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FIRST ON FOX: A Purple Heart veteran who was mocked online by Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner issued a blistering response to a video of Platner declining to apologize or acknowledge regret over the comment.
“I saw the video and honestly, I don’t want an apology. I don’t need an apology. I consider the source of where the comment came from, and I’m the type of person that — in order for me to worry about what you say — first I have to respect you,” U.S. Army veteran Teddy Daniels said in response to a video taken by Fox News Digital over the weekend in which Platner declined to apologize.
“There’s zero-to-no respect for a self-proclaimed communist,” Daniels said. “You know, the ironic thing is, some guys run towards gunfire and other guys run toward keyboards, and I think that’s a big difference.”
In a now-deleted Reddit post on from June 2019, made under the username “P-Hustle” — an account that Platner has acknowledged owning — he reacted to a viral helmet-cam video showing Daniels being shot four times during a 2012 clash with Taliban fighters, saying that Daniels “didn’t deserve to live.”
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Purple Heart veteran Teddy Daniels slammed Democrat Senate candidate Graham Platner for refusing to apologize over Platner’s deleted Reddit post saying Daniels “didn’t deserve to live.” (Fox News Digital/Andrew Mark Miller)
“This video never gets old,” Platner wrote before calling Daniels a “dumb motherf—er” and claiming that “poor marksmanship” by the Taliban was the only reason Daniels survived.
The deleted post can still be found in the Maine Monitor’s database of Platner’s deleted Reddit history, alongside other resurfaced posts where he described himself as a “communist” and “socialist,” used alleged homophobic slurs, and praised Hamas military tactics.
Platner also targeted “American Sniper” Chris Kyle in an unearthed interview, in which he suggested Kyle killed civilians to inflate his numbers.
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Daniels, a former Republican candidate for Pennsylvania lieutenant governor, suggested Platner’s comments about Kyle stem from jealousy.
“This was an interview that he was doing where he said this, so this was premeditated,” he said. “There was no trigger there for him except for the fact that Chris Kyle was a man 100 times greater than Grant Platner and shoes that he could never, ever fill.”
Daniels added that if anyone “deserves an apology,” it’s his children and the children and widow of Kyle.
“I believe he owes them an apology to their face,” Daniels said.
Platner has previously leaned into his struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a reason for making the inflammatory posts, an explanation that Daniels isn’t buying.
“I think Graham Platner is using his PTSD as a crutch, as a means to avoid accountability for his actions,” Daniels said. “I have PTSD, obviously, from my tour. I’ve had 20-plus surgeries to get fixed after my tour and enduring the pain and recovery after each one of those surgeries. So I could understand how there might be moments, small, minute moments in time to where your PTSD may cause you to say something or do something that is out of character.”
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Then-Pennsylvania lieutenant governor candidate Teddy Daniels speaks at a pro-police rally in Pike County. A video of Daniels under fire from the Taliban was mocked by Maine’s Graham Platner. (Preston Ehrler/Getty Images)
Daniels continued, “But this appears to be a continuing course of conduct with Graham Platner, and he is trying to blame [PTSD], which I think is insulting to every service member who actually suffers from PTSD. Or anybody for that case who suffers with PTSD. He’s trying to use PTSD as a crutch, as an excuse to avoid accountability. And that’s just wrong, the first step of being a man is taking responsibility and accountability for your actions and your words and we’re just not saying that here.”
Platner supporters have defended some of the controversial posts as “locker room talk” or simply an example of soldiers having a “dark” sense of humor to get through hard times.
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Daniels told Fox News Digital that he’s been in countless locker rooms and barracks, and that doesn’t excuse Platner’s comments.
“Graham Platner and his privileged background wouldn’t know the first thing about locker room talk,” Daniels said. “Listen, I get that guys can be crude, rude, inner-service rivalries, whatever the case is, but the stuff that this guy put out there publicly is beyond locker room talk. It is just vile and disgusting.”
Fox News Digital reached out to the Platner campaign for comment.
