0:27Graham Platner displays his updated ink in a clip uploaded to Instagram on October 22, 2025.@grahamformaine/Instagram
Maine Senate hopeful Graham Platner announced this Wednesday that he has masked a questionable tattoo that appeared to bear a likeness to a Nazi emblem.
Platner, a U.S. armed forces veteran and oyster grower aiming for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate seat in Maine, conveyed via an Instagram video that he had his "skull and crossbones" body art altered on Tuesday.
Graham Platner displays his updated ink in a clip uploaded to Instagram on October 22, 2025.@grahamformaine/Instagram
"I’ve led a life committed to opposing fascism, racism, and Nazism. I believe that bigotry and anti-Jewish sentiment are a persistent blight on our society and a persistent blight on our political system. I don’t think it has a place in our world. Because of that, I’ve had it covered up," Platner stated in the Instagram video, raising his shirt to reveal his fresh design of a Celtic knot featuring dogs — "because my wife Amy and I have two amazing dogs that we cherish a great deal."
"This is a much better representation of my current self, even more so than what the skull and crossbones did, or at least what I thought it did," he explained.
"This situation has arisen because the establishment is attempting to throw everything possible at me. It’s petrified of what we’re striving to construct here,” he went on.
Graham Platner enters race to challenge Sen. Susan Collins of Maine.Courtesy of Graham for Maine
Platner communicated that he acquired the tattoo "years prior" in Croatia with fellow Marines. He’s refuted recent reports implying he was aware his original design resembled Nazi iconography.
"It wasn’t until reporters and D.C. insiders started reaching out that I came to understand that the tattoo was evocative of a Nazi symbol," Platner communicated in a statement to ABC News earlier this Wednesday. "I categorically would not have continued living with it on my chest had I known that — and to suggest that I did is revolting. I’m already making plans to have it removed."
The tattoo matter follows Platner, who has stirred interest and received support from Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and other progressives, being targeted for recently surfaced and controversial social media posts where, among other things, he referred to himself as a "communist" and implied that some political resistance should involve firearms.
Platner issued an apology for the series of now-erased posts, dating back to 2010, during a telephone interview with ABC News the previous week.
He chalked up much of his acerbic language to his feelings of post-traumatic stress disorder following his return from combat in the Middle East, stating that he felt detached from any community and disturbed by his experiences abroad.
Sourse: abcnews.go.com
