Rainn Wilson Calls Out Media’s Double Standard on Platner

Rainn Wilson told Fox News Digital this week that “The Office” could not be made today, and that the same bias he sees in cancel-culture comedy shapes the press’s coverage of Maine Senate nominee Graham Platner’s Nazi-symbol tattoo. The actor’s comments land on a fresh NBC News survey of 3,000 U.S. adults, in which nearly two-thirds of respondents said they have little or no confidence in the national news media.

Wilson’s two-week run of public criticism ended with a Capitol Hill appearance and a long interview in which he tied the political comedy of his old show to the political journalism of 2026. The interview, on Fox News Digital, gave the actor a national platform to make a case that runs against the usual celebrity line: that legacy media apply one standard to Democrats and another to Republicans, and that the pattern is now visible enough for an “Office” alum to point at it on the record.

Wilson’s Case Against Cancel Culture Comedy

Wilson was direct in his Fox News Digital interview. “I do feel like you couldn’t make The Office today,” he said. “I think that would be too hard to be as politically incorrect as the show was. And I do, I do kind of miss that.”

The original series ran from 2005-2013, long enough ago that its writers could lean into characters who lacked self-awareness without a daily backlash cycle. Wilson told Fox News Digital the show resembled “Blazing Saddles” in that respect, and pointed to the way his own character, Dwight Schrute, and Steve Carell’s Michael Scott were written on purpose as a “boob” whose missteps carried the comedy. “We milked that for a lot of great, really inappropriate stuff,” Wilson said. “But even with the fact that painting that character as just an idiot, I don’t think you could get away with it today.” The show’s run produced strong critical reviews and sizable ratings, with only a small online chorus objecting to its content, and that chorus never built into a “Cancel Culture”-style pressure campaign against the series.

Wilson’s framing treats the shift as a clear break. The writers, he argues, no longer have the room to write the same kind of character. The risk of online pile-ons, network caution, and advertiser discomfort has, in his telling, narrowed the comedy writing room to a thin strip of acceptable content.

I do feel like you couldn’t make The Office today. I think that would be too hard to be as politically incorrect as the show was. And I do, I do kind of miss that.

Wilson’s full interview, including his comments on faith and his MSNBC podcast exchange, is available in the Fox News Digital piece carried on AOL.

The Platner Tattoo and a Double Standard

Wilson did not stop at comedy. In the same interview he went after the coverage of Platner, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Maine. “I think there has been a bias in the media towards what we call more liberal policies,” Wilson told Fox News Digital. “They’re willing to overlook the Platner Nazi tattoo, but if it was someone from the other side that had a tattoo that was questionable they would be all over MSNBC about it.” He framed the imbalance as plain hypocrisy: “It’s the hypocrisy that gets me the most … both sides have to have equal standards of behavior.”

Platner is a Marine veteran who got a skull-and-crossbones tattoo on his chest in 2007 while on leave in Croatia with fellow Marines, picking the image off a parlor wall during a night of drinking. The image resembles the Totenkopf, a death’s-head emblem used by Nazi SS forces during World War Two. In a 2025 statement reported by the BBC, Platner said he did not know the symbol’s meaning at the time and later had the design covered.

The controversy refuses to stay settled. Lyndsey Fifield, a former girlfriend and conservative activist, told friends in August 2025 that Platner “has a Nazi tattoo on his chest” and that “it’s a Totenkopf,” according to text messages reviewed by CNN and The New York Times. Asked on MSNBC’s “All In with Chris Hayes” how Fifield could have known the symbol’s Nazi associations before he did, Platner told host Chris Hayes: “Well, she certainly didn’t send that text to me. So whoever she sent it to and was talking to, that’s – I can’t say why.” Platner has strongly denied any wrongdoing. Maine Democrats were unmoved; he won the June 9 primary with 72% of the vote.

Wilson’s point is that the national press spent months treating the tattoo story as a complication to be managed, not a scandal to be pursued. The New York Times profile of the controversies, the abuse allegations, and the campaign’s other troubles has not changed the underlying coverage pattern Wilson named. When late-night finally engaged, the treatment was a compressed joke rather than a sustained probe, as seen in Kimmel’s first broadcast-network mention of Platner, a single sentence that paired the tattoo with two other scandals and moved on. The full list of scandals Platner now carries into the general election:

1. A skull-and-crossbones tattoo on his chest resembling the Totenkopf, a Nazi-era SS symbol.
2. Reports that Platner exchanged sexually explicit text messages with other women.
3. Abuse allegations from three former girlfriends, including Fifield, which he denies as politically motivated.

CNN’s full account of the tattoo timeline and the Fifield text messages, including Platner’s MSNOW exchange with Chris Hayes, lays out the chronology that Wilson’s comments rest on.

Scott Pelley’s Exit and the CBS Newsroom War

The same week Wilson made his case, CBS News fired Scott Pelley from “60 Minutes.” Pelley had accused the network’s editor-in-chief, Bari Weiss, of “murdering 60 Minutes” at a staff meeting, and the network moved within days. Nick Bilton, a former New York Times technology columnist and documentary filmmaker with no broadcast-news experience, had been hired to lead the program a week earlier. In his termination letter, Bilton wrote to Pelley that his “antipathy to the future of the show has come through loud and clear. And I have heard you.”

Pelley’s public statement after the firing attacked the direction of the network under its new owners. “I’ve been told to include assertions that are unverified,” Pelley said. He also said “incompetence and unprofessionalism in the new management have wreaked havoc.” Pelley, who had been a “60 Minutes” correspondent for 22 years and a CBS News employee for 37, framed his firing as a question of editorial integrity, not insubordination. The BBC’s account of the firing, the Bilton letter, and Pelley’s response lays out the chain of events that led from the August 2025 Paramount sale to David Ellison, an ally of President Donald Trump, through Weiss’s October 2025 installation as editor-in-chief, to Pelley’s exit. Pelley’s own insistence in the days after his firing that there is no “metric” that proves media bias exists runs against the pattern Wilson described in the same news cycle.

A New NBC Poll Tracks a Crumbling Trust

Wilson’s comments land on a number. The new NBC News poll, sponsored by the nonpartisan nonprofit More Perfect and fielded from May 29 through June 7 with 3,000 U.S. adults, found that 64% of Americans say they have “very little” or “no” confidence in the national news media. Just 25% say they have “some” confidence and only 11% say they have “a great deal” or “quite a bit.” The survey was conducted by Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research Associates alongside Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies, a pairing that gives the topline weight neither side can dismiss as a push poll.

The partisan split inside the 64% is sharp. The poll reports that conservatives were more likely to say they have no confidence in the national news media, in colleges and universities, and in public schools, while liberals were more likely to lack faith in the federal government, Congress, the Supreme Court, the high-tech industry, and the military. The same survey found a record share of Americans saying they have no confidence in religious leaders, a multi-decade low for an institution that, like the press, used to draw automatic trust.

The broader pattern of institutional collapse is the spine of the poll. Seven of nine institutions tested in repeat questions saw record or near-record numbers of people saying they have “no confidence” in them, according to McInturff. The 64% figure for the national news media is the headline number; the other institutional scores give it shape. A snapshot from the same survey:

• 64% – adults with little or no confidence in the national news media
• 56% – adults with the same view of Congress
• 52% – adults with the same view of the federal government
• 60% – adults expressing significant confidence in the U.S. military, still the strongest institution tested
• 43% – adults with little or no confidence in religious leaders, a high dating back to 2002

The full NBC News write-up of the poll, including the historical comparisons, is in the network’s America at 250 survey analysis.

The Capitol Hill Push for Common Ground

Wilson’s public stretch ended on a bipartisan note. He appeared on Capitol Hill with Reps. Brendan Boyle, D-Pa., and Gus Bilirakis, R-Fla., and a group of faith leaders for the public release of “A Common Endeavor: Realizing the Promise of America,” a five-part letter backed by leaders of the Baha’i faith that works to bridge political polarization. Wilson, who has spoken often about his own religious faith, used the moment to argue that spirituality is the country’s most underused common ground.

“There’s not any topic that has more commonality and mutuality than spiritual ideas,” Wilson said. “The ideas around spirituality have kind of been weaponized in terms of the national discussion, but actually the two sides have more in common than you would think.” The same week, his “Soul Boom” podcast released an April 17 conversation with MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle, in which Wilson pushed back on her suggestion that distrust in the press was driven by President Donald Trump’s win and Elon Musk’s “media machine.” The exchange, flagged by The Daily Caller, gave Wilson another venue to make the same argument in a different register.

Wilson’s closing line at the press conference read more as a warning than a prediction. “The partisan divide and toxic partisanship, and corruption in partisanship, is something that the American people are very passionate about,” he said. “The people want this fixed. There is an outcry from people. They want it fixed.” The broadcast world he is critiquing is itself under fresh pressure, as FCC pressure on late-night guest diversity brings the same regulatory gaze Wilson has been calling for from a different direction. The next time Wilson takes a public stage, the test of his argument is whether the double standard he named in the Platner case still holds.

Frequently Asked Questions

What did Rainn Wilson say about The Office and cancel culture?

Wilson told Fox News Digital in mid-June 2026 that the show could not be made today, calling it too hard “to be as politically incorrect as the show was” and saying he missed that freedom. He compared the original run to “Blazing Saddles” and tied the shift to cancel culture, which he said has narrowed what comedy writers can put on screen.

What is the Graham Platner Nazi tattoo controversy?

Platner, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Maine, got a chest tattoo in 2007 while a Marine on leave in Croatia. The image resembles the Totenkopf, a Nazi-era SS emblem. He says he did not know its meaning at the time and covered it in 2025. Former girlfriend Lyndsey Fifield told friends in August 2025 the tattoo was a Nazi symbol, and Platner could not explain how she knew that when he said he did not.

When was Scott Pelley fired from 60 Minutes?

CBS News fired Pelley from “60 Minutes” in early June 2026, days after he accused editor-in-chief Bari Weiss of “murdering 60 Minutes” at a staff meeting. New “60 Minutes” editor Nick Bilton sent the termination letter, citing Pelley’s “antipathy to the future of the show.” Pelley had been a “60 Minutes” correspondent for 22 years and a CBS News employee for 37.

What does the new NBC News poll say about media trust?

An NBC News poll of 3,000 U.S. adults fielded from May 29 through June 7 found 64% have “very little” or “no” confidence in the national news media. Only 25% said they have “some” confidence and 11% said they have “a great deal” or “quite a bit.” Seven of nine institutions tested in repeat questions set or matched records for “no confidence.”

How did The Late Show with Stephen Colbert end?

Stephen Colbert’s “Late Show” ended on May 18, 2026, with a musical finale featuring Paul McCartney after a run of nearly 11 years. CBS had canceled the show in July 2025, calling the decision “purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night,” though fans and Colbert’s peers publicly linked the cancellation to his political criticism of President Trump.