Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner removed a shared social media post after backlash about its far-right source, The Hill reported.
“War with Iran is the only thing republicans and democrats have both given a standing ovation for. Let that sink in,” Stew Peters, a Christian nationalist and conspiracy theorist who freely mixes antisemitic statements with criticism of Israel, wrote Tuesday on the social media platform X.
The post was a reference to Democrats and Republicans applauding at the State of the Union address while President Trump talked about actions his administration has taken against Iran’s nuclear program.
Platner shared Peters’s post along with his own take in a now-deleted post:
“As always, there’s one thing that brings Republican and Democratic politicians together: sending other people’s children to die in stupid wars in the Middle East,” Platner wrote.
Platner’s campaign spokesperson told The Hill that the team was “reposting a c-span clip of Trump speaking about the potential war with Iran and didn’t realize that the video had been posted by a despicable account. When we learned who the poster was we immediately deleted the post.”
It’s not the first time that Platner, a 41-year-old oyster farmer from Sullivan who is seeking the Democratic nomination to challenge longtime Sen. Susan Collins, has found himself in uncomfortable proximity to the far right.
Last fall, a video emerged of Platner dancing shirtless at his brother’s wedding about a decade ago revealing a chest tattoo associated with the Nazi SS. He subsequently said he got the “Totenkopf ” tattoo decades ago while drunk with fellow Marines in Croatia and wasn’t aware of the association.
He had it covered with a Celtic knot soon after but lost his political director, who said he had known the tattoo was a problem for a month before it became public.
During a Thursday appearance on comedian Tim Heidecker’s “Office Hours” podcast, Platner was pressed on the tattoo controversy by a caller who was skeptical of his explanation that he did not know about the symbol’s ties to the Nazis and should simply apologize.
“I’m not going to apologize for something that, like, I didn’t know about or do,” he said. “And the moment that we found it … I got it covered, because I don’t want that on my body.
Despite the controversies, a University of New Hampshire poll released Tuesday found that Platner would beat Susan Collins by a wide margin if they faced off in an election now.
For that matchup to happen, Platner will have to win the Democratic nomination in a contest that includes Gov. Janet Mills.
BDN writer Michael Shepherd contributed to this report.