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Maine Senate candidate cites combat trauma when confronted on ‘terrible’ posts about sexual assault

Published

2 months ago

March 23, 2026

Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner cited his combat deployments and struggling in the aftermath when confronted during an interview that aired Sunday about his past social media posts about sexual assault.

“I wonder, though, if you think how damaging this thing might be politically, because, I read those posts and, you know, they’re bad. Those posts are terrible,” CNN’s Manu Raju said.

Gov. Janet Mills, who is running against Platner in the Democratic Senate primary, launched an ad campaign against him that features women reacting to comments he made over a decade ago on Reddit about rape. The Mills campaign highlights Graham’s comments, as an actor in a voice that resembles the candidate, reads snippets of them aloud. Among the comments is one from 2013, which Platner later deleted, that people concerned about rape should not “get so f—ed up they wind up having sex with someone they don’t mean to.”

Platner said he regretted the posts when pressed by Raju.

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“Oh, of course… Yes, deeply. But, I was at a time in my life where I was really struggling after I’d come back from my combat deployments,” Platner told Raju. “I was very isolated, very alone, very disillusioned, very angry. And I think like a lot of people, I went on the internet to find some form of community or serotonin boost.”

He added he was able to reconnect with his community and said he wouldn’t have got to this point without the struggles in his past.

“After many years of kind of being back in society, reconnecting with my community, reconnecting with, frankly, like, the great state of Maine, that has allowed me to really become the person I am today, which I’m very proud of. But I don’t get to be who I am today without the struggles that I had to go through,” Platner added.

Platner also told Raju that he spoke about the posts in October and has allowed the people of Maine to ask him about them directly.

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“I have gone all over the state of Maine and allowed people to ask me about it all directly, for months now. And it is, I think for a lot of folks in the state, to see this get kind of dragged back up, months and months after we’d already talked about it,” he said.

He added, “I will just say, the feedback we have received statewide is that people find all of this to be everything they hate about politics. And I think that that’s, politically in the state of Maine, that is more damaging than the fact that people can understand that I, as a person, have transformed over time and changed, which actually I think a lot of folks can identify with.”

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Platner has also faced backlash over a tattoo that is widely viewed as a Nazi symbol.

He announced in October that he covered up the tattoo.

Platner is endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. The primary election will be June 9.

The eventual Democratic nominee will go on to face incumbent Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who has held the seat since 1997.

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Reunification Of Stephen A. Smith, Skip Bayless Sees 24% Ratings Increase For ‘First Take’

Published

3 minutes ago

May 14, 2026

Addison Blake

Bring back Skip full-time

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Tech entrepreneur flees Washington due to companies being ‘villainized’

Published

1 hour ago

May 14, 2026

Addison Blake

A prominent Washington tech entrepreneur is joining the growing exodus of business leaders fleeing the Evergreen State, citing a “dramatic” shift in the state’s tax climate following the passage of a controversial new “millionaire tax.”

Jesse Proudman, the founder and CTO of the privacy-focused generative AI platform Venice.ai, told Fox News Digital on Tuesday that the state he once called a “startup sanctuary” has become increasingly hostile to the very people who fuel its economy.

“I started three companies here in the state. I have been an entrepreneur my whole life here,” Proudman said. “The business climate when I started my first company was very entrepreneurial-friendly, and the startup community was looked upon as a contributing member of the city. Over the last number of years, that has changed dramatically.”

Proudman, who previously founded the private cloud company Blue Box and the crypto-investing platform Makara, is now serving as a spokesperson for Let’s Go Washington. The political committee is currently spearheading a massive signature-gathering effort to repeal the tax measure before it can take root.

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The tax, pushed through by the Democratic-controlled legislature during the 2026 session and signed into law by Gov. Bob Ferguson in March, imposes a 9.9% levy on annual income exceeding $1 million. While it is set to take effect on Jan. 1, 2028—with the first payments due in 2029—the mere threat of its implementation is already shifting the state’s demographics.

“We have until July 2nd to gather about 325,000 signatures to put this on the November ballot,” said Hallie Herzberg, Director of Communications for Let’s Go Washington. “The people deserve the right to vote on this. It’s already driving businesses, employers, and families out of the state.”

The move marks a seismic shift for Washington, which has historically been one of only a handful of states with no personal income tax. However, the legal ground shifted in 2023 when the state’s Supreme Court upheld a 7% capital gains tax, effectively opening the door for broader income-based levies that critics argue violate the state constitution’s requirement that property (which includes income) be taxed at a uniform rate.

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State Sen. Jamie Pedersen (D-Seattle), the Senate Majority Leader and the bill’s primary sponsor, has dismissed concerns of “tax flight.”

“The reality is the millionaire tax is not likely to result in businesses leaving,” Pedersen told a local FOX affiliate following the bill’s signing. He later told Fox News Digital that there is “no evidence” that high earners will migrate to lower-tax jurisdictions like Florida or Texas.

Data from the Association of Washington Business (AWB) suggests otherwise. A recent survey reported by The Center Square found that 44% of business leaders in the state are considering moving their personal residences elsewhere. Furthermore, Washington businesses reported they are now more than twice as likely to expand outside the state than within it.

For Proudman, the decision has already been made. He plans to relocate his life and business interests to Austin, Texas.

“It’s no longer a friendly place to conduct business,” Proudman said. “Startup companies are being villainized. With the passing of this tax, we have looked at alternative places to move, and we’ll probably end up in Austin.”

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Proudman warned that while the tax is currently branded as a “millionaire’s tax” to gain public favor, the long-term economic consequences will eventually hit middle-class residents as the tax base shrinks.

“They are targeting a very highly mobile cohort of the population,” Proudman argued. “When those folks leave, this will become a tax on everybody. The voters are unwittingly creating an incredibly worse tax situation for themselves. Washington is already the 45th worst state from a tax point of view. This is a constitutionally illegal tax that ultimately will apply to everyone.”

Sen. Pedersen’s office did not respond to Fox News Digital’s latest request for comment.