Senator Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., couldn't care less if you think he is a hypocrite for working with the president.
Graham sat down with CNN's Kate Bolduan [June 2018], who asked the senator when he could trust the words coming out of President Trump's mouth. She also highlighted Graham's past scuffles and his current coziness with the president.
"I'm going to sum it up," Bolduan said. "You went from hating him, making fun of him, finding peace with trying to work with him where you can work with him. Then, he comes out and hits you again on whatever he decided to on a given day. Do you trust him now?"
The senator responded that it's not about trusting the president — it's about working together to get "things that are big and matter" done.
"Here's what I got: I got a relationship with the president at a time when I think he needs allies," Graham said.
Bolduan interrupted, asking, "People say this is two-faced. Where's the Lindsey Graham of standing up to Donald Trump? What do you say?"
Graham responded that he would let the president know when he thinks he's wrong, but that he didn't receive this kind of criticism when working with President Obama.
“… I know how the game’s played and I don’t give a damn. I’m going to do what’s best for the country."
Graham has recently criticized Trump for his approach of handling Russia and the Mueller investigation. Earlier this week, Graham disagreed with Trump's desire to add Russia back into G-7 and called the move "a mistake." He also distanced himself from the president after his #spygates tweets. Graham had pointed out that “a confidential informant is not a spy” and said he is not buying the Rudy Giuliani's claim that Mueller is trying to frame Trump.
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"So if you don’t like me working with President Trump to make the world a better place," Graham said, "I don’t give a shit” (Ramirez 1-2).
[September 2019] Senator Lindsey Graham, once among Donald Trump’s harshest critics, is set to lead the charge to defend him in the court of public opinion as Democrats make the case for impeachment.
The Republican senator from South Carolina has rejected the allegation that Trump betrayed America’s national security interests by pressing the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to investigate political rival Joe Biden days after freezing some military aid to the country.
Graham and other allies of the president have sought to fight back by arguing that a whistleblower who raised the alarm was not on the call between Trump and Zelenskiy but based his complaint on officials’ recollections of it.
“In America you can’t even get a parking ticket based on hearsay testimony,” Graham tweeted on Saturday. “But you can impeach a president? I certainly hope not.”
The senator played golf with Trump, as well as professionals Gary Player and Annika Sörenstam, at the president’s club in Sterling, Virginia on Saturday morning, according to a White House pool report. It seemed likely Trump and Graham had plenty of time to strategise how to reclaim the political narrative.
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… Graham was overheard saying: “This is Kavanaugh on steroids! This is hearsay – and this person has bias” (Smith 1, 2).
In 2016, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina praised the integrity of the nation’s elections system, criticizing claims by Donald J. Trump that the vote was “rigged.”
“Like most Americans, I have confidence in our democracy and our election system,” Mr. Graham said in a statement on Twitter. “If he loses, it will not be because the system is ‘rigged’ but because he failed as a candidate.”
What a difference four years makes.
Mr. Graham, who has transformed during that time to become one of Mr. Trump’s most loyal allies, now seems determined to reverse the election’s outcome on the president’s behalf. On Friday [November 2020], he phoned Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state of Georgia and a fellow Republican, wondering about the possibility of a slight tinkering with the state’s elections outcome.
What if, Mr. Graham suggested on the call, according to Mr. Raffensperger, he had the power to toss out all of the mail-in votes from counties with high rates of questionable signatures on ballots?
In an interview with The Washington Post, Mr. Raffensperger said he was stunned that Mr. Graham had appeared to suggest that he find a way to toss legally cast ballots.
“It sure looked like he was wanting to go down that road,” Mr. Raffensperger said of the call from Mr. Graham, the chairman of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee.
Mr. Graham seems bent on making every attempt to engineer a second term for Mr. Trump, despite President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s clear victory. The senator has suggested that this year’s vote represents the Republican Party’s last gasp, unless something is done to reverse the current state of election operations — the same system he praised in 2016.
“If Republicans don’t challenge and change the U.S. election system, there will never be another Republican president elected again,” Mr. Graham said on Sunday on Fox News.
The phone call to Mr. Raffensperger was one in a string of episodes in which Mr. Graham, who won his own re-election bid this month, has tried to cast doubt on the presidential election’s outcome, demanding that Mr. Trump not concede the race to Mr. Biden despite the Democrat’s decisive Electoral College victory —306 to 232 electoral votes.
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In an appearance last week on Fox News, Mr. Graham claimed that Nevada’s vote-counting system had failed to verify signatures because the software was turned off, an accusation that had been refuted.
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On Tuesday, Mr. Graham’s office said he had raised concerns about vote counting in Georgia as well as in Arizona and Nevada “as a United States senator who is worried about the integrity of the election process nationally, when it comes to vote by mail” (Saul 1-2).
Regarding the Attack on the Capitol Building January 6, 2021
Let's see what Lindsey Graham thought on the evening of January 6, a speech that sounds a lot like what many Republican leaders were saying that week.
Trump and I have had a hell of a journey. I hate it being this way. Oh my God, I hate it. From my point of view, he's been a consequential president. But today...first thing you'll see.
All I can say is: Count me out. Enough is enough. I've tried to be helpful. But when the Wisconsin supreme court ruled 4 to 3 that they didn't violate the constitution of Wisconsin, I agree with the 3 but I accept the 4. If Al Gore can accept 5-4 he's not president, I can accept Wisconsin 4-3.
Pennsylvania—it went to the second circuit. So much for all the judges being in Trump's pocket. They said, "No, you're wrong." I accept the Pennsylvania second circuit, that Trump's lawsuit wasn't right.
Georgia—they say the secretary of state took the law in his own hands, that he changed the election laws unlawfully. A federal judge said no. I accept the federal judge, even if I don't agree with it.
Fraud—they say there's 66,000 people under 18 voted. How many people believe that? I asked, "Give me 10." And they had one. They said 8,000 felons in Arizona voted. "Give me 10." Haven't gotten one. Does that say there's problems in every election? I don't buy this. Enough's enough. We've got to end it.
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… the path from Trump's attempts to overturn the election loss to January 6 was completely and abundantly clear to everyone. The mob stormed the Capitol to stop the peaceful transfer of power to Joe Biden and keep Trump in office. But now, we hear, this is all being politicized (Holmes 1-2).
As lawmakers were being evacuated from the Capitol on Jan. 6, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) reportedly told the Senate sergeant-at-arms to use guns to quell the people who had breached the building.
According to a long-form piece published by The Washington Post on Sunday, the Republican senator was furious that lawmakers were being forced to evacuate and yelled at the Senate sergeant-at-arms, "What are you doing? Take back the Senate! You’ve got guns. Use them.”
“We give you guns for a reason,” Graham reportedly continued. “Use them.”
According to the Post's report, Graham also called former President Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump, giving her suggestions on what her father should say to appeal to the rioters to calm down and vacate the Capitol.
“You need to get these people out of here,” Graham reportedly said to Ivanka Trump over the phone. “This thing is going south. This is not good. You’re going to have to tell these people to stand down. Stand down.”
The South Carolina senator was reportedly enraged by former President Trump's subsequent video message to the rioters, in which he said, "We have to have peace. So go home. We love you, you’re very special."
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"They could have blown the building up. They could have killed us all. They could've destroyed the government," Graham said to reporters one day after the breach. "Lethal force should have been used. ... We dodged a major bullet. If this is not a wake-up call I don't know what is."
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Graham was among the most vocal Republican lawmakers to decry the insurrection and to tie Trump to the incident, though he ultimately did not vote to convict the former president in his second impeachment trial (Choi 1, 2).
With Trump now out of office, banned from social media, and fresh off a trial in which a bipartisan majority of senators voted for his conviction, the Republican Party is polarized.
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On the pro-Trump side stands Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC). Graham was one of Trump’s most loyal supporters during his time in office, but that momentarily changed following the January 6 insurrection when Graham gave a speech distancing himself from Trump.
“Count me out. Enough is enough.” Graham said.
Graham quickly had second thoughts about this stance, traveling with Trump during his last trip as president and shamelessly defending Trump on TV.
If Graham’s Sunday morning appearance on Fox News Sunday [February 2021] is an indication, his loyalty to the former president is stronger than ever.
“Donald Trump is the most vibrant member of the Republican Party,” Graham said, distancing himself from former UN ambassador Nikki Haley’s comments about Trump not having a future in the GOP. “The Trump movement is alive and well ... all I can say is that the most potent force in the Republican Party is President Trump.”
Those comments came at the end of an interview that began with Graham suggesting Republicans will go as far as to retaliate for Trump’s second impeachment by impeaching Vice President Kamala Harris if they take back the House next year.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), an avid Trump supporter who voted to acquit the former president during his second impeachment trial, joined lawmakers' calls for a 9/11-style commission into the Jan. 6 Capitol siege while on "Fox News Sunday."
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… Graham seems to be calculating that Trumpism represents the Republican Party’s best bet to retake one or both chambers of Congress next year (Rupar 2).
… Momentum has been growing since last month for a bipartisan commission to investigate the lethal attack on the Capitol, and is one of the last ways Congress could attempt to hold Trump accountable for the violence, the New York Times reports.
… “We need a 9/11 commission to find out what happened and make sure it never happens again, and I want to make sure that the Capitol footprint can be better defended next time,” Graham said on Fox [February 2021]. He also made clear on Sunday that he believes Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's condemnation of Trump following his acquittal was a mistake and could come back to haunt Republicans in 2022 (Rummier 1).
In the immediate aftermath of the January 6 insurrection, a number of Republicans, even those who protected Donald Trump from impeachment, paid lip service to the idea of a probe into the events of that day. “We need a 9/11 commission to find out what happened,” Lindsey Graham said in February, “and make sure it never happens again.” But it was always obvious they didn’t actually support such an undertaking. Any real investigation into the deadly riot and everything that led to it would surely find fault not only in their demagogic leader, but in themselves. Graham and the rest of the Senate GOP shot down legislation to establish such a commission in May (Lutz 1).
Sandra Garza, the longtime partner of Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, recalled confronting Sen. Lindsey Graham while advocating for a bipartisan commission to investigate January 6.
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Garza told The New York Times that she and Sicknick supported former President Donald Trump and had doubts about the 2020 election. She met with Graham and other Republican senators in May [2021], alongside other officers, as the Senate considered approving the commission.
But, Garza said, Graham appeared bored and distracted while D.C. Metropolitan Police officer Michael Fanone recounted his experiences during the riot, so she confronted the South Carolina senator.
“I feel like you're being very disrespectful, and you're looking out the window and tapping your fingers on the desk,'" she recalled telling Graham. Another Republican senator then tried to tell her she was misreading Graham's body language, further infuriating her, according to The Times.
South Carolina's junior senator, Tim Scott, was also at the meeting and said that both he and Graham were in favor of accountability, but not a commission.
In a statement at the time, Graham said that he would not support the commission, because its "approach will turn into a partisan food fight." … (Metzger 2).
Works cited:
Choi, Joseph. “Graham Told Officers on Jan. 6 To Use Their Guns on Rioters: Report.” The Hill, November 1, 2021. Net. https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/579453-graham-told-officers-on-jan-6-to-use-their-guns-on-rioters-report
Holmes, Jack. "Let's Compare What Lindsey Graham Said on January 6 to What He Said One Year Later.” Esquire, January 6, 2022. Net. https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a38684158/january-6-anniversary-wall-street-journal-lindsey-graham/
Lutz, Eric. Republicans Are Already Turning the January 6 Investigation into a Clown Show.” Vanity Fair, July 20, 2021. Net. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/07/republicans-already-turning-january-6-investigation-into-a-clown-show
Metzger, Bryan. “Fallen Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick's Partner Called Out Sen. Lindsey Graham for Being 'Very Disrespectful' during a Jan. 6 Commission Meeting.” Yahoo News, January 4, 2022. Net. https://news.yahoo.com/fallen-capitol-police-officer-brian-203018252.html
Ramirez, Izzie. “Lindsey Graham on Being Called a Hypocrite for Cozying Up to Trump: ‘I Don’t Give a Sh*t’.” Salon, June 15, 2018. Net. https://www.salon.com/2018/06/15/lindsey-graham-on-being-called-a-hypocrite-for-cozying-up-to-trump-i-do-not-give-a-sht/
Rummier, Orion. Lindsey Graham Voices Support for 9/11-Style Probe into Capitol Siege.” Axios, February 14, 2021. Net. https://www.axios.com/capitol-siege-trump-republicans-bf26f1cf-f7fa-456b-9629-252c80d5dd8d.html
Rupar, Aaron. “Lindsey Graham’s Latest Fox News Sunday Appearance Highlights the GOP’s Identity Crisis.” Vox, February 14, 2021. Net. https://www.vox.com/2021/2/14/22282840/lindsey-graham-bill-cassidy-impeachment-votes
Saul, Stephanie. “Lindsey Graham’s Long-Shot Mission To Unravel the Election Results.” New York Times, November 17, 2020. Net. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/17/us/politics/lindsey-graham-georgia-trump-biden.html
Smith, David. Graham Prepares Trump Defence as Impeachment Fury Intensifies.” The Guardian, September 28, 2019. Net. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/sep/28/donald-trump-impeachment-lindsey-graham-republicans-jared-kushner-ivanka
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