The new Lindsey Graham is strange
Have you heard? The White House has a new chief spokesperson. No, it’s not press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, nor Communications Director Bill Shine. More and more, the chief spokesperson for and chief defender of President Trump is none other than
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.
As I travel around the country — as I did last week to Miami, San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York — the question I’m most often asked is: “Whatever happened to Lindsey Graham?” It’s a legitimate question, given that Donald Trump’s once chief critic is now his biggest suck-up.
There was a time, not so long ago, when presidential candidate Graham couldn’t find enough bad things to say about candidate Trump.
In 2015, he told CNN: “He’s a racebaiting, xenophobic, religious bigot. He doesn’t represent my party. He doesn’t represent the values that the men and women who wear the uniform are fighting for.” A year later, he told reporters: “Donald Trump is not a conservative Republican. He’s an opportunist. He’s not fit to be president of the United States.” He said he couldn’t bring himself to vote for either Hillary Clinton or Trump.
Now compare that to today’s Graham, Trump’s frequent golfing buddy, who’s proposed that Trump receive the Nobel Peace Prize, defends Trump as the victim of a “deep state” and echoes Trump that Robert Mueller’s Russian probe is “falling apart.” He no longer calls Trump a “jackass,” he now says he’s “charming and gracious.”
Or compare the man who once warned that the Republican Party would be caught in a “death spiral” if it didn’t adopt more humane policies on immigration with the same senator who defended Trump’s use of tear gas against women and children at the border. The threat from women holding babies in diapers was so serious, Graham argued, that Trump had no choice. “You really have to hate President @realDonaldTrump,” he coldly tweeted, “to not understand the problems created by the caravans.”
Graham’s tectonic shift from public enemy No. 1 to Trump BFF is all the more bizarre, given the way Trump trashed Sen. John McCain, to whom Graham was joined at the hip. After Trump, who ducked serving in Vietnam with five phony deferments, brutally dismissed McCain’s extraordinary record of service — “He’s not a war hero … because he was captured” — you’d think Graham would not even shake hands with Trump, let alone spend four hours in a golf cart with him.
So what happened? Nobody knows for sure. Either Graham’s auditioning for the job of attorney general. Or Trump has something really bad on him. Or Graham’s so insecure he needs any big brother to cling to: if not McCain, then Trump. Or the simplest and perhaps most honest answer: Graham doesn’t believe in anything. He represents South Carolina, he’s up in 2020 and he’s afraid of a primary challenge.
Unfortunately, Graham will soon have another opportunity to pander to Trump when he takes over as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in January. It’s clear that Trump, not Graham, will be setting the agenda. Graham’s already announced that his first priority would be holding hearings on — wait for it — Hillary Clinton’s emails.
No matter how repugnant the transmogrification of Graham, however, the sad truth is: He’s hardly alone. He’s just one among many Republicans in Congress who pretended to be horrified at Trump when he was running for president yet, now that he’s in the White House, don’t dare utter a critical word, no matter how disgusting his personal life nor how dangerous his policies.
Trump has destroyed the Republican Party. He stands for everything they once opposed: massive spending; colossal deficits; trade wars; coziness with Russia; and serial adultery. In two years, he’s never visited troops in a combat zone. He publicly undermines his own Justice Department. He’s called women “fat pigs,” “dogs” and “disgusting animals.” He won’t even condemn the leader of Saudi Arabia for ordering the murder of a journalist who lived in the United States, yet not a peep from Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, Graham or any other cowardly Republicans.
When historians look back, Trump will come across badly, probably ranked as our worst president. The only ones who will look worse than Trump are GOP leaders who refused to stand up to him.