Graham Platner, a Democrat running for U.S. Senate in Maine, said in a CBS News interview that the culture he experienced in the infantry influenced a tattoo that resembled a Nazi symbol and offensive posts he previously made on Reddit, adding that his views have changed since leaving the military and that the tattoo has been covered.
Graham Platner, a Democrat running for U.S. Senate in Maine, is facing renewed scrutiny over a chest tattoo that outside groups said resembled a Nazi-era symbol and a cache of deleted Reddit comments that included offensive language and remarks about topics including sexual assault in the military.
In an appearance on CBS News’ “The Takeout with Major Garrett,” Platner said the environment he came out of in the infantry had shaped his past behavior and views. In a clip shared by CBS News on April 10, 2026, he described leaving what he called a “hyper-masculine” and “hyper-violent” place, and said “much of it” stemmed from “the culture I had come out of.”
Platner, a Marine Corps and Army veteran who has publicly said he served four infantry tours, has said he later came to see some of his past statements differently after leaving the service and encountering a wider range of experiences.
The tattoo controversy emerged in 2025, when Platner altered or covered the tattoo after it was linked by critics and the Anti-Defamation League to the Nazi “Totenkopf,” or “death’s head,” symbol associated with Hitler’s SS. Platner has said he did not understand any white-supremacist connotation when he got the tattoo years earlier.
The race is part of a high-profile 2026 contest in which Democrats are vying to challenge Republican Sen. Susan Collins. Gov. Janet Mills is running in the June 9 Democratic primary, and recent public polling has shown Platner with a sizable lead over Mills in at least some surveys, including an Emerson College Polling survey conducted March 21–23 that found Platner ahead among likely Democratic primary voters.
