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Graham Platner: “The war in Iraq was kicking off, I was like, this seems like…”

Featuring: Graham Platner, Populist, Progressive | Former Candidate, U.S. Senate Maine

Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview

Published May 16, 2026 | Video Starts at 28:42

It's like a little military nerd. And. But I also, in high school, became pretty critical of certain elements of, I think, American foreign policy. Certainly when The war in Iraq was kicking off, I was like, this seems like a deeply stupid idea. Yeah. I mean, you had an image of you in high school holding up a sign saying free Kosovo, Chechnya, Kashmir, Palestine, Kurdistan and Tibet. That's. Yeah, yeah, I got it. (28:42–28:47)

CLAIM

Asserts that the Iraq War seemed like a deeply stupid idea.

This is an excerpt from a raw transcript. The assertions have not been audited or verified. Tap the video to view the source footage and understand the context.

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Graham Platner

“The NRC has already put aside almost $50 million [for this race].”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 08:28-08:32
“We have the most expansive margin of wealth inequality in the history of the country.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 23:43-23:48
“We have now spent $50 billion. $50 billion in the war in Iran, a war that is uniquely unpopular with the American people.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 1:09:48-1:10:00
“We just spent $50 billion in two months in the war in Iran.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 1:11:17-1:11:21
“We destroyed Iraq and we destroyed Afghanistan and all the suffering, all the killing, all the dying, all the displacement, all of it.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 00:00-00:09
“I did four infantry tours in the Marine Corps and the Army.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 00:20-00:24
“We wanted to build a different looking politics in the state of Maine.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 02:04-02:09
“Organized people is the only actual place of power to conflict with organized money.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 02:13-02:20
“We were up against the Democratic establishment up until last week.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 02:51-02:56
“I've never been close to money. I've never been close to power.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 04:22-04:26
“Somebody saw a video of me talking about fighting a Norwegian salmon farm in our area.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 06:17-06:22
“The Democratic Party wants to retake the Senate more than anything else.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 07:57-08:02
“Almost no map that has a Democratic Senate does not include flipping the state of Maine.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 08:01-08:06
“We have 15,000 active volunteers in the state of Maine.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 09:03-09:07
“Senator Schumer has not really risen to the occasion.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 10:48-10:51
“Polling methodology has changed significantly since 2020.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 11:33-11:36
“Maine has always been notoriously a hard state to poll because we have an aging population.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 11:38-11:43
“Collins had already voted for Brett Kavanaugh, but Roe had not been overturned.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 12:00-12:06
“Collins has tried to make herself look like this moderate Republican who will buck her party.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 12:17-12:23
“Susan Collins raises an immense amount of money outside of the state of Maine.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 13:08-13:28
“She takes an immense amount of money from aipac.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 13:27-13:36
“She takes an immense amount of money from special interest groups and fossil fuel companies.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 13:27-13:32
“She has a very high performing stock portfolio.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 13:32-13:36
“I think right now especially there are a lot of young men in our society who are being dragged into this kind of like really dangerous…”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 14:50-14:59
“Honestly, I think it's because they've left behind working like the working class.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 16:05-16:11
“And I think a lot of that came because the Democratic Party abandoned organized labor, quite frankly.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 17:39-17:47
“My wife and I work incredibly hard, and we probably make like $60,000 a year combined.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 21:23-21:30
“My house has gone up almost three times in value.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 21:38-21:42
“I could have used a VA home loan if I had wanted to.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 21:59-22:03
“My VA healthcare and my VA pension, which that really is kind of like the, that's the baseline that really allows all this to happen.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 22:36-22:45
“I moved back to Maine in 2016 from D.C. and I had, I was broke.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 22:53-22:58
“An armed working class is a requirement for economic justice.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 23:36-23:44
“In the state of Maine, almost everybody's working class.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 23:48-23:52
“George W. Bush got dragged out of a Bush rally. And I think November, December of O2.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 26:52-26:58
“I met a lot of guys in the Marine Corps that thought that the war was dumb.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 29:21-29:26
“We did the election late January 1st. That first Iraqi election, January of 05.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 30:26-30:32
“On April 2, 2005, there was a large combined assault, multiple suicide car bombs.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 30:35-30:44
“We came home for like four and a half, five months. I went to Machine Gun Leadership course.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 31:20-31:24
“We were at the government center in downtown [Ramadi], and we just lived there.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 31:37-31:42
“Didn't have a single day off for eight months.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 31:55-31:57
“In 05, we were actually engaging in, like, some building projects.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 32:36-32:42
“We were like, we're helping turn the water back on.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 32:41-32:45
“We were spending so much money. Like, somebody was clearly getting very rich, but it wasn't us.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 33:15-33:21
“In 2005, my vehicle got hit by an IED outside of [a place called] Karma north, north of Fallujah.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 35:11-35:19
“When I went back in 2018, I didn't believe in any of it.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 39:23-39:28
“Seven years I haven't been in this country and no new ideas.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 40:09-40:13
“We're out there dropping bombs on people's houses, there are special operations units kicking in people's doors in the middle of the night.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 40:13-40:20
“We destroyed Iraq and we destroyed Afghanistan and all the suffering, all the killing, all the dying, all the displacement, all of it was…”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 41:22-41:38
“The anger that I feel is for the people that sent me who are frankly still the same people who are sending people off right now to go but be…”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 41:46-42:01
“Susan Collins voted to send me to [war in Iraq] and she's also there to help Donald Trump continue this absolutely insane conflict in the…”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 42:00-42:10
“The United States wages war... rarely good for the people who have to go fight and die, and rarely good for... the American people who have…”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 42:44-43:12
“Raytheon executives get a... yacht. People make a lot of money off of this thing.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 43:15-43:20
“The forever wars that we have been in now, really, since 2001. I mean, what good has it done us?”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 43:44-43:52
“We released all of the comments.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 49:23-49:26
“We just put everything out there.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 49:34-49:37
“I haven't used Reddit in, I think since 2021.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 49:41-49:45
“CNN, who was the first. The first outlet that reached out to us.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 51:06-51:10
“I hadn't used Reddit Since, I think, 21.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 51:46-51:49
“I spent 18 years on, or whatever, 12 years on Reddit.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 52:22-52:30
“Historically, fascism has been beaten with. With armed, like, resistance and conflict.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 53:29-53:36
“I don't think it moves us any closer to a better or freer society.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 53:53-53:57
“Building organizing at the community level is paramount for the future of our political system.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 54:41-54:50
“We don't have things that most of the American people want, like universal health care, like a foreign policy that isn't just based around…”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 58:09-58:20
“We need more people who are willing to vote for things like universal health care.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 58:36-58:43
“We haven't been able to get, say, Medicare for all.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 58:55-58:59
“FDR implements a bunch of New Deal programs. Supreme Court says a lot of these might be unconstitutional.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 1:00:26-1:00:32
“FDR, much to the chagrin of his own party, I may add, threatens to pack the court.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 1:00:37-1:00:44
“The Trump administration breaks the law every single day.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 1:02:39-1:02:43
“The Trump administration has started what I would call an unconstitutional war overseas in Iran.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 1:02:48-1:02:54
“The Trump administration has been sending ICE out to terrorize American communities and murder American citizens with at this point, no…”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 1:02:55-1:03:04
“I saw that you want to impeach members of the Supreme Court.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 1:03:08-1:03:19
“The Senate has the power, the Congress has the power to hold the court to ethics standards if it so chose to.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 1:03:27-1:03:35
“Over the past 40 years, we have seen a coalescing of power in the executive branch that far outweighs what it was supposed to be in the…”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 1:04:10-1:04:28
“We have Just given power up to the executive and we've given power up to the judicial in a completely unelected body.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 1:05:52-1:06:00
“Term limits in the Supreme Court, absolutely. And term limits in the House and the Senate as well.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 1:06:14-1:06:20
“We need to have a new War Powers act that really pulls war powers back from the executive.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 1:06:24-1:06:30
“The Trump administration got rid of the jcpoa Which. Which then reset the stage.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 1:08:35-1:08:42
“Things have gotten worse for working people in the state of Maine in the last 30 years.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 1:10:10-1:10:16
“We have taken on an immense amount of debt, specifically over the past 30 years.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 1:11:59-1:12:05
“The reason this nation is an immense amount of debt...is because we created lots of new public money...into a speculative financial system.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 1:12:13-1:12:26
“We put this money out in the form of fossil fuel subsidies...tax cuts for billionaires and for corporations.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 1:12:45-1:12:52
“We put it out into massive amount of funding for the American military industrial complex.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 1:12:52-1:12:57
“We will never be able to pay off our debt if we don't invest in making America more productive.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 1:13:18-1:13:27
“What we have right now is a non functioning market because essentially all the money...gets extracted out of working people.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 1:13:47-1:13:56
“New Deal era programs are going to be necessary to meet the, the challenges of the moment and of the future.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 1:17:16-1:17:22
“This nation really needs to get back to [long term industrial policy].”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 1:17:30-1:17:32
“We're going to be talking about names next year and the year after in relation to the 2028 presidential race that right now just aren't even…”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 1:17:52-1:18:00
“We're in for a, a generational shift in American politics and it's coming quickly.”
Graham Platner Wants a Democratic Revolution | The Interview | Uploaded May 16, 2026 | 1:17:59-1:18:06