Nazi Tattoo Dem Blames U.S. Army ‘Culture’ For Ink, Nasty Social Media Posts

Maine Democrat Graham Platner, who is running for the U.S. Senate in Maine, faced backlash for his Nazi-symbol tattoo and several nasty social media posts — and during a recent interview, he attributed both on the “culture” that he was exposed to while serving in the United States military.

Platner, who served both in the Marine Corps and the U.S. Army, got the tattoo covered up after the initial public outcry, appeared on “The Takeout with Major Garrett” — and he argued that the “hyper-masculine” culture in the infantry had “colored” his perspective in the past.

WATCH:

In response to controversy surrounding a tattoo resembling a Nazi symbol and comments he made previously on Reddit, Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner says “much of it was because of the culture I had come out of.”

“When I left the military, I came out of a… pic.twitter.com/C069CLxuDb

— CBS News (@CBSNews) April 10, 2026

“Graham, there have been a lot of things said about you. Things that you have written on Reddit, a tattoo you had and a controversy around that, and I want to ask you this, because I don’t think it’s been put to you this way before: Is there anything you’ve done or said that you regret that did not come from the stresses you internalized from Post-Traumatic Stress itself? That is to say, is PTSD the explanation for everything, or did you also just make some additional human errors that you want to explain or contextualize?”

“I’ll be up front,” Platner said, adding that he’d never blamed his past behavior solely on the fact that he’d been diagnosed with PTSD.

“When I left the military, I came out of a hyper-masculine, hyper-violent place. I did four tours in the infantry. We have a crude sense of humor in the infantry. We certainly have a, I would say, narrow view of a lot of topics, and that colored my opinions and my beliefs,” Platner continued.

He went on to claim that it wasn’t until he got out of the military and spent time with different people that his thoughts and opinions began to change over time.

Platner went on to say that he didn’t believe his past opinions were related to his combat service necessarily, but said that “much of it was because of the culture I had come out of, and over the years in between, I’ve met a lot more people, had a lot more experiences, learned a lot more about the world, and my opinions have changed with it.”

Platner is currently polling well ahead of Governor Janet Mills (D-ME). Whoever wins the primary will face incumbent Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) in November’s general election.