Democrat Graham Platner cites the trauma of combat when asked in a Reddit post
NEWNow you can listen to Fox News articles!
Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner spoke about his deployment and post-traumatic stress disorder during an interview that aired Sunday about his past social media accounts of sexual harassment.
“I’m wondering, if you think how dangerous this thing would be politically, because, I’ve read those books and, you know, they’re bad. Those posts are bad,” said CNN’s Manu Raju.
Gov. Janet Mills, who is running against Platner in the Democratic Senate primary, has launched a counter-ad campaign targeting women in response to comments she made a decade ago on Reddit about rape. The Mills campaign is highlighting Graham’s comments, as the candidate’s voice actor, reading excerpts of them aloud. Among these observations was one that appeared in 2013, later retracted by Platner, that people concerned about rape should not be “embarrassed until they end up sleeping with someone they didn’t mean to.”
Platner said he regrets writing when he was pressured by Raju.
U.S. Congressman from Maine Graham Platner speaks at a town hall at the Leavitt Theater on October 22, 2025, in Ogunquit, Maine. (Sophie Park/Getty Images)
‘IMPORTANCE’ WOMEN ATTACK FOUR SENATORS WITH NAZI SYMBOL TATTOOS, SAYING ‘IT’S NOT JUST A WHOOPSIE’
“Oh, yes… Yes, seriously. But, I was at a time in my life where I was really struggling after coming back from my fights,” Platner told Raju. “I was very alone, very lonely, very disappointed, very angry. And I think like most people, I went online to find some kind of community or serotonin boost.”
He went on to say that he was able to reconnect with his community and said that he would not have reached this level without the struggles in his past.
“After many years of kind of coming back to the community, I’m reconnecting with my community, reconnecting, frankly, with, like, the great state of Maine, which has allowed me to be the person I am today, which I’m very proud of. But I wouldn’t be who I am today without the struggles I had to go through,” Platner added.
Platner also told Raju that he had talked about the positions in October and allowed the people of Maine to ask him about them directly.
Senator Graham Platner of Maine, left, and Gov. Two-term incumbent Jane Mills is running for the Democratic state Senate. (Sophie Park/Getty Images; Scott Eisen/Getty Images)
GRAHAM PLATNER WANTS CONCERNED VOTERS OVER ‘BILLIONAIRE’ TRANS SATISFACTION
“I’ve gone all over the state of Maine and let people ask me about everything directly, for months now. And, I think a lot of people in the state, seeing this is getting kind of a drag back, months and months after we’ve already talked about it,” he said.
He added, “I’ll just say, the response that we’ve gotten across the country is that people find that this is everything they hate about politics. And I think that, politically in the state of Maine, that’s more damaging than the fact that people can understand that I, as a person, have changed over time and I’ve changed, which actually I think a lot of people can see.”
CLICK HERE FOR MORE NEWS AND CULTURE
Platner also faced backlash for a tattoo that is widely considered a Nazi symbol.
He announced in October that he had covered the tattoo.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS PROGRAM
Platner was endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, Vt., and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. The primary election will be held on June 9.
The eventual Democratic nominee will go on to face Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who has held the seat since 1997.
