A Democrat running for Senate in Maine who previously apologized for a tattoo resembling a Nazi symbol is now defending the design as nothing more than a skull-and-crossbones. 

Graham Platner, who hopes to run against incumbent Republican Senator Susan Collins, was mired in scandal last year when it was revealed he has a tattoo on his chest resembling the Nazi 'Totenkopf' or 'death's head' symbol adopted by Hitler's SS.

He has since had it altered to resemble some kind of animal. 

At first Platner apologized, saying he didn't realize the symbol was associated with Nazism, and promised he'd get it removed.

But in an interview this week with news blog Zeteo, Platner pushed back, defending the tattoo as merely a 'skull-and-crossbones' and 'an eminently reasonable thing'.

During the interview he also recommended the war movie Come and See, which prominently and repeatedly shows the similar 'Totenkopf' on Nazi uniforms.

'Everybody should watch Come and See,' he said.

The fact that the 1985 film is one of his favorites may undermine his claims that he didn't know the association of the symbol with Nazis.

Platner did not respond to a request for comment from the Daily Mail.

When the tattoo scandal emerged in October, Platner told the Washington Post that he was only told of its Nazi association 'a few days ago'.

But an unidentified former acquaintance of Platner told The Jewish Insider that he had called the tattoo a 'Totenkopf', during a 2012 conversation at DC bar the Tune Inn.

'He said "Oh, this is my Totenkopf",' the source told the news site. 'He said it in a cutesy little way.'

In unearthed Reddit posts from 2019, Platner weighed in on a conversation about the Totenkopf, saying he knew of US service members using skull imagery, further suggesting he was aware of the symbol's significance years ago.

Platner has told the press that he got the tattoo with a group of friends during a night of drinking in Croatia in 2007 while he was on leave from serving as a US marine.

His former political director wrote in a Facebook post that 'he's a military history buff,' and 'he knows damn well what it means', according to a report in news site Politico.

The political director, Genevieve McDonald, resigned in October when Platner's incendiary past Reddit comments were unearthed.

The posts included calling rural, white Americans 'racist' and 'stupid', but also asking why black people 'don't tip', and suggesting those worried about being raped should 'take some responsibility for themselves and not get so f***ked up'.

He has since apologized for those comments, saying they were made when he was suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after leaving the military.

Platner was also characteristically foul-mouthed in his interview last week with Zeteo, saying he wanted to tell Texas Senator Ted Cruz to 'go f*** yourself'.

The two are in a public spat. 

The former Marine tweeted about his opposition to the conflict in Iran last month, mentioning his dead fellow service members, and Cruz responded on X: 'Were your friends Germans wearing Nazi tattoos like you?'

Until the tattoo scandal, Platner, an oyster farmer,  had been a promising candidate, raising $5 million in the first two months of his campaign, signing up 11,000 volunteers and packing in crowds at town hall-style events.

He faces term-limited Governor Janet Mills in a June 9 primary before the November general election. Maine is generally thought to be one of the closest contests in this year's Senate cycle.

His left wing credentials were burnished with a glowing reference from Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.

'I personally think he is an excellent candidate,' Sanders told reporters. 'I'm going to support him and look forward to him becoming the next senator in the state of Maine.'

The Senate hopeful's bullish defense of his tattoo in his Zeteo interview on Tuesday marks a change from his previous positions on it.

He bared his chest in an interview with CNN affiliate WGME on October 22 to confirm he had gotten the tattoo altered and said he plans to have it removed completely, but it will take time because his options are limited in rural Maine.

And he told Politico: 'I absolutely would not have gone through life having this on my chest if I knew that — and to insinuate that I did is disgusting. I am already planning to get this removed,' he told the news site.