Bernie Sanders lashed out at Republican protesters outside the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee headquarters in Washington this week as Democrats gathered with Graham Platner, the Maine candidate whose tattoo and online history have become a new problem for his campaign. The confrontation came just ahead of Platner’s June 9 primary, putting the senator at the center of a fight over whether national Democrats should stand by a candidate under intense scrutiny.
Sanders, who was seen entering and leaving the DSCC headquarters with top Democrats to meet the embattled candidate, was met by protesters mocking Platner’s reported Kik profile photo by wearing towels outside the building. Video showed the group chanting, “Platner is a creep!” and “Delete your Kik!” while signs reading “PEDO PLATNER MESSAGED KIDS” were visible. One protester pressed Sanders on whether he backed Platner “even though he’s on Kik,” and Sanders shot back, “Are you with the Republican party?”
The protest landed because Platner’s name has been dogged for weeks by a string of damaging revelations. His campaign has faced scrutiny over a tattoo recognized as a Nazi symbol that he has since covered up, resurfaced Reddit posts that blamed rape victims, pushed racial stereotypes, mocked a Purple Heart veteran and encouraged political violence, and reports that he exchanged sexually explicit text messages with other women during his marriage. It was also reported that he had an active Kik profile, an anonymous messaging app that child-safety groups have criticized as a “predator’s paradise.”
That mix has left Democrats trying to defend their support for Platner while Republican activists use the tattoo and Kik details to frame him as politically toxic. Sanders has kept backing him even as the protests outside DSCC headquarters turned the controversy into a public spectacle, and the next hard date is still the June 9 primary, when voters in Maine will decide whether the turmoil sticks or fades.
