U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner has called for President Donald Trump and his Cabinet to be investigated and punished for abusing their power.
The 41-year-old insurgent Democratic candidate from Maine told The Daily Beast Podcast that Trump must be brought to justice for his “unconstitutional” behavior, urging Democrats to move quickly against the president if they return to power after the midterms.
“There should not be a moment where we all just shake hands and decide that, OK, well, that was it. That was a weird little moment,” Platner told host Joanna Coles. “The crimes that have been committed must be investigated and punished.”
The Bernie Sanders-endorsed populist continued, “We should absolutely hold those who have broken the law and who are abusing their power accountable for doing just that.”
Platner blasted Trump’s retaliation campaigns against political opponents, highlighting the Justice Department’s investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.
“The president wants to reduce interest rates himself,” he said. “He wants to be in charge. He doesn’t like the fact that he has to go through somebody. And he’s just using the power of the office to target people who get in his way.”
The oyster farmer and Marine veteran argued that Trump and his inner circle seem driven by a “feeling of total unaccountability” after the president ordered strikes on Venezuela and abducted the country’s president on Jan. 3 without congressional approval.
“They get to do whatever they want, or they feel like they get to do whatever they want,” Platner said.
He remarked that Trump’s threat to take over Greenland shows “how far the wheels have come off this presidency,” and suggested the president is seeking distractions from the Jeffrey Epstein files.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
Platner, who served three tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is following Trump’s lead in his retribution campaign against the Democratic senators who urged military members to refuse illegal orders.
“Pete Hegseth is a joke. He’s a deeply insecure man who is now running around with an immense amount of power,” Platner said. “And he’s using that power to target somebody who he feels made him angry.”
He added, “This is all absurd. It’s illegal. It’s unconstitutional, this kind of behavior. This is abusing power in its most obvious form.”
Platner is gunning for Republican Senator Susan Collins’s seat and faces Maine Governor Janet Mills in the Democratic primary. He argued that the Senate is “a good place” to hold Trump and others in the administration accountable.
“Oversight is, I think, one of the most effective places to bring that about, which is one of the reasons I’m running for Senate,” he said.
The Senate hopeful was forced onto the defensive in October, when his controversial social media and Reddit posts resurfaced, and he was forced to explain why he had Nazi-linked tattoos.
In several deleted posts, Platner called police “b—–ds,” and responded to a Reddit post claiming “White people aren’t as racist or stupid as Trump thinks” by writing, “I’m afraid to tell you they actually are.”
“The vast majority of my neighbors are not stupid and racist,” Platner told Coles. “There are some people in white rural America who are that. I don’t think that’s a very—what’s the word—wild statement to make.”
In a 2013 Reddit post, Platner also asked why Black people “don’t tip.”
“It was a curiosity that I had,” said Platner, who was a barman at the time. “I asked the question because I was curious. Someone answered it. And that was that. I moved on with my life.”
Criticizing what he described as “absurd litmus tests” and the tendency to “litigate everyone’s internet comments,” Platner added, “If you have to go back 13 years to find one or two comments to take out of context, it’s probably not indicative of who someone is.”
Platner appears to have so far weathered the scandals and remains competitive with Mills in polling. His campaign raised $4.7 million in the final quarter of 2025, Axios reported earlier this month.
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