonald have publicly tussled before over the former political director’s decision to talk to The Wall Street Journal about allegations that Platner had sexted multiple women while he was married. During last week’s interview, Klein asked Katz whether he owed McDonald an apology, which he declined to give.
Katz’s response angered McDonald, who says he and his company, the Fight Agency, have tried to disparage her and her professional reputation since she resigned last year.
“I don’t need an apology from Morris Katz,” McDonald said. “I think Morris Katz needs to take some time for reflection and consider if he is serving the Democratic Party well.”
McDonald’s remarks mark a continuation of one of the most damaging controversies in recent party history, one that forced Democrats to pick a new nominee only this past weekend against Republican Sen. Susan Collins. Platner’s eventual decision to leave the race also led to a round of finger-pointing at some of the officials who worked for him and for months defended him vigorously from criticism.
“I do think the process was irresponsible,” McDonald said. “You know, it appears Fight Agency and Daniel Moraff were so eager to launch him and push out any potential competitors in the primary that they did not do their due diligence.”
Katz declined to comment for this story. Katz said in the interview with Klein that Fight Agency “is not a vetting agency,” but that it’d be “fair” to critique him and the firm for “putting more pressure on people to ensure that the vetting process taking place is responsible and robust.”
McDonald said she just hopes that everyone can move on.
“The past several months have been deeply challenging to me, both, you know, personally and professionally,” she said. “I’m very much ready for the nation to move on from the Platner campaign.”
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