Army veteran Ted Daniels, a Purple Heart recipient, has criticized Maine Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner over resurfaced Reddit comments that multiple outlets say were posted under an account attributed to Platner and mocked Daniels’ survival of a 2012 firefight in Afghanistan.
Army veteran Ted Daniels, who was wounded in a 2012 firefight in Afghanistan and later received a Purple Heart, has publicly criticized Maine Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner after online posts resurfaced that reportedly mocked Daniels and questioned whether he should have survived.
According to The Daily Wire, which cited reporting by the New York Post, Daniels said Democrats who continue to back Platner “owe his children an explanation” for their support. The Daily Wire article described the episode as a “nasty controversy” centered on resurfaced Reddit comments.
Separate coverage by The Daily Wire and Fox News Digital describes the resurfaced material as a 2019 Reddit post attributed to a now-deleted account that appeared to belong to Platner. In that post, the writer commented on a viral helmet-camera video of Daniels during the firefight and criticized his actions, with the post including language saying Daniels “didn’t deserve to live.”
The accounts also describe Daniels as having been shot four times during the incident. Mediaite, summarizing Daniels’ account of the fight, reported that he said his unit was pinned down and that he moved into the open to draw fire so others could get to safety.
Platner’s campaign response and the authenticity of the Reddit account attribution were not independently verified in the provided source. However, Fox News Digital reported that Platner was confronted in person about the deleted post and did not offer a clear apology, instead disputing the allegations as “slanderous and offensive,” according to The Daily Wire’s summary of the Fox report.
The controversy has unfolded as Platner has been widely described by Maine outlets as the Democrats’ “presumptive” Senate nominee, though reporting from Maine Public and other organizations has noted he still faced a primary contest at the time of those reports.
