Senate

Van Hollen defends Platner over controversial past: ‘People should have second chances’

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by Ryan Mancini - 04/30/26 10:42 PM ET

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by Ryan Mancini - 04/30/26 10:42 PM ET

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Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) on Thursday defended Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner (D), who has faced criticism for past controversial online posts and a tattoo resembling a Nazi symbol, saying that “people should have second chances.”

Van Hollen addressed Platner in an interview with Punchbowl News when co-host Jake Sherman said, “The dude has a Nazi tattoo,” which would appear to be “disqualifying.”

Platner initially denied allegations that he had a tattoo resembling a symbol adopted by Adolf Hitler’s troops in Nazi Germany. He then chose to cover up the tattoo after he said it did resemble a Nazi symbol, stating that he wanted it removed. Platner also said he was a “lifelong opponent” of “Nazism and antisemitism and racism in general.”

“Let’s take a couple issues, including the comments he’s made in the past,” Van Hollen said Thursday. “I mean, he’s been very clear that he went into combat on behalf of the United States, he went through a really rough period, PTSD-type period.”

“And he himself said there are lots of things he’s done and said that he completely regrets, and I do believe people should have second chances and that people can learn from their mistakes, and I think he’s been doing that,” the Maryland Democrat added.

Platner said in October that posts he wrote on Reddit were intended “to get a rise out of people.” A review of his Reddit posts conducted by CNN’s KFILE showed that he used a slur that is offensive to people with special needs, referred to himself as a “communist,” called “all” police officers “bastards” and said rural White Americans “actually are” racist and stupid.

The Washington Post reported that Platner, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, also minimized issues that service members face in reporting sexual assault incidents and said those who are raped should “not get so f‑‑‑ed up that they wind up having sex with someone they don’t mean to.”

He said in an interview on the “Pod Save America” show that when it came to the posts, voters will see that “this is not at all the person that they have come to know, and come to interact with in reality.” He also disavowed the comments about sexual assault, adding that the remarks emerged out of his struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder after he returned from Afghanistan in 2011.

Democrats have coalesced around Platner, a progressive outsider, after primary rival Gov. Janet Mills ended her bid on Thursday. Though Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) initially backed her run, he and the party’s Senate campaign wing joined Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) in endorsing Platner ahead of what’s expected to be one of the closest Senate races in the country.

Platner said he looks forward to working with the term-limited governor in defeating Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and turning “this seat blue again.”

“The race has never been about me or really about one person, it’s about a movement of working Mainers who are fed up with being robbed by billionaires and the politicians who own them,” Platner said at a press conference.

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