Graham Platner could very well be the Democratic nominee running against Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) for her long-held Senate seat.

Platner’s run has not been without controversy, to put it lightly. A tattoo that Platner had, a Totenkopf, was worn by Nazis and is still a symbol embraced by Neo-Nazis today. In an article published in the local publication Maine Monitor on Saturday, the Senate candidate explained his initial reaction:

Platner said he didn’t know what it was until it became an issue during this campaign. Even when someone working with his campaign told him there was a rumor going around that he had a white supremacist tattoo, he said he didn’t connect it to the skull and crossbones on his chest. “I was like, ‘Well, that’s the fucking most r-tarded shit I’ve ever heard in my life,’” he told me. “‘No, I don’t have a white supremacist tattoo,’ and I never thought about it again. And then it came up later on, and I was like, ‘God fucking damn it.’” (He had the tattoo covered in late October.)

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