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Bernie Sanders downplays Graham Platner’s Nazi tattoo: ‘There might be one or two more important issues’
(JTA) — After Graham Platner, the progressive Senate hopeful running in Maine’s Democratic primary, revealed this week that he had had a Nazi-inspired tattoo on his chest for nearly two decades, several of his allies on the left cut him loose.
One who hasn’t: Vermont’s Jewish senator, Bernie Sanders.
“I’m not overly impressed by a squad of media running around saying, ‘What do you think about the tattoo on Graham Platner’s chest?’” the elder statesman of the progressive movement told Axios this week. “Between you and me, there might be one or two more important issues.”
Sanders also said he “absolutely” stood by his endorsement of Platner. Axios plans to air its full interview with Sanders on Friday but released snippets of the conversation on social media.
Sanders has backed Platner, a Marine veteran and oyster farmer, since soon after the latter announced his Senate bid this August. Platner’s anti-establishment platform, which includes embracing many progressive policies Sanders helped popularize, had made him a rising star despite his lack of any political experience. Platner has also taken a hard line against Israel.
That popularity was shaken following the recent revelation of Platner’s old Reddit posts, in which he made comments disparaging various groups. In an effort to get ahead of the opposition, Platner then himself revealed that he sported a skull-and-crossbones chest tattoo resembling an S.S. Totenkopf. He said he paid for it in 2007 while “inebriated” with fellow Marines in Croatia, and claimed he hadn’t known it was affiliated with Nazis (though subsequent reporting has suggested he knew it was a Totenkopf).
“I’m not a secret Nazi,” Platner said on Monday. He initially did not apologize for or suggest he would remove the tattoo.
After the revelations, Sanders told Axios he was still “impressed by the guy.”
“He went through some very difficult experiences in the military as a machine gunner, seeing his friends killed, came out of the military, he will acknowledge, I’m not telling you what he doesn’t say, he had PTSD,” the senator said. “He went into a dark period in his life. I suspect that Graham Platner is not the only American to have gone through a dark period.”
Sanders then sought to draw a line between condemnation of Platner and the election of President Donald Trump. “I think as a nation, especially given the fact that we have a president who was convicted on 14 felonies, maybe we have to do a little bit of forgiveness,” he said.
He wasn’t the only prominent progressive Jew who has remained in Platner’s corner since the tattoo revelation. Jon Lovett, the co-founder of influential left-wing podcast “Pod Save America” and media company Crooked Media and a former Obama official, has accused Platner’s progressive critics of demanding “only perfect candidates off the Harvard Law conveyor belt.” (Platner revealed his Nazi tattoo on a “Pod Save America” episode.)
“Of course he SHOULD answer for that tattoo,” Lovett wrote in a follow-up post on X Wednesday. “He’s explained the story, how it wasn’t flagged as a hate symbol when he entered the army or when he received a security clearance. He’s apologized and covered it up. Maybe it’s not enough. Maybe you don’t believe him.”
Following pushback, Platner did cover up the tattoo with a different design he referred to as a “Celtic knot with some imagery around dogs.”
In a post and video he posted to social media Wednesday, the candidate lifted his shirt to reveal his new tattoo and expressed regret that the old one might have invited comparisons to Nazis.
“It’s come to my attention that it has a stark resemblance to a symbol that is used by neo-Nazis, and I want to say, that was not my intent at all. And the idea that I was going around with something like that utterly horrifies me,” Platner said. “I know that symbols like this can be incredibly damaging to people, and the idea that I had it all these years and it could have been read like that is incredibly troubling.”
He added, “I have lived a life dedicated to antifascism, antiracism and anti-Nazism. I think that racism and antisemitism are a long scourge on our society and a long scourge on our politics, and I think it has no place in our world.”
Platner quickly pivoted, accusing “the establishment” of trying to destroy his movement with distractions.
“Every second we spend talking about a tattoo I got in the Marine Corps is a second that we don’t talk about Medicare for All, it’s a second we don’t talk about raising taxes on the wealthy,” he said.
Another prominent Jewish senator, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, responded to the revelations about Platner’s tattoo by making an endorsement in the race, which he had until this week avoided. He is backing Janet Mills, Maine’s former governor, saying she “is the best candidate to retire Susan Collins.”
A recent poll, conducted just before the tattoo revelations, found that Platner holds a wide lead over Mills among Democratic voters.
Platner’s opponents have started to riff on the controversy, as well: Jordan Wood, a former congressional aide also running in the primary, posted on social media to “fess up” that he, too, has a tattoo — of the symbol of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. “I got this tattoo a few years ago as a reminder of what hope and a positive vision can do in our politics,” he said on Instagram. Adding a dig at Platner, he concluded, “And yes, I knew what it was when I got it.”
A defiant Platner has pledged to remain in the race. At a rally Wednesday evening in Ogunquit, he again said he hadn’t known the meaning behind his tattoo.
He added, “If they thought this was going to scare me off, if they thought that ripping my life to pieces, trying to destroy me, was going to make me think that I shouldn’t have undertaken this project, they clearly have not spent a lot of time around Marines.”
The post Bernie Sanders downplays Graham Platner’s Nazi tattoo: ‘There might be one or two more important issues’ appeared first on The Forward.
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Herzog Says Wellbeing of Israelis His Only Concern in Deal With Netanyahu’s ‘Extraordinary’ Pardon Request
Israeli President Isaac Herzog speaks during a press conference with Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics in Riga, Latvia, Aug. 5, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ints Kalnins
i24 News – In an interview with Politico published on Saturday, Israeli President Isaac Herzog remained tight-lipped on whether he intended to grant Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “extraordinary” pardon request, saying that his decision will be motivated by what’s best for Israel.
“There is a process which goes through the Justice Ministry and my legal adviser and so on. This is certainly an extraordinary request and above all when dealing with it I will consider what is the best interest of the Israeli people,” Herzog said. “The well-being of the Israeli people is my first, second and third priority.”
Asked specifically about President Donald Trump’s request, Herzog said “I respect President Trump’s friendship and his opinion,” adding, “Israel, naturally, is a sovereign country.”
Herzog addressed a wide range of topics in the interview, including the US-Israel ties and the shifts in public opinion on Israel.
“One has to remember that the fountains of America, of American life, are based on biblical values, just like ours. And therefore, I believe that the underlying fountain that we all drink from is the same,” he said. “However, I am following very closely the trends that I see in the American public eye and the attitude, especially of young people, on Israel.”
“It comes from TikTok,” he said of the torrent of hostility toward Israel that has engulf swathes of U.S. opinion since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, “from a very shallow discourse of the current situation, pictures or viewpoints, and doesn’t judge from the big picture, which is, is Israel a strategic ally? Yes. Is Israel contributing to American national interests, security interests? Absolutely yes. Is Israel a beacon of democracy in the Middle East? Absolutely yes.”
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Syria’s Sharaa Charges Israel ‘Exports Its Crises to Other Countries’
FILE PHOTO: Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa addresses the 80th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) at the U.N. headquarters in New York, U.S., September 24, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton/File Photo
i24 News – Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa on Saturday escalated his messaging against Israel at the Doha forum.
“Israel is working to export its own crises to other countries and escape accountability for the massacres it committed in the Gaza Strip, justifying everything with security concerns,” he said.
“Meanwhile, Syria, since its liberation, has sent positive messages aimed at establishing the foundations of regional stability.
“Israel has responded to Syria with extreme violence, launching over 1,000 airstrikes and carrying out 400 incursions into its territory. The latest of these attacks was the massacre it perpetrated in the town of Beit Jinn in the Damascus countryside, which claimed dozens of lives.
“We are working with influential countries worldwide to pressure Israel to withdraw from the territories it occupied after December 8, 2014, and all countries support this demand.
“Syria insists on Israel’s adherence to the 1974 Disengagement Agreement. The demand for a demilitarized zone raises many questions. Who will protect this zone if there is no Syrian army presence?
“Any agreement must guarantee Syria’s interests, as it is Syria that is subjected to Israeli attacks. So, who should be demanding a buffer zone and withdrawal?”
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Turkey’s Fidan: Gaza Governance Must Precede Hamas Disarmament in Ceasefire Deal
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan attends a press conference following a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow, Russia, May 27, 2025. Photo: Pavel Bednyakov/Pool via REUTERS
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told Reuters on Saturday that not advancing the US-backed Gaza ceasefire plan to its next stage would be a “huge failure” for the world and Washington, noting that President Donald Trump had personally led the push.
In an interview on the sidelines of the Doha Forum, Fidan said a credible Palestinian civil administration and a vetted, trained police force needed to be in place to allow Hamas to disarm, and that the group was prepared to hand over control of the enclave.
“First of all, we need to see that the Palestinian committee of technical people are taking over the administration of Gaza, then we need to see that the police force is being formed to police Gaza – again, by the Palestinians, not Hamas.”
NATO member Turkey has been one of the most vocal critics of Israel’s assault on Gaza. It played a key role in brokering the ceasefire deal, signing the agreement as a guarantor. It has repeatedly expressed its willingness to join efforts to monitor the accord’s implementation, a move Israel strongly opposes.
Talks to advance the next phase of President Trump’s plan to end the two-year conflict in Gaza are continuing.
The plan envisages an interim technocratic Palestinian administration in the enclave, overseen by an international “board of peace” and supported by a multinational security force. Negotiations over the composition and mandate of that force have proven particularly difficult.
Fidan said the Gaza police force would be backed by the international stabilisation force. He added that Washington was pressing Israel over Turkey’s bid to join the force, to which it has voiced readiness to deploy troops if needed.
FIDAN SAYS KURDISH SDF IN SYRIA NOT WILLING TO INTEGRATE
Asked about a landmark deal in March in which the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces and Damascus agreed that the SDF would be integrated into Syria’s state structures, Fidan said signals from the SDF showed it had “no intention” of honouring the accord, and was instead seeking to sidestep it.
Ankara, which considers the SDF a terrorist organisation, has threatened military action if it does not comply, setting a deadline of the end of the year.
“I think they (SDF) should understand that the command and control should come from one place,” Fidan added. “There can be no two armies in any given country. So there can only be one army, one command structure … But in local administration, they can reach a different settlement and different understandings.”
Almost a year after the fall of president Bashar al-Assad, Fidan said some issues of minority rights were unresolved, insisting that Turkey’s backing of the new Syrian government was not a “blank cheque” to oppress any groups.
He said Damascus was taking steps toward national unity, but that Israeli “destabilisation policies” were the chief obstacle.
Israel has frequently struck southwestern Syria this year, citing threats from militant groups and the need to protect the Druze community near the frontier. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday he expected Syria to establish a demilitarised buffer zone from Damascus to the border.
TURKEY: U.S. COULD REMOVE SANCTIONS ‘VERY SOON’
Fidan also said Washington’s initial 28-point plan to end the Russia-Ukraine war was just a “starting point,” and that it was now evolving in a new format. He said mediation by US officials was “on the right path.”
“I just hope that nobody leaves the table and the Americans are not frustrated, because sometimes the mediators can be frustrated if they don’t see enough encouragement from both sides.”
Asked about efforts to lift US sanctions imposed in 2020 over Ankara’s purchase of Russian S-400 air defense systems, he said both sides were working on it, adding: “I believe we’ll soon find a way to remove that obstacle.”