Maine U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner denied he was a “secret Nazi” after a video showed he has a tattoo resembling a Nazi symbol.
A video recently surfaced showing Mr. Platner, shirtless and lip-syncing, at his brother’s wedding a decade ago. The candidate and former Marine appears to have a skull tattoo on his chest that resembles a symbol of the SS, or Schutzstaffel, under Adolf Hitler.
“I am not a secret Nazi,” Mr. Platner, a Democrat, said on the “Pod Save America” podcast. “Actually, if you read through my Reddit comments, I think you can pretty much figure out where I stand on Nazism and antisemitism and racism in general. I’d say a lifelong opponent.”
He said he got the tattoo while drunk and that he associated the symbol with the military, not Nazis.
Mr. Platner said he planned to get it removed.
Some are skeptical of his story.
His former political director, Genevieve McDonald, reportedly wrote on Facebook that he knows what it means.
“Graham has an antisemitic tattoo on his chest,” she said. “He’s not an idiot, he’s a military history buff. Maybe he didn’t know it when he got it, but he got it years ago and he should have had it covered up because he knows damn well what it means.”
Ms. McDonald quit the campaign last week.
The Nazi mark is the latest scandal for Mr. Platner, who is running for the Democratic Party nomination to take on longtime Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican, in 2026.
Mr. Platner also appeared to endorse political violence and dismiss sexual assault in the military.
In posts on Reddit, he said, in one instance, “Tell them that if they expect to fight fascism without a good semi-automatic rifle, they ought to do some reading of history.”
In another post, he voiced agreement with former socialist presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs, saying, “An armed working class is a requirement for economic justice.”
He made the posts between 2013 and 2021. He deleted them since entering the Senate race, according to CNN.
In an almost five-minute apology posted to social media, Mr. Platner said that he disagrees with his former comments. The oyster farmer said the posts were made after leaving the Army in 2012, when he was struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.
“I’m sorry for this. Just know that it’s not reflective at all of who I am,” Mr. Platner said. “I don’t want you to judge me on the dumbest thing I ever wrote on the internet. I would prefer if people could judge me on the person I am today.”
Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that he doesn’t think they’re “disqualifying, but certainly they’re not right.”
“And I’m glad that he apologized for them,” he added. “They’re indefensible, they’re hurtful, and they’re offensive.”
He has explained that the SS symbol was simply a poor choice of tattoo.
During his third deployment in Split, Croatia, he and other machine gun squad leaders “got very inebriated” and “did what Marines on liberty do, and we decided to go get a tattoo,” he said on the podcast.
The tattoo selection, he said, came from picking skulls and crossbones displayed on the tattoo parlor wall because of its association with the military.
After getting the tattoo, he enlisted in the Army, “which involved a full physical that examines tattoos for hate symbols,” he said.
Another Democrat, Maine Gov. Janet Mills, announced her Senate candidacy last week.
