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Graham Platner, populist progressive running for Senate in Maine, reveals Nazi tattoo on his chest
An oyster farmer and progressive military veteran running an insurgent campaign for Maine’s Democratic Senate nomination admitted this week to having had a Nazi tattoo for nearly two decades.
Graham Platner shared video of himself shirtless, sporting the tattoo, on a popular progressive podcast. He denied that he himself ever held Nazi views, instead claiming he had gotten the tattoo while “inebriated” as a young adult without knowing what it meant.
Since launching his campaign this summer, the 41-year-old Platner had picked up steam in left-wing circles for his populist positions, including calling Israel’s military campaign in Gaza a genocide. The political neophyte has won endorsements from progressive leaders including Vermont’s Sen. Bernie Sanders, who is Jewish. Morris Katz, the Jewish campaign strategist behind Zohran Mamdani’s digital ads for New York City mayor, made a campaign launch video for Platner.
As of Sept. 30, according to campaign finance records, Platner led his Democratic rivals in campaign donations with $3.2 million in contributions. At his rallies, the biggest applause comes when he delivers lines like “Our tax dollars can build schools and hospitals in America, not bombs that destroy schools and hospitals in Gaza.”
But scandal has started to plague Platner’s campaign in recent days after his past posts on the web forum Reddit came to light. In those posts, Platner made comments about why Black people don’t tip, derided rural white Americans and declared himself a Communist.
This week, a recent video of a shirtless Platner also surfaced in which he can be seen sporting a chest tattoo of a Totenkopf, a Nazi-era skull-and-crossbones design favored by SS officers. “Totenkopf,” or “Death’s Head,” was also the name of the division of officers who guarded the concentration camps.
The source of the video was Platner himself, who shared it on an episode of “Pod Save America” on Monday.
The Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine, the state’s largest Jewish body, said in a statement that it was concerned about the tattoo as well as other aspects of Platner’s campaign.
“This tattoo appears to be a ‘death’s head’ symbol used by the SS, the organization most responsible for the genocidal murder of 6 million Jews and millions of other victims during WWII,” Zach Schwartz, director of the Portland-based group’s Jewish Community Relations Council, said in a statement to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “We hope that Mr. Platner would condemn, in no uncertain terms, the meaning behind this tattoo and everything it stands for.”
Schwartz added that Platner’s “broader messaging” also troubled them, in particular his pledge not to take money from the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC.
“Maine’s Jewish community is not a monolith, nor does every Jewish Mainer support AIPAC. However, Platner’s repeated, singular focus on not taking money from AIPAC plays into familiar, harmful tropes that Jews or organizations like AIPAC control the government,” the statement read. (An increasing number of Democratic candidates including Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton, a centrist running for his state’s Senate primary, have also pledged not to accept money from AIPAC.)
On “Pod Save America,” Platner said he had gotten the tattoo in Croatia in 2007, while on shore leave from a tour of duty in Iraq, without knowing what it stood for.
“We went ashore in Split, Croatia, myself and a few of the other machine gun squad leaders. And we got very inebriated, and we did what Marines on liberty do, and we decided to go get a tattoo,” Platner told the show’s host Tommy Vietor.
He said he and his companions “chose a terrifying-looking skull and crossbones off the wall because we were Marines, and skull-and-crossbones are a pretty standard military thing. And we got those tattoos and then we actually all moved on with our lives.”
“I am not a secret Nazi,” Platner said elsewhere in the interview, adding that he had passed a full security clearance in 2018 to work as a State Department contractor. “If you read through my Reddit comments, I think you can pretty much figure out where I stand on Nazism and antisemitism and racism in general. I would say a lifelong opponent.”
Platner did not address why he still has the tattoo. He has said he intends to stay in the race. He also claimed not to have known the symbol had Nazi connotations until getting wind of opposition research against him during his current Senate campaign.
However, quoting an anonymous former acquaintance of his, Jewish Insider reported on Tuesday that Platner had referred to the ink as “my Totenkopf” more than a decade ago and would frequently take his shirt off at the Washington, D.C., bar where he worked at the time. “He said it in a cutesy little way,” the source said. Jewish Insider additionally reported that Platner had met with other men with Nazi links, including one neo-Nazi who is running for a seat on Bangor City Council.
Platner’s political director, former state Senator Genevieve McDonald, resigned from his campaign last week following the reveal of his Reddit posts. On Facebook days after her resignation, McDonald also took Platner to task for his tattoo.
“Graham has an anti-Semitic tattoo on his chest,” McDonald wrote, according to screenshots of the post on social media. “He’s not an idiot, he’s a military history buff. Maybe he didn’t know it when he got it, but he got it years ago and he should have had it covered up because he knows damn well what it means. His campaign released it themselves to some podcast bros, along with a video of him shirtless and drunk at a wedding to try to get ahead of it.”
While some in the online left denounced Platner over the tattoo and rebuked previous support for him, he has kept some defenders. Lyle Jeremy Rubin, a Jewish military veteran, author and left-wing commentator, is one of them.
“Every other marine I knew had some version of the same tat. Please,” Rubin wrote on BlueSky, adding in a separate post, “This is a great example of what happens when the Democratic Party is defined by goody two-shoe losers who have lived their entire lives among fellow goody two-shoe losers.”
The Senate race against Republican incumbent Susan Collins is currently considered a tossup and will be one of next year’s most closely watched elections.
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The post Graham Platner, populist progressive running for Senate in Maine, reveals Nazi tattoo on his chest appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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High-Stakes US Special Forces Mission Rescues Airman From Iran After F-15 Crash
FILE PHOTO: A U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle aircraft takes off for a mission supporting Operation Epic Fury during the Iran war at an undisclosed location, March 9, 2026. U.S. Air Force/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo
US forces staged the audacious rescue of an airman behind enemy lines after Iran downed his fighter jet, officials said on Sunday, resolving a crisis for President Donald Trump as he weighs escalating the war, now in its sixth week.
The airman rescued by special operations forces, who Trump said was a colonel, was the weapons-systems officer on the downed F-15, a US official told Reuters.
“Over the past several hours, the United States Military pulled off one of the most daring Search and Rescue Operations in US History,” Trump said in a statement, adding that the airman was injured but “he will be just fine.”
The officer was the second of two crew members on the warplane that Iran said on Friday had been brought down by its air defenses. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said several aircraft were destroyed during the US rescue mission, Tasnim news agency reported.
Reuters reported on Friday that the first crew member had been retrieved, triggering a high-profile search by both Iran and the United States for the remaining airman.
Iranian officials had urged citizens to help find him, hoping to gain leverage against Washington in the war Trump and Israel launched on February 28.
Trump has threatened to escalate the conflict in the coming days with attacks on Iran’s energy infrastructure.
Had Iran captured the airman, the ensuing hostage crisis could have shifted American public perception of a conflict that opinion polls show was already unpopular.
Trump said the airman was rescued “in the treacherous mountains of Iran” in what he said was the first time in military memory that two US pilots had been rescued, separately, deep in enemy territory.
The official told Reuters that as the weapons-systems officer was moved from near a mountain to a transport aircraft parked within Iran, US forces had to destroy at least one of the aircraft because it had malfunctioned.
U.S. AIRCRAFT HIT
The rescue effort, involving dozens of military aircraft, encountered fierce resistance from Iran.
Reuters reported on Friday that two Black Hawk helicopters involved in the search were hit by Iranian fire but escaped from Iranian airspace.
Separately, a pilot ejected from an A-10 Warthog fighter aircraft after it was hit over Kuwait and crashed, the officials said, though the extent of crew injuries was unclear.
Still, Trump was triumphant.
“The fact that we were able to pull off both of these operations, without a SINGLE American killed, or even wounded, just proves once again, that we have achieved overwhelming Air Dominance and Superiority over the Iranian skies,” he said in his statement.
US air crews are trained in what to do if they go down behind enemy lines, measures known as Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape, but few are fluent in Persian and face a challenge in staying undetected while seeking rescue.
The conflict has killed 13 US military service members, with more than 300 wounded, US Central Command says. No US troops have been taken prisoner by Iran.
While Trump has repeatedly sought to portray the Iranian military as being in tatters, they have repeatedly been able to hit US aircraft.
Reuters reported on US intelligence showing that Iran retains large amounts of missile and drone capability. Until just over a week ago, the US could only determine with certainty that it had destroyed about one-third of Iran’s missile arsenal.
The status of about another third was less clear, but bombings probably damaged, destroyed or buried those missiles in underground tunnels and bunkers, Reuters sources said.
The US and Israeli war on Iran has spread across the Middle East, killing thousands and hitting the global economy with soaring energy prices that are fueling fears of inflation.
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On Easter, Pope Leo Urges World Leaders to End Wars, Renounce Conquest
Pope Leo XIV waves from the main balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica after delivering his “Urbi et Orbi” (To the city and the world) message, on Easter Sunday at the Vatican, April 5, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Remo Casilli
Pope Leo urged global leaders in his Easter message on Sunday to end the conflicts raging across the world and abandon any schemes for power, conquest or domination.
The pope, who has emerged as an outspoken critic of the Iran war, lamented in a special message to the thousands gathered in St. Peter’s Square that people “are growing accustomed to violence, resigning ourselves to it, and becoming indifferent.”
“Let those who have weapons lay them down!” the first US pope exhorted. “Let those who have the power to unleash wars choose peace!”
Leo did not mention any specific conflicts in the message, known as the “Urbi et Orbi” (to the city and the world) blessing. It was unusually brief and direct.
The pope said that the story of Easter, when the Bible says Jesus rose from the dead three days after not resisting his execution by crucifixion, shows that Christ was “entirely nonviolent.”
“On this day of celebration, let us abandon every desire for conflict, domination, and power, and implore the Lord to grant his peace to a world ravaged by wars,” Leo urged.
Leo, who is known for choosing his words carefully, has been forcefully decrying the world’s violent conflicts in recent weeks and ramping up his criticism of the Iran war.
In a sermon for the Easter vigil on Saturday night, he urged people not to feel numbed by the scope of the conflicts raging across the world but to work for peace.
The pope made a rare direct appeal to US President Donald Trump on Tuesday, urging him to find an “off-ramp” to end the Iran war.
In his address from the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica on Sunday to the Square below, decorated with thousands of brightly colored flowers for the holiday, Leo offered brief Easter greetings in ten languages, including Latin, Arabic and Chinese.
The pope also announced he would return to the Basilica on April 11 to host a prayer vigil for peace.
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Temple Mount Set for Limited Reopening to Jews and Muslims
Israeli National Security Minister and head of Jewish Power party Itamar Ben-Gvir gives a statement to members of the press, ahead of a possible ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Jan. 16, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Oren Ben Hakoon
i24 News – Israeli authorities are preparing to partially reopen the Temple Mount in Jerusalem to both Jewish and Muslim worshipers for the first time since the start of the war with Iran, under a tightly controlled and highly restricted security arrangement, i24NEWS has learned.
According to details obtained by i24NEWS, the Israeli police, backed by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, are also expected to permit limited access for Jewish worshipers to the Western Wall as part of the same phased plan.
Under the framework, access to the Temple Mount and surrounding holy sites would be restricted to small groups of up to 150 people at a time. In the event of a missile alert, all visitors would be immediately evacuated in accordance with emergency protocols.
The decision follows a recent Supreme Court ruling allowing demonstrations in a limited format. Police argue that a consistent standard must apply across both civic gatherings and religious sites, with Ben-Gvir insisting that “there cannot be one rule for demonstrations and another for the Temple Mount.”
However, the reopening contradicts recommendations from the Home Front Command, which has advised keeping sensitive sites closed due to the ongoing risk of missile attacks.
Israeli Justice Minister Yariv Levin has proposed transferring authority over such security-related decisions exclusively to defense officials, an initiative that could reshape the balance between the judiciary and security establishment regarding restrictions on public access.