Platner denies hurting ex-girlfriend and says he will not quit Senate race

Graham Platner, the presumptive Democratic nominee for Senate in Maine, appeared Thursday night in his first interview since a New York Times report about his treatment of several women he had dated, denying one woman’s account that he had physically harmed her and saying he would not drop out of the race.

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In a nearly 25-minute appearance on MS Now’s “All In With Chris Hayes,” Platner said he would “absolutely” take responsibility for elements of his personal history. He described a history of self-medicating, and a pattern of “not exactly acting with the best behavior” after his service in the military.

But he reiterated that any allegations that he had behaved violently toward a girlfriend were “simply not true.”

“In this piece, there’s a lot about my struggling, not being a good boyfriend, certainly self-medicating with alcohol,” Platner said. “And I have been very upfront since the beginning of this campaign that that was a pretty dark period of my life after I came back from my combat service.”

And Platner, whose primary is just five days away, said he had “not once” considered leaving the campaign in Maine, which is considered key to Democrats’ efforts to win back the Senate in the midterm elections.

Hours earlier, the Times reported that Lyndsey Fifield, a 40-year-old Virginia conservative who has worked for Republican campaigns and right-leaning groups and dated Platner roughly from 2013 to 2015, recalled that he regularly grabbed her by the shoulders. She said he once twisted her arm behind her back, shoved her into a bedroom and held the door closed from the other side so she could not get out, telling her to remain there until she calmed down. He never hit or punched her, she said.

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The Times also reported that two other women who had dated Platner recalled him drinking heavily and womanizing. One of the women, Jenny Racicot, 41, a Maine Democrat, said his behavior was “unsettling” and “reckless,” and she described him as someone who “does not respect women.”

Fifield said Platner had lied by saying he had learned from news media inquiries during the campaign that a tattoo on his chest resembled a Nazi symbol called a Totenkopf. She said Platner knew it was a Nazi symbol years ago, and he had called it “my Totenkopf” at the time.

And she provided the Times with screenshots of a private group chat in which she told her friends that Platner had an “actual” Nazi symbol on his chest. The message was dated Aug. 20 — months before Platner acknowledged knowing that the tattoo resembled the symbol.

In the interview with Hayes, Platner denied he had known of the symbolism until recently. He said he had once taken his shirt off, exposing the tattoo, during a wedding attended by Jewish members of his extended family. “I would not have taken my shirt off in that context if I had known,” said Platner, who has since covered up the tattoo.

Hayes asked him to reconcile his assertions that he did not know about the symbol with Fifield’s messages to friends from August.

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“Well,” Platner said, “she certainly didn’t send that text to me.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.