Progressive U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner defended his past controversial statements and behavior during a Friday interview, attributing some of his prior views to the “culture” he experienced during his military service and prompting backlash from Republican lawmakers and veterans.
Platner, a Democrat running in Maine’s Senate primary, told host Major Garrett on CBS News’ “The Takeout” podcast that his time in the U.S. Army shaped earlier beliefs he no longer holds.
“I came out of a hyper-masculine, hyper-violent place,” Platner said. “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.”
The comments came as Platner addressed scrutiny over past Reddit posts, a Nazi tattoo and other controversies tied to his earlier conduct. Platner said his evolution stemmed from exposure to different perspectives following his service.
“Once I left and came out and interacted in the civilian world with lots of different people with very different experiences than my own,” he said. “Many of those beliefs and thoughts and even just language changed significantly over time.”
The remarks drew criticism from Republican officials with military backgrounds, who pushed back on the suggestion that such views are reflective of American military culture.
Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., a retired Air Force general, responded to the comments on X by rejecting the characterization outright.
“I served nearly 30 years and never saw a Nazi tattoo on one of our servicemen or women,” Bacon said.
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Sen. Tim Sheehy, R-Mont., a former Navy SEAL, also criticized Platner’s explanation in a post on X.
“I must have missed the day in basic training where they taught us to get Nazi tattoos and say women deserve to be raped,” Sheehy said.
Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., a Marine Corps veteran, similarly dismissed the claim that military culture contributed to the behavior in question.
“Blame the Marine Corps for Nazi tattoos and rape comments? Wasn’t in my training manual,” Young wrote.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, argued that Platner’s comments broadly mischaracterized service members.
“Democrat candidate with a Nazi SS tattoo explains why he got that tattoo — essentially, that the US military are ALL ‘narrow’ minded, ‘hyper-violent’ Nazis,” Cruz wrote. “This is FALSE, and slanderous to our servicemen & women.”
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Platner acknowledged that not all of his past actions could be attributed solely to his military experience, while maintaining that it played a significant role in shaping earlier viewpoints.
“I’ve never laid the entire fault… at the feet of only post-traumatic stress,” he told Garrett. “Some of that was not because of my combat service, but much of it was because of the culture I had come out of.”
