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Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., ignored persistent questions about controversies surrounding Democrat Graham Platner and reaffirmed his support for the embattled Senate candidate.
Platner, a Marine veteran and oyster farmer, has faced a series of controversies in recent weeks, including criticism over a tattoo with links to Nazi imagery, resurfaced Reddit posts where he made inflammatory comments about veterans and reports about sexually explicit messages exchanged with other women during his marriage.
Speaking with journalists in the Capitol on Tuesday, Schumer was pressed on whether he, as the top Senate Democrat, is satisfied with Platner’s explanations of the scandals dogging his campaign. In response, he said, “I met with Graham Platner today, we’re going to beat [Sen.] Susan Collins and take back the Senate.”
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Schumer was asked several more times whether he still supports Platner in the face of the scandals considering his endorsement came before all the controversy. He was also asked whether Democrats’ backing of Platner undermines the party’s credibility in criticizing Texas Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton, who has faced some similar scandals.
The New York senator did not respond to these questions directly. Instead, he repeated: “We’re going to beat Susan Collins and take back the Senate.”
Schumer attempted to prompt reporters to ask about other topics.
“Any other subjects you got?” he said. But reporters continued to zero-in on his support for Platner.
After being asked about the candidate for a fifth time, Schumer finally responded, “As I said, I endorsed Graham Platner.”
“We’re going to beat Susan Collins and take back the Senate,” he reiterated before walking away.
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Platner has run a deeply controversial campaign, in addition to being the subject of various scandals, he faced scrutiny for having a “Totenkopf” Nazi SS tattoo, which he then covered-up with a different tattoo.
The far-left Senate hopeful has most notably ignited backlash after his vulgar messages on a since-deleted Reddit account were uncovered. Under the moniker “P-hustle,” Platner joked about masturbating in public portable toilets, among other crude posts.
Platner also called himself a communist, denigrated rural White people as “racist” and “stupid” and singled out Black people for not tipping.
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It was also recently uncovered that Platner has an active account on Kik, an anonymous chatting platform notorious for lax identification methods that have enabled the proliferation of child sexual abuse material.
The profile, reviewed by Fox News Digital, contains a sexually suggestive picture of Platner only wearing a towel around his waist. It is unclear when the image was taken, but Platner created the account in 2016.
Schumer previously endorsed Maine Democratic Gov. Janet Mills to challenge Collins. Mills dropped out of the race in April, citing failure to garner the necessary financial backing for her campaign.
Her departure left Platner the frontrunner in the Democratic primary.
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