Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner, who has built his campaign for the Maine seat on his military service, is facing fierce backlash from veterans and Republican senators after resurfaced Reddit posts showed him calling the U.S. Army “absolute trash” and mocking a soldier who was shot four times by the Taliban.
The posts, written in 2019 on a since-deleted Reddit account, targeted Pfc. Ted Daniels, a Purple Heart recipient who nearly died protecting his squad in Afghanistan in 2012. Platner, himself a Marine and Army veteran turned oyster farmer, watched helmet cam footage of the firefight and responded not with respect, but with contempt.
His words, now circulating widely, have drawn a wall of condemnation from combat veterans across every branch and era of service. And neither Platner nor his campaign has responded to requests for comment. The silence speaks volumes for a man who wants to represent Maine in the United States Senate.
The Reddit posts, verified by the New York Post using the archival tool PullPush, were made under a burner account called “P-Hustler.” Platner had scrubbed his Reddit history, but the posts survived.
Responding to footage of Daniels under fire in Afghanistan, Platner wrote:
“Dumb motherf***er didn’t deserve to live. At least his stupidity and fat a** wheezing are available for all future infantrymen to witness and hold in contempt.”
He added:
“Poor marksmanship on the Taliban’s part is the only reason this mouthbreather made it home.”
That was a fellow American veteran talking about a man who took four rounds from enemy fighters while defending his squad. Daniels earned a Purple Heart for what happened that day. Platner, behind a screen name, decided it was funny.
In a separate April 2019 post, Platner broadened his attack to the entire Army, as Fox News Digital reported:
“I spent another 4 in the Army after the Corps, and while I was very lucky to serve in some sh**t hot units with good dudes, as a whole the organization is absolute trash. As an organization it’s awful. Full of fat, lazy trash who would rather not be in uniform.”
The reaction from those who served has been uniform and unsparing. Not a single veteran quoted in the reporting defended Platner.
Holland “Ricky” White, a Vietnam War veteran who served with the 173rd Airborne Brigade, one of the first ground combat units deployed to Vietnam, told Fox News Digital what his own service cost him:
“I am a decorated veteran, and people need to understand what serving in the Army cost me: congestive heart failure, bilateral hearing loss, COPD, sleep apnea, high blood pressure, hypothyroidism and PTSD.”
White, who is Black, added that he understood ridicule “better than most,” having faced it both as a Vietnam veteran and as a Black man. He said he lost friends in combat and still asks God why he was spared. “That is why comments like Graham’s are so offensive,” he said.
A veteran identified only as Steve, who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan and holds a Purple Heart, called Platner’s words “especially vile.”
“Mocking a fellow American that took enemy fire, to protect his squad shows a lack of basic understanding of brotherhood and selfless service.”
Bill Brown, a retired Navy SEAL and Iraq veteran, connected the posts directly to Platner’s Senate ambitions. A senator, Brown noted, “votes to send soldiers to war, confirms the generals who lead them, and funds the equipment that protects them.”
“Platner’s own words in his deleted post prove he can’t be trusted to do right by those that protect us.”
Kate Monroe, CEO of VETCOMM and a Marine Corps veteran, offered perhaps the sharpest framing. “Being a veteran does not make someone honorable,” she said. “Honor is how you carry yourself, how you treat others, and how you speak about those who served beside you. In this case, the uniform may have been earned, but respect clearly was not.”
Retired Army Staff Sergeant John Rourke, an Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran, said Platner’s mockery doesn’t “make him edgy or tough” but rather “a disgrace to the uniform.”
Four Republican senators, all military veterans themselves, condemned Platner in statements to Fox News Digital.
Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa, who served 23 years in the Army Reserve and Iowa Army National Guard and deployed to Kuwait as a company commander during Operation Iraqi Freedom, did not mince words:
“As a combat veteran, I’ve seen the cost of war up close. I’ve watched brave Americans come home with wounds, visible and invisible, that they’ll carry for the rest of their lives. Mocking servicemembers for getting wounded or killed is absolutely despicable. These are our brothers and sisters, people who volunteered to put everything on the line for this country.”
Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, an Army infantry officer who served tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan, was blunter: “Platner’s comments about American servicemembers are disgraceful, but it’s what we should expect from a communist with a Nazi tattoo.”
Cotton’s reference to a tattoo aligns with reporting that Platner was photographed in Portland, Maine, in October 2025 pointing to a covered tattoo that had previously been identified as a Nazi symbol. The full context of that tattoo has not been detailed in the available reporting.
Sen. Tim Sheehy of Montana, a retired Navy SEAL, issued a challenge to the other side of the aisle: “Let’s see the courageous Democrat vets defend this one… can’t wait to hear it.”
Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska, a Marine Corps veteran who served in Afghanistan, invoked the Corps’ own creed. “The motto and ethos of the Marine Corps is Semper Fidelis, always faithful,” Sullivan said. “This means fidelity to Marines and fellow service members. This guy has failed that test.”
Fox News Digital reported that it reached the offices of Democratic veteran senators on Friday seeking comment on Platner’s remarks. None responded. The Platner campaign itself also did not respond to a request for comment.
That silence is its own kind of answer. Platner is challenging Sen. Susan Collins, the Republican incumbent, in the 2026 Maine Senate race. He has refused to apologize for his comments about the wounded veteran, and his campaign has leaned heavily on his military background as its central pitch to voters.
The NRSC’s national press secretary, Bernadette Breslin, told Breitbart that “Platner’s comments mocking a wounded American soldier prove how morally bankrupt he is as a person and how unqualified he is as a Senate candidate.”
Platner launched his Democratic Senate bid in August, presenting himself as a Marine and Army veteran and small-business oyster farmer. It was a pitch designed to appeal to Maine’s independent streak, a working veteran who knows sacrifice.
But the Reddit posts tell a different story. A man who served in both the Marine Corps and the Army looked at footage of a fellow soldier absorbing four bullets from the Taliban and decided the right response was to call him a “mouthbreather” who didn’t deserve to survive. He then dismissed the entire Army, hundreds of thousands of men and women, as “fat, lazy trash.”
These weren’t off-the-cuff remarks in a heated conversation. They were written posts on a pseudonymous account, composed with enough deliberation to include specific tactical criticism of the wounded soldier’s actions. Platner chose those words. He typed them out. He hit post.
And when they resurfaced, he deleted the account rather than own them.
The veterans who responded, from Vietnam to Iraq to Afghanistan, from the Army to the Navy SEALs to the Marine Corps, did not need talking points. They recognized what Platner’s posts revealed about his character. As Kate Monroe put it, the uniform may have been earned, but respect was not.
Maine voters will decide whether a man who mocks wounded soldiers and calls the Army trash deserves a seat in the body that sends those soldiers to war. The veterans who’ve spoken up have already rendered their verdict.
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