Graham Platner, the scandal-plagued Democratic Senate candidate from Maine, endorsed a Reddit comment calling America a "disgraceful country" in the days after the January 2020 U.S. strike that killed Iranian terror commander Qassem Soleimani, adding yet another entry to a growing catalogue of inflammatory online posts that has thrown the Maine Senate race into turmoil.
The Washington Free Beacon reported that Platner, posting under his Reddit alias "P-Hustle," responded to a user named "RevolutionaryCommie" who had written that Americans' reaction to the Soleimani strike, "the racism, the cheering death, the calling for more killings, the mocking of the dead", was "the most ghoulish and disgusting thing I've ever seen. They are a disgraceful country."
Platner's reply: "I'm an American, and I can't disagree with you tonight."
The exchange took place in a Reddit thread responding to a post about President Trump's American flag tweet following the strike that killed Soleimani, who commanded the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force and was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans during the Iraq war. The post has since been deleted, along with the rest of Platner's "P-Hustle" account.
Platner's campaign did not respond to the Free Beacon's request for comment.
The "disgraceful country" endorsement is not an isolated remark dredged from a forgotten corner of the internet. It fits a pattern of posts, spanning years, in which Platner attacked fellow veterans, mocked the military, praised enemy combatants, and described himself as a "communist."
In June 2019, Platner responded to a then-viral video showing Purple Heart recipient Teddy Daniels being shot by Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. Daniels had deliberately moved into open fire to draw attention away from fellow soldiers. Platner's response, posted under his Reddit alias, was to call Daniels a "dumb motherf*****" who "didn't deserve to live," adding that "poor marksmanship on the Taliban's part is the only reason this mouthbreather made it home."
Daniels responded in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece, writing that Platner "has been caught disparaging the service of fellow veterans like decorated Navy SEAL Chris Kyle and Vice President JD Vance. He also disparaged me while commenting on a viral video of a firefight in which I sustained numerous wounds from a Taliban ambush. I received a Purple Heart for my injuries, but Mr. Platner cheered for my death from behind a keyboard."
Daniels called Platner an "entitled brat."
And Daniels was not the only veteran Platner targeted. In a May 2024 appearance on the Green Beret Chronicle Show podcast, Platner went after Chris Kyle, the Navy SEAL whose service was depicted in American Sniper. Platner suggested Kyle inflated his kill count by being "a little less discriminating in your fire than, say, a more professional unit would be." He added that learning people considered Kyle a hero felt like "a weird practical joke being played on me by the war."
Taya Kyle, Chris Kyle's widow, told Fox News the comments were cowardly. "Nothing says, 'I want attention,' more than disparaging a national hero who's also dead," she said. "It's cowardly, it's lowbrow to lie about somebody else, right, and it distracts from what you've probably said."
The Free Beacon had previously reported that Platner, in a March 2019 Reddit post, called the Army "awful" and "full of fat, lazy trash who would rather not be in uniform." He also wrote that rural white Americans "actually are" racist, that rape victims should "take some responsibility," and, in the post that first drew national attention, described himself as a "communist."
Additional reporting from the New York Post revealed that Platner, again posting as "P-Hustle," commented "Someone clearly isn't trying hard enough" in response to a post about a teenager's suicide attempt. The Post also reported that Platner praised a 2014 Hamas raid on Israeli soldiers, calling it "an all around well executed and successful small unit raid."
Maine State House Minority Leader Billy Bob Faulkingham told the Post that "Graham Platner is clearly a person with deep and disturbing psychological issues that predate his military service and continue to this day."
When confronted with the posts promoting political violence, including 2018 statements that people need "a good semi-automatic rifle" to fight fascism, Platner did not dispute writing them. He told Just The News he was "f***ing around on the internet at a time when I felt lost and very disillusioned with our government who sent me overseas to watch my friends die." He called himself a "retired sh**poster." The posts were deleted roughly three months before he launched his Senate campaign.
Platner has blamed the broader pattern of comments on depression, PTSD, and alcohol abuse.
The Reddit posts are only one layer of the controversy. The Associated Press reported that Platner admitted to having a chest tattoo resembling a Nazi SS symbol, which he said he got in 2007 while drunk on leave in Croatia as a Marine. He covered it with a Celtic knot design rather than having it removed. "I wanted this thing off my body," he said. Additional controversies reported by the AP include deleted Reddit posts containing homophobic slurs, anti-LGBTQ+ jokes, dismissive comments about military sexual assault, and racist remarks.
A June 2026 New York Times report detailed Platner's "troubled relationships with women," including an ex-girlfriend who accused him of physical abuse and said he boasted of deliberately choosing his "Totenkopf" tattoo because he found it "relevant" to his military unit. Maine Democrats ultimately nominated Platner anyway, after Governor Janet Mills, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer's preferred candidate, suspended her campaign when polls showed Platner leading her by more than 30 points in the primary.
Despite calls from within his own party to drop out, Platner has refused. "All this is doing is galvanizing my commitment to this project," he said.
And prominent Democrats have largely rallied behind him. The Washington Examiner reported that Sen. Bernie Sanders deflected from Platner's scandals, saying, "I think it's important for us to focus on the issues facing working families a little bit more than Graham Platner's marriage." Sen. Elizabeth Warren similarly pivoted, telling reporters that "Susan Collins has a history of supporting Donald Trump."
Not every Democrat has been so forgiving. Sen. John Fetterman publicly dismissed Platner, declaring him "not even a Democrat." And Platner's own former campaign director urged Maine voters to reject him before the primary.
The political cost is becoming visible. Platner once led Republican incumbent Susan Collins by nearly 10 points in general election polling. A Quantus Insights poll now shows that lead has collapsed to just 1 point.
That erosion tracks directly with the drip of revelations. Each new post, each new accusation, each new refusal to answer questions has peeled away support. Democrats who built careers on #MeToo have gone conspicuously quiet as the Platner scandal has engulfed the Maine Senate race, a silence that tells its own story about the party's priorities when a Senate seat is on the line.
Platner's explanation for all of it, the communist self-identification, the attacks on decorated veterans, the mocking of a teenager's suicide attempt, the endorsement of a post calling America "disgraceful", is that he was struggling with PTSD and drinking too much. That may well be true. PTSD is real, and veterans deserve compassion.
But compassion for a man's struggles is not a reason to hand him a Senate seat. The posts were not one bad night. They spanned years. They targeted Gold Star families, Purple Heart recipients, and the country itself. They were deleted just before a campaign launch, not in a moment of remorse, but in an act of political calculation.
Even some Democrats have recognized that the record is disqualifying. The question is whether Maine voters will reach the same conclusion, or whether a party desperate for a Senate pickup will look the other way one more time.
A man who can't disagree that America is a "disgraceful country" is free to hold that opinion. He just shouldn't expect Americans to send him to the United States Senate.
