Lindsey Graham’s loyalty to former president Donald J. Trump is like a pendulum, relentlessly swaying back and forth. In the lead-up to the 2016 election, the South Carolina senator was adamantly against him. Then he had one of his characteristic changes of heart. He was a close Trump ally throughout his presidency, even helping his failed efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Then, after the Jan. 6 riot, he was against him. Then he joined his side again.
Now Graham is taking issue with at least one thing Trump said. At his latest rally in Texas, Trump told the crowd (among many other weird things) that should he be re-elected in 2024, he’ll pardon his violent supporters who’ve been rounded up by the feds for storming the Capitol building. It was a strange thing to say, even for him, almost a tacit admission that he thinks what they did was good.
But Graham doesn’t think so. During an interview on CBS the morning after Trump’s rally, he was asked if he agreed with his promise to pardon people who violently stormed the Capitol.
“No,” Graham replied. “I don’t want to send any signal that it was OK to defile the Capitol. There are other groups with causes that may want to go down the violent path if these people get pardoned.”
When asked if it was “dangerous” to offer pardons for people who, among other things, injured dozens of police officers, he said, “Yeah,” then added, “I think it’s inappropriate. I don’t want to reinforce the defiling of the Capitol was OK. I don’t want to do anything that would make this more likely in the future.”
Graham tried to compare what Trump said at his rally to current vice president Kamala Harris promoting bail for those arrested during the George Floyd protests of 2020.
“I didn’t like that either,” Graham said. “So I don’t want to do anything from raising bail to pardoning people who take the law into their own hands because it will make violence more likely. I want to deter people who did what they did on Jan. 6. And those who did it, I hope they go to jail and get the book thrown at them because they deserve it.”
Will this enrage Trump? Probably. But the two will probably patch things up quickly.
You can watch Graham’s interview in the video above.
(Via Raw Story)