Klain said Platner’s ‘Totenkopf’ was an ode to ‘his fallen comrades from his service in Afghanistan,’ something Platner himself has never claimed
Home rental giant Airbnb is silent after its chief legal officer, former Biden White House chief of staff Ron Klain, described criticism of Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner’s Nazi tattoo as a “partisan attack” and argued that the ink was simply an attempt to remember “fallen comrades.”
One of the most senior members of the Democratic Party, Klain joined Airbnb in January 2024, less than a year after he left the Biden White House. He has quietly advised left-wing Democrats while working for the company, helping socialist New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani with debate prep and doing the same for Platner “in anticipation of a debate with Maine Gov. Janet Mills that never happened,” Politico reported. He is also advising Platner surrogate and aspiring 2028 presidential candidate Rep. Ro Khanna (D., Calif.).
Klain climbed into the comments of an Instagram post from the Republican Jewish Coalition on Wednesday calling on Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) to withdraw support for Platner to call criticism of Platner’s Nazi tattoo a “partisan attack.”
“The tattoo was a skull and crossbones to remember his fallen commrades [sic] from his service in Afghanistan,” Klain wrote.
Notably, Platner himself has never offered that explanation for the tattoo, and he was serving in Iraq, not Afghanistan, when he got the tattoo while on leave from the Marine Corps in Croatia. He had not yet served in Afghanistan.
Two of Platner’s ex-girlfriends have said he acknowledged the skull-and-crossbones tattoo was a “Totenkopf,” or “Death’s Head” symbol worn by Nazi SS officers, though Platner has said he did not know of the tattoo’s meaning until after he launched his Senate campaign.
Airbnb, which has not made any public statement about Klain’s remark, did not respond to a request for comment.
The company’s silence over Klain’s defense of Platner may draw accusations of hypocrisy since it was outspoken about the political activity of its founder’s work with the Trump administration.
In early 2025, when cofounder and Airbnb board member Joe Gebbia announced he was joining the Department of Government Efficiency, the company issued a statement distancing itself from Gebbia and DOGE.
“Joe is joining DOGE in his personal capacity,” Airbnb’s head of corporate communications, Christopher Nulty, said at the time. “While he continues to serve on the Airbnb board, Joe has not had an operating role at the company since July 2022, and his personal views don’t reflect the views of Airbnb or Airbnb.org.” A source close to the company told the travel publication Skift that “Gebbia’s turn toward Trump, which the co-founder announced on X two days after the inauguration in January, and advocacy for DOGE have created concern internally at Airbnb, which is a very liberal company.”
The company’s corporate ranks are filled with former Democratic officials, including former members of the Biden press office who misled the public about Biden’s mental acuity.
Emilie Simons, a former press aide in the Biden White House, now works as a “senior lead” on Airbnb’s “policy and corporate communications” team. When Biden faced criticism in 2022 for reading a teleprompter cue that said “end of quote, repeat the line,” Simons claimed Biden said, “Let me repeat that line.”
Another former Biden aide, campaign spokesman Kevin Munoz, is now an Airbnb senior communications manager. Munoz argued that Biden’s old age was an asset. “Now is not the time for a rookie in the White House,” he told reporters in November 2023. “And President Biden has been able to get big things done just because of his leadership and his experience in Washington. And that’s a record we’re happy to have a debate on.” Months later, in July 2024, Munoz said it was normal for Biden to avoid events and public appearances after 8 p.m.
“President Bush went to bed at 9, and President Obama made dinner at 6:30. Normal presidents strike a balance, and so does Joe Biden,” Munoz told the Washington Post. “Hardly the same rigor as Donald Trump who spends half of his day ranting on Truth Social about plans that would cause a recession and other half golfing.”
Airbnb’s senior ranks also include former Obama White House press secretary, Jay Carney, who serves as the company’s head of global policy. Ahead of Biden’s disastrous 2024 debate performance against President Donald Trump, Carney told the New York Times that the “odds” of the debate “moving the race are not high.” Later that year, in October 2024, he told CNN that Trump is unfit for office.
Klain defended Biden’s mental capacity in the wake of the debate, telling CNN, “He’s clearly up to the job. He’s doing it every day. He’s doing it successfully.” After Biden left office, Klain told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that he “had no doubt at any time that the President was mentally fit to serve as President and mentally fit to make the decisions of President.” Journalist Chris Whipple’s book on the Biden White House, Uncharted, tells a different story: It revealed that Klain was “startled” by how “out of it” Biden was during his debate preparations, which the president left to sleep by the pool.
Airbnb also tapped former attorney general Eric Holder to “help create the company’s new anti-discrimination policy” as part of “its battle to prevent people on its service from refusing minority and transgender customers,” the New York Times reported in 2016. Though refusing service because of a customer’s race was already outlawed under the company’s policies—and illegal under federal law—Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky called the anti-discrimination “battle” the “greatest challenge we face as a company.” Holder is known for charging more than $2,000 an hour to perform corporate “equity” audits, including one for Starbucks that got the coffee giant sued.
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