Jon Stewart torched the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Democratic leadership as “lost” after learning from a candidate with a massive lead that he’s heard zilch from the party’s leadership.

Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner joined Stewart on his Weekly Show podcast and both men vented their frustrations with the Democratic Party, as neither are all that impressed with the DNC.

Platner is running to take Sen. Susan Collins’s (R-ME) seat and he essentially cinched his party’s nomination at this point thanks to Maine Governor Janet Mills’s (D) suspension of her Senate campaign. Platner previously found himself facing pushback after a tattoo of his was identified as being associated with Nazism. Platner said he got the tattoo during his military service and was unaware of the association. He’s since had the chest tattoo covered.

Platner, who conducted the Stewart interview while Mills was still in the race, said he’s received support from individual senators like Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), but he’s heard nothing from the DNC or the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC).

“There has been more reach out from I would say more kind of like establishment folks. However, and this is the important part, not from like the DSCC, not from the DNC, nobody in the places of power remains interested,” Platner said.

“But they’re lost, dude. They’re lost,” Stewart said.

“It’s so bad,” Platner agreed.

He continued:

The thing that bothers me the most isn’t like — I’m not I’m asking for you to be my friend. I’m just, but you should be curious because I’m polling 40 points ahead. Like, at least just reach out and be like, Hey, what are you actually… because they’ve never spoken ever. I’ve never gotten a phone call. Like, no one’s ever reached out. I’ve never talked to anybody in leadership. I’ve like, no one has ever been interested in ever which is, like, kind of baffling.

Stewart argued Platner is viewed as “the Democratic equivalent of a MAGA loyalist” and the Democratic Party leadership puts candidates into two camps.

He said:

I think it’s because they only know two stories. The two stories are this. You’re either a moderate Democrat or you’re a left-wing firebrand. And so what they’re saying is, oh sure, the left- wing firebrand, that does well in the primary, but that’ll never travel. There is that idea that, well, electability, and there’s something crazy about this, as though you are the equivalent of a…you’re the Democratic equivalent of a MAGA loyalist who has come out with wildly controversial positions. And then you talk to you for five minutes, you go, oh no, this is based in historical precedent. It has a very literate and literary foundation to it. It has the foundation of lived experience. Like, they should be, again, viewing this as a Rosetta Stone that can help them translate.

Watch above via The Weekly Show.

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