Widow of ‘American Sniper’ Chris Kyle Hits Back Against Dem Senate Candidate for ‘Making Things Up’

Taya Kyle, widow of the late Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, accused Maine Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner of making things up regarding her husband.

During a 2024 podcast interview, Platner claimed that Kyle ran up his kill count by shooting unarmed civilians while he served in a unit known as Task Force Bruiser.

“[Kyle’s] stories about how many people he was shooting certainly tracked with the behavior I witnessed [in Ramadi, Iraq]. It’s relatively easy to get high numbers like that if you’re a little less discriminating in your fire than, say, a more professional unit would be,” Platner said.

Left-wing Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner smeared the late “American Sniper” Chris Kyle in a 2024 podcast interview, suggesting that Kyle shot innocent civilians in Iraq to inflate his kill numbers.

Platner also bristled at the fact that Kyle and members of his platoon… pic.twitter.com/UQDxEmnXjH

— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) May 20, 2026

“I almost felt like there was like a weird practical joke being played on me by the war that, like, all these years later, I’m, like, having to, like… People are telling me, like, ‘Oh, look how great this guy is, these guys are amazing heroes’ — this whole incredible thing. The paragon of leadership, and I’m just sitting there, like, ‘Am I living in, like, an alternate reality?’ Because this is the exact opposite of my experience,” Platner, a Marine Corps and Army veteran who served three tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, added.

Kyle’s widow, Taya Kyle, responded, telling Fox News, “My family and I, my kids and I, we’d love to get on here and say, ‘It doesn’t matter when people say things like that’ … but the truth is, it does hurt.”

“Something like this, where it’s so obvious to us that [Platner] did not know him, that he’s making things up, that it’s the polar opposite of what Chris said and did, it cheapens it,” she added. “I can’t imagine anyone voting for somebody like that.”

Widow of Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, @TayaKyle speaks candidly about the emotional toll political attacks can have on mourning families after Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner made comments about the life and legacy of her late husband. @JacquiHeinrich pic.twitter.com/DQL3nJeHdJ

— Sunday Briefing (@SundayBriefFNC) May 24, 2026

Chris Kyle was shot and killed at a firing range in Texas in 2014 by a Marine Corps veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, whom he was trying to help.

Platner also smeared a U.S. Army veteran, who received a Purple Heart, for his service in Afghanistan.

In his since-deleted Reddit account, Platner wrote in 2019, “This video never gets old,” referring to viral footage taken by PFC Ted Daniels’s helmet cam during a clash with Taliban fighters in 2012.

“Dumb motherf***er didn’t deserve to live. At least his stupidity and fat a** wheezing are available for all future infantrymen to witness and hold in contempt. Poor marksmanship on the Taliban’s part is the only reason this mouthbreather made it home, he managed to make every possible s*** decision possible when it comes to small unit combat,” Platner wrote.

Daniels told The Washington Post in 2012 that he was hoping to draw fire away from his fellow squad members when he moved down a rocky hillside in the open before taking partial cover as bullets whizzed nearby. All his squadmates survived the engagement.

Daniels told the New York Post in an article published on Sunday regarding Graham’s 2019 comments, “I’m very thick-skinned, and he said it… I don’t want an apology, and any apology from him [Graham] at this point would definitely not be sincere.”

“What I’d really like is for [Sen.] Elizabeth Warren, [Senate Minority Leader] Chuck Schumer, [Sen.] Bernie Sanders, [House Minority Leader] Hakeem Jeffries, and everybody else on the far left to tell my children to their face that they are endorsing and supporting a man who said that their father should have not lived. Cheering on the death of their father,” the veteran said.

Combat vet and Purple Heart recipient Ted Daniels ripping Democrat Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner over a resurfaced post in which Platner said Daniels should have died after nearly being killed by the Taliban.

“Graham, you’re a coward… I think you’re a scumbag… People… pic.twitter.com/IU4YYcfvbq

— Fox News (@FoxNews) May 22, 2026

Daniels — who is 6′ 4″ — also questioned whether Graham would have the courage to confront him in person, rather than berate him on an online forum.

“I’m a pretty intimidating person to stand in front of, and it’s easy for them to shoot a mouth off behind a keyboard, but face to face, it’s crickets,” he said, adding, “and I kind of wonder what Graham Platner’s response would be if he were face to face with me.”

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