Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham had a rough Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” where he tried to spin doom and gloom out of last week’s joyous Democratic National Convention.
After host Jake Tapper noted the DNC’s successes—“Millions of viewers tuned in, a bit more than tuned into the Republican Convention. It was disciplined. It was well-produced. It conveyed patriotism and unity”—he asked Graham, “Is what [Donald Trump] saw this week making him and his campaign nervous at all?”
“If you're a Republican, you saw a hate-fest. You saw a hate-fest full of insults,” Graham said, later adding, “This whole joy lovefest doesn't exist in the real world.”
And it’s understandable. Graham spends a lot of time with Trump, and that can’t be any fun at all.
Worse for Graham, he has to publicly answer hard questions. On Sunday, Tapper ran through Trump’s online meltdown during the DNC, pointing out that Trump nonsensically asked, “Where’s Hunter?” and called Kamala Harris “lazy” and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro an “overrated Jewish governor.”
“What do you say to the analysis that this really is Donald Trump's race to lose, but sometimes it looks like he's trying to?” Tapper asked Graham.
The South Carolinian was a little flummoxed on that one. “Well, I think—I think the point is that he went to the border, to talk about a broken border,” he stammered before returning to his message of doom and gloom: “The world is on fire. Your grocery bill is up. Your gas bill is up. Your mortgage payments are up. And the worst is yet to come if you reelect these people yet again.”
Later, Tapper played a clip of Trump responding to Graham’s call that Trump focus more on policy. “Look, I like Lindsey. I don't care what he says, OK?” Trump said. “Lindsey wouldn't have been elected if I didn't endorse him.”
From here, Tapper asked Graham about Trump’s policies. “What exactly is Donald Trump going to do to ‘help women's reproductive rights’?” Tapper said, quoting a recent Truth Social post from Trump.
“Yes. No, you need to ask him about that,” Graham said. “What I would say is that President Trump was a very good pro-life president. His position now, as I understand it, is that he's going to leave the abortion issue to the states. He doesn't believe there's a role for the federal government.” Then Graham touted his own proposed national abortion ban.
Throughout the interview, Graham abased himself for Trump, saying, “Well, I talked to him a couple days ago. … Me and him are good. We're going to be together. I'm going to Georgia with him. We're going to try to have a unity event in Georgia to bring this whole party together. I will be by his side in this election. I am proud of what he did as our president.”
No wonder Graham’s life is so joyless.
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