Dem Senate Candidate To Host 9/11 Fundraiser At D.C. Bar That Partnered With Terrorist Sympathizers

A Democrat running for Senate in Maine will host a fundraiser on September 11 at a Washington, D.C., bar that has allied with Hamas sympathizers.

Graham Platner, a 40-year-old Marine and Army veteran seeking to oust Republican Senator Susan Collins, scheduled a fundraiser at Exiles Bar in D.C. on 9/11. The location is an interesting choice for the anniversary of the deadly attack perpetrated by radical Islamic terrorists.

Exiles, located a little over a mile north of the White House, hosted an event last year with the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy (TIMEP), a group that claims that Israel started an “assault on Gaza” on October 7, 2023 — the day Hamas terrorists invaded Israel and killed around 1,200 people, taking hundreds more hostage.

“Israel’s most recent actions in Gaza seem to support the notion that the ultimate goal is to displace Palestinians and seize their land,” the group wrote in a June 2024 article. “Since October 7, many Israeli politicians and other powerful actors have made their territorial aspirations clear.”

TIMEP’s Executive Director, Mai El-Sadany, also recently posted on X that “Israel is making all of us less safe.”

During an April 18, 2024, event, Exiles Bar gifted 10% of some of its food and drink sales to TIMEP. The event was advertised by the New England Network for Justice for Palestine as “an evening of food, drink, community, and solidarity.”

The Daily Wire reached out to Exiles Bar, requesting comment on the event with a Hamas-sympathizing group.

Platner has a troubling record on Israel and the Middle East. While the Democrat has accused Israel of committing “genocide” in Gaza, there is no public record of him condemning Hamas.

Shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 11, Platner argued in an op-ed that “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter,” the Washington Free Beacon reported earlier this week. The op-ed was published in the Bangor Daily News.

The Daily Wire reached out to Platner’s campaign, seeking comment on his fundraiser at Exiles Bar and giving him an opportunity to address the 2002 op-ed.

Platner said in a recent interview that he joined the Marines out of high school “mostly out of like a young man’s sense of duty and also a bit of a call to adventure.” He later enrolled at George Washington University, but after seeing that many of his friends were still deployed, he enlisted in the Army and deployed to Afghanistan in 2010 and 2011. Platner, however, said he “did not believe in the thing that I had taken part in.”

Platner launched his 2026 Senate campaign last month with a pledge to focus on universal health care, housing affordability, and ending foreign wars, NBC News reported. Platner said that he hopes the Democratic Party will follow in the footsteps of leftists such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).