Graham Platner, the presumptive Democratic nominee for Senate in Maine, described the United States Army as "absolute trash" and "full of fat, lazy trash who would rather not be in uniform" in a series of now-deleted Reddit posts that have become a defining liability in his campaign against Republican Sen. Susan Collins.
The posts, made under the Reddit handle "P-Hustle", which Platner has acknowledged as his own, span several years and include far more than inter-branch ribbing. In one 2019 comment, Platner reacted to video of an American soldier being shot by the Taliban by writing that the "dumb motherf***** didn't deserve to live." That soldier, Teddy Daniels, was later awarded the Purple Heart.
The Washington Free Beacon first reported on Platner's disparaging comments directed at the Army. Since then, the posts have drawn sharp criticism from fellow veterans, Republican operatives, and even members of Platner's own party who have struggled to defend the remarks.
The deleted Reddit account reveals a pattern of contempt that goes well beyond the typical branch rivalry common among service members. In an April 2019 post, Platner wrote that he had spent four years in the Army after leaving the Marine Corps and concluded that "as a whole the organization is absolute trash." He added that the Army is "absolutely lacking in the warrior ethos and leadership obsession that the Corps has, and generally attracts a lower standard of person."
A month earlier, in March 2019, he was blunter still. Fox News Digital reported that Platner wrote: "The Army does things differently, and as a whole, they do things much worse. As an organization it's awful. Full of fat, lazy trash who would rather not be in uniform."
Platner did offer some praise, calling certain Army units "s*** hot" and crediting the service with "some solid light infantry, reconnaissance, and SOF units" and "access to some great schools." But those caveats were buried beneath sweeping insults aimed at the institution and the people who serve in it.
The candidate also wrote in 2013 that service members have "a duty to be brutally honest" about military shortcomings, while civilians "can be as dumb f*** r******* as they want." The slur he used in that post only adds to the list of offensive language Platner deployed across years of anonymous online commentary.
The most incendiary post involves Daniels, the Army veteran wounded by Taliban fire. Platner watched video of the incident and, rather than expressing solidarity with a fellow combat veteran, criticized Daniels' battlefield tactics and declared he "didn't deserve to live."
That remark has drawn condemnation from veterans across the political spectrum. Adam Schwarze, a former Navy SEAL and Marine veteran now running for Senate as a Republican in Minnesota, told Fox News Digital:
"We don't make jokes about our brothers and sisters dying, that's not something we do, that's not normal."
Sen. Collins herself called the comments "just appalling." For a candidate who built his campaign biography around military service, Platner served in the Marine Corps and the Maryland Army National Guard with multiple combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, the posts represent a direct contradiction of the image he has tried to project to Maine voters.
Platner's controversial statements about the military were not confined to anonymous message boards. During a 2024 podcast interview, he implied that deceased Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, one of the most decorated snipers in American military history, killed civilians to inflate his numbers.
"[Kyle's] stories about how many people he was shooting certainly tracked with the behavior I witnessed," Platner said. "It's relatively easy to get high numbers like that if you're a little less discriminating in your fire than, say, a more professional unit would be."
He also accused Navy SEALs of being "generally incompetent" on his Reddit account, though he had kind words for the Army Rangers. The willingness to level serious accusations, implying war crimes against a deceased veteran who cannot respond, on a public podcast suggests the Reddit posts were not aberrations but reflections of a broader pattern of reckless commentary.
The controversy recalls other recent episodes in which public figures faced backlash for inflammatory online posts they later tried to walk back or delete.
Platner has tried to put distance between himself and the posts. Back in October, he offered a broad apology.
"I'm sorry for this. Just know that it's not reflective at all of who I am. I don't want you to judge me on the dumbest thing I ever wrote on the internet. I would prefer if people could judge me on the person I am today."
He has also attributed his behavior to psychological trauma from his combat deployments in the Middle East and the "crude humor" he became accustomed to while serving in the Marines. In a separate episode, Platner cited PTSD to explain controversial posts about sexual assault, though Fox News Digital has noted that in a 2020 post, Platner himself called the PTSD excuse "bull."
The apology asks voters to ignore years of posts, not a single offhand remark, but a sustained record of commentary that included slurs, attacks on wounded soldiers, accusations of war crimes against a dead veteran, and self-identification as a Marxist. Platner deleted the entire Reddit account, but the internet has a long memory.
The fallout has created headaches well beyond Maine. National Republican Senatorial Committee press secretary Bernadette Breslin told Fox News Digital:
"Graham Platner's vicious attacks on wounded service members and open contempt for the Army are disgusting and disqualifying. The more we learn about him, the more his top Democrat allies like Elizabeth Warren are forced to dodge questions on why they ever supported him in the first place."
The Platner campaign did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital on Thursday.
Platner's Reddit history has also included posts in which he used slurs, demeaned white rural Americans, and identified as a Marxist, a profile that would be difficult to sell in any general election, let alone in a state where Collins has won four terms by appealing to independent and moderate voters.
The Democratic primary itself has turned contentious, with rivals seizing on the Reddit controversy. The race has grown ugly enough that competing Democrats have launched their own attacks on Platner's fitness for office, further amplifying the story.
For Collins, the resurfaced posts are a gift. They allow her to draw a clean contrast: a sitting senator with a long record of bipartisan work versus a challenger whose own words, written over years, not in a single moment of poor judgment, reveal contempt for the very institution he claims qualifies him to serve.
Combat veterans deserve wide latitude for dark humor and blunt talk. Anyone who has served understands that inter-branch rivalries are a tradition as old as the services themselves. Marines mock the Army. The Army mocks the Air Force. It is part of the culture.
But there is a canyon between barracks humor and writing that a wounded soldier awarded the Purple Heart "didn't deserve to live." There is a difference between branch rivalry and calling hundreds of thousands of Army personnel "fat, lazy trash." And there is no version of PTSD that explains away implying a dead Navy SEAL committed war crimes on a public podcast.
Platner deleted the posts. He apologized. He blamed trauma. But the words were his, written repeatedly over years, under an account he acknowledged as his own. Maine voters can read them and decide for themselves whether a man who wrote those things about his fellow service members has the judgment to represent them in the United States Senate.
When someone tells you who they are over and over again, even anonymously, believe them.
