Platner called PTSD excuse 'bulls---' in 2020 post, now cites his own struggle to explain online controversies

But the progressive darling suggested PTSD and the trauma from multiple combat deployments are not an excuse for offensive behavior in a since-deleted post obtained by Fox News Digital. 

"Don't buy into that bulls---. I did 4 tours in the infantry to Iraq and Afghanistan, saw all kinds of awful things, have a PTSD diagnosis and STILL manage not to beat defenseless animals to death for fun," Platner, a Marine and Army veteran and oyster farmer, wrote in a social media post.

"That's just cops giving excuses for their garbage behavior," he added.

He has argued the statements are not representative of who he is today, but reflect someone who was "having a very difficult time settling into a society that he felt betrayed by and left behind by after having a fight in Iraq and Afghanistan."

"This was a time in my life where I was struggling deeply," Platner said in a video posted to social media in late 2025. "I got out of the Army in 2012, I had PTSD, I had depression, I had all of the things that come with serving in a war, two wars that I eventually began to not believe in at all."

"It left me feeling very unmoored. It left me feeling very disillusioned, very alienated and very isolated," he added. "And I think, like a lot of people, I went on the internet to post stupid things and get in fights and find some form of community in some way, some outlet for my feelings."

But many of Platner's most controversial remarks came as recently as five years ago, when he suggested that PTSD was not a shield for "garbage behavior."

In 2020, Platner wrote that white people living in rural America are "actually" racist and stupid and that all law enforcement officers are "bastards," in since-deleted Reddit posts reported by CNN.

The following year, Platner said he "got older and became a Communist" in a since-deleted post.

Fox News Digital reached out to Platner's campaign for comment.

The presumptive Democratic nominee has also argued that backlash from his past social media posts will fail to halt his campaign's momentum.

"The Democratic establishment tried to use all those attacks against me and failed miserably," Platner said as he referred to the Mills campaign's negative spots before she exited the race. "Now the Republican establishment is going to try to use the exact same attacks, and that will also fail miserably."