‘Citizens are finally getting it: No one’s safe from Trump’s deportation ambitions’

Gustavo Arellano at the Los Angeles Times

President Donald Trump is “not just going after all undocumented immigrants and limiting legal migration” but has the “goal of remigration — the idea that immigrants of any status should return to their home countries,” says Gustavo Arellano. Now, U.S. citizens Keith Porter, Jr. and Renee Nicole Good, “whose shooting sparked large protests in Minneapolis, are dead.” If this proves to “American citizens and permanent residents once and for all that they’re not safe from ICE, then their deaths weren’t in vain.”

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‘AI can’t do soul-searching. Here’s why we need philosophy.’

Kenneth Seeskin at the Chicago Tribune

For “all its strengths — from offering travel tips to investment advice to writing term papers and poetry — AI content is also a double-edged sword, littered with bogus references and conclusions based on biased studies or incomplete information,” says Kenneth Seeskin. At its “best, AI reflects the current thinking on a particular issue,” but “what if the current thinking is wrong?” Unless there are “people willing to challenge the current thinking, the price we pay is intellectual stagnation.”

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‘Prepare to be fleeced in online prediction markets’

Abdallah Fayyad at The Boston Globe

Insider trading is “blatantly illegal in traditional financial exchanges like the stock market,” but “insider trading in prediction markets is legally murkier,” says Abdallah Fayyad. That “leaves online platforms with room to create their own rules on insider trading,” and the “federal government seems uninterested in the potential dangers of insider trading in prediction markets.” It “isn’t whether one individual broke the rules; it’s how prevalent anonymity is in prediction markets and how hard it can be to detect insider trading.”

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‘Is Lindsey Graham’s foreign policy the new MAGA?’

Jack Hunter at The American Conservative

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is “persona non grata to Trump,” and it is Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) “who plays golf with the president, and who seems to have the neoconservative Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s back in inner-circle conversations and politics,” says Jack Hunter. Now “American foreign policy looks a lot more like Rubio and Graham’s vision than Paul’s, or even Trump’s.” Paul “says Trump is now ‘under the thrall of Lindsey Graham,’” and “by the looks of it, he’s right.”

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Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) called statements made by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) defending the suspected leaker of U.S. intelligence documents "irresponsible."

On Thursday, 21-year-old Jack Teixeira, a member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, was arrested in connection with the leak, and later charged with possessing classified documents pertaining to national security and possessing national defense materials. The material included top-secret documents on the war in Ukraine and intelligence gathered on Israel and South Korea.

Greene, a member of the House's Homeland Security Committee, tweeted that the suspect is "being treated like a traitor and criminal," and accused the Biden administration and Department of Defense of "acting like criminals."

This is "one of the most irresponsible statements she could make," Graham said during an interview with ABC News' This Week on Sunday, adding, "If you're a member of the military intelligence and you disagree with American policy and you think you're going to be okay when it comes to leaking classified information, you're going to go to jail." Military members are "less safe" because of the leak, he continued, and "there is no justification for this. And for any member of Congress to suggest it's okay to leak classified information because you agree with the cause is terribly irresponsible and puts America in serious danger."

On Fox News Sunday, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) said the suspect is being called "a traitor" by some and "a hero" by others, but "neither side has the information or the data to be able to make that decision yet, because there's been no investigation, and we haven't even had our first classified briefing, which will happen later this week when we're back in session."

The Senate Intelligence Committee will also open an investigation into the leak, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) said Sunday on CNN's State of the Union. The committee has focused "intensely on how we keep our secrets safe," she stated. "And I have a lot of questions about why were these documents lying around. Why did this particular person have access to them? Where was the custody of the documents, and who were they for? We need to know the facts. We need to know who this airman was, why he felt he had the authority or ability to show off confidential documents, secret documents to his friends."

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Tuesday appeared before a special grand jury in Georga, as part of a longstanding investigation into election meddling by former President Donald Trump and his associates in 2020.

In a brief statement released after the senator finished his testimony, Graham's office confirmed he'd "answered all questions" over the course of more than two hours before the jurors, and that Graham "feels he was treated with respect, professionalism and courtesy."

Graham's testimony comes just three weeks after the Supreme Court refused his request to avoid appearing before the special grand jury, saying that "a stay or injunction is not necessary to safeguard the Senator's speech or debate clause immunity."

Graham had initially been subpoenaed to appear before the grand jury this past July, along with a number of other Trump confidants, including attorneys Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, and Jenna Ellis. The grand jury was empaneled in January of this year by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, and has been tasked with investigating the Trump campaign's effort to influence Georgia's 2020 presidential election. Those efforts allegedly included Trump's personal phone call with Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger urging him to "find" 11,780 votes, and potentially a separate call between Raffensperger and Graham.

While Graham had initially fought all efforts to compel his testimony, he concluded his short statement by saying that "out of respect for the grand jury process he will not comment on the substance of the questions" he'd been asked.

Republicans did not have as strong a showing in the midterm elections as they had hoped, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said on Tuesday night, telling NBC News, "Definitely not a Republican wave, that's for darn sure."

Specifically, "a wave would have been capturing New Hampshire and Colorado," Graham said. In New Hampshire, Sen. Maggie Hassan (D) held onto her seat, defeating Republican Don Bolduc, while Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet (D) fended off a challenge from Republican Joe O'Dea.

Bolduc, a retired Army general, held far-right views, and went back and forth on claims of election fraud. Prior to winning the GOP primary, he falsely asserted that the election was stolen from former President Donald Trump, but after his victory in September, he admitted President Biden did in fact win in 2020. Later, during an October debate with Hassan, Bolduc claimed without evidence that out-of-state voters were being driven by the busload into New Hampshire to cast ballots.

New Hampshire Republican Gov. Chris Sununu won re-election on Tuesday, and Graham suggested that had there been a less extreme GOP Senate candidate alongside him on the ballot, that person likely would have won. "If you run that far behind your governor candidate, you probably made a mistake," he said.

House and Senate control still hang in the balance, and it's likely the final numbers won't be known for a few weeks. Graham campaigned hard for several Republicans whose races are still too early or close to call, including Herschel Walker in Georgia and Blake Masters in Arizona. While he did give Democrats a "hats off" for performing "well in a lot of these swing districts," Graham remained confident that Republicans will pick up "51, 52" seats in the Senate.

The Supreme Court dismissed Sen. Lindsey Graham's (R-S.C.) request to not testify in the investigation into the effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia, reports NBC News.

The move came after an investigation into a pair of post-election phone calls between Graham and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in which he questioned Raffensperger's power to reject certain absentee ballots.

Graham avoided answering questions in the probe by submitting an emergency request to the court arguing that "he should not have to abide by the subpoena" due to his current role as a senator.

In the unsigned order, says CNN, the justices agreed that Graham could not be asked to talk specifically about issues related to his legislative role. However, he can still be questioned more generally about election interference in Georgia.

"Accordingly," the Supreme Court said, "a stay or injunction is not necessary to safeguard the Senator's speech or debate clause immunity."

The South Carolina senator will now have to appear for testimony and could face questioning as soon as November 17.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas approved a temporary block on a subpoena requiring Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) to testify before a Georgia grand jury investigating efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, CNBC reports. Thomas approved the hold days after Graham's legal team petitioned the Supreme Court to delay his appearance before the grand jury.

Thomas' decision indicates Graham's luck may be changing after numerous attempts to quash the subpoena failed. In September, a federal judge denied Graham's request to block the court order. However, she did rule that investigators could not question him about "investigatory fact-finding on telephone calls to Georgia election officials." Last week a federal appeals court panel unanimously voted to uphold that decision, refusing to quell the grand jury's request.

Thomas acted alone in deciding to approve Graham's request because the lower court that issued the subpoena is in his jurisdiction, per CNN. The court has requested a response from Georgia investigators by Thursday.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis oversees the special grand jury investigation into the efforts of former president Donald Trump and his allies to alter the results of the 2020 election in Georgia. Officials want to ask Graham about phone calls he made to Georgia election officials after the ballots closed, CNN reports.

Graham is arguing that he is protected from testifying due to the Speech or Debate clause of the U.S. Constitution, which bars law enforcement from taking action against legislators for conduct connected to their assigned duties.

President Biden on Tuesday seemingly responded to Sen. Lindsey Graham's (R-S.C.) declaration during a Fox News appearance that if former President Donald Trump is prosecuted over his handling of classified material, it would lead to "riots in the street."

"No one expects politics to be patty cake — sometimes it's mean as hell," Biden said while addressing a crowd in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. "But the idea you turn on a television and see senior senators and congressmen saying, 'If such and such happens, there'll be blood on the street?' Where the hell are we?"

Graham compared Trump taking classified material from the White House to his Florida residence to Hillary Clinton using a private email server during her time as secretary of state. A 2019 investigation by the State Department found "there was no persuasive evidence of systemic, deliberate mishandling of classified information" by Clinton.

Biden also said that in order for there to be a safer United States, everyone must "uphold the rule of law. Not the rule of any one party or any one person." Despite how divided it might feel in the country, unity can still be achieved, Biden added, bringing up how he often worked with Republicans while in the Senate. "I got a lot done," Biden said. "We respected each other. We disagreed on principle. We never had lunch together. Not a joke. [But] what in God's name has happened to that? ... Folks, let's bring it back. We can do this."

Sen. Lindsey Graham on Sunday night claimed there would be "riots in the streets" should former President Donald Trump be prosecuted for improperly handling classified documents, a saga which culminated in the recent FBI raid on his Florida mansion.

The South Carolina Republican also detailed his belief that there's a "double standard" in federal enforcement "when it comes to Trump."

"Most Republicans, including me, believe when it comes to Trump, there is no law. It's all about getting him," Graham told Fox News Host Trey Gowdy during an appearance on Sunday Night in America. Graham also cited claims the FBI buried any investigation of Hunter Biden, before alleging there'd be "riots in the streets" if Trump were to be prosecuted for the classified docs incident. Trump later shared a clip of the interview on his Truth Social platform.

Asked on Monday how the White House would respond to the interview, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called Graham's remarks "dangerous" and noted that this was the kind of activity President Biden had been referring to with his recent "semi-fascism" rhetoric.

But some Graham critics were far more direct in their condemnation.

But other individuals, like Brietbart News' Joel Pollak, effectively defended Graham, who was not "threatening violence," but "observing that it is a real possibility."

Attorneys for Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said on Wednesday that the lawmaker plans to go to court and challenge a subpoena he received from a special grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia, that is investigating election interference by former President Donald Trump and people close to him.

In a statement, attorneys Bart Daniel and Matt Austin said they were told by Fulton County investigators that Graham is "neither a subject nor target of the investigation, simply a witness. This is all politics."

Court filings state that in the wake of the 2020 presidential election, Graham called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) and his staff on two occasions and asked about "re-examining certain absentee ballots cast in Georgia in order to explore the possibility of a more favorable outcome for President Donald Trump." The filings also say Graham brought up baseless claims of widespread voter fraud. Graham's attorneys said because their client was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee at the time, he was "well within his right to discuss with state officials the processes and procedures around administering elections."

Graham was one of seven Trump allies who received subpoenas on Tuesday from the special grand jury, which first began meeting in May and will determine whether any state laws were broken and criminal charges should be filed. Fulton County Deputy District Attorney Jeff DiSantis said on Wednesday that if any witnesses "choose to challenge an order that they testify before the special purpose grand jury, the district attorney will respond in the appropriate court to compel their appearance."

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Rudy Giuliani, and five other allies of former President Donald Trump were subpoenaed on Tuesday to testify before a grand jury as part of the Fulton County, Georgia, investigation into election interference by Trump and people close to him.

The probe was launched in response to Trump's Jan. 2, 2021, phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R), during which Trump asked Raffensperger to "find" the votes necessary to overturn Georgia's election results. President Biden won the state by 12,284 votes.

Subpoenas were also issued to lawyers John Eastman, Jenna Ellis, Cleta Mitchell, Jacki Pick Deason, and Kenneth Chesebro. In the wake of the 2020 presidential election, Giuliani and Ellis traveled to different battleground states, including Georgia, in an attempt to overturn the results, with Giuliani showing Georgia lawmakers an edited video of ballots being tabulated in Atlanta. Although the video was debunked, Giuliani continued to show it publicly, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. Eastman also spoke with Georgia lawmakers, telling them they had a "duty" to submit alternate electors, and Mitchell was on Trump's call to Raffensperger, while Graham called Raffensperger to ask him about rejecting absentee ballots, court filings show.

The special grand jury, which first started meeting in May, will determine whether any state laws were broken and criminal charges should be filed. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has sent letters to possible witnesses telling them her office is looking into potential violations that include "the solicitation of election fraud, the making of false statements to state and local governmental bodies, conspiracy, racketeering, violation of oath of office, and any involvement in violence or threats related to the election's administration."

New York Times reporters Alex Burns and Jonathan Martin shared new audio in which Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) can be heard criticizing former President Donald Trump and praising President Biden in the wake of the Capitol riot, The Hill and Insider report.

During a Tuesday night appearance on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360, Burns and Martin shared a tape of a post-Jan. 6 interview with Graham, in which the lawmaker says Trump "plays the TV game and he went too far here."

"That rally didn't help, talking about primarying [Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney]. He created a sense of revenge," Graham continued, per Insider.

In another clip, the South Carolina Republican also said he believed everyone would "come out" of the Capitol riot "stronger."

When asked if he thought Biden would help with that healing, Graham replied, "Totally."

"He'll maybe be the best person to have," he continued. "I mean, how mad can you get at Joe Biden?"

Graham is often seen as an ally to Trump, though he has pushed back on the ex-president in the past. He voted to certify the results of the 2020 election, and also criticized Trump for suggesting the possibility of pardons for Capitol rioters.

In another headline-making moment, Burns and Martin also recently leaked post-riot audio in which House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), a Trump acolyte, can be heard saying he will tell the then-president to resign.

If you were watching Thursday afternoon's vote for the newly-confirmed Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson, you may have noticed a few GOP senators missing from the room, as well as a curious delay caused by one of them.

Specifically, Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), and Jerry Moran (R-Kansas) reportedly voted from the Republican cloakroom rather than the Senate floor, while Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) remained noticeably absent. Once Paul surfaced after roughly 15 minutes, he cast his vote from the cloakroom, as well.

So why were none of these lawmakers in the room with their colleagues? Apparently, it had something to do with the Senate dress code.

Neither Graham nor Paul was wearing attire proper enough for the chamber (i.e. a tie), so they were both unable to enter. According to New Republic's Grace Segers, Graham was wearing a blue polo and a blazer when he poked his head in from the cloakroom door to give his "thumbs down" vote. When Paul eventually did the same, Segers says the senator was wearing a green windbreaker.

Per a report from Fox News' Chad Pergram, Inhofe voted the same way as Graham for the same clothing-related reasons.

Moran also reportedly voted from the cloakroom, though it's unclear if that was due to dress code.

The lawmakers' lack of formal attire might perhaps have something to do with the two-week Senate recess now in session ... but it's not as though Thursday's vote wasn't a highly-publicized, highly-anticipated event. It's also still at this moment unclear where Paul was or what he was doing when he delayed the vote.

But what's perhaps even more curious about all of this is that Graham was said to have been wearing a tie at a press conference earlier in the day, reports CNN's John Harwood. Does that mean he took it off before the vote? The drama!

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) repeatedly interrupted Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson during her confirmation hearing on Wednesday, drawing frustrated responses from audience members and other senators on the Judiciary Committee.

Most of Graham's interruptions took place during a tense exchange about Jackson's approach to sentencing in child pornography cases.

After one such interruption, several voices could be heard saying "Let her answer!" and "Come on," while Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said, "Please, let her complete her answer."

Washington Post White House reporter Seung Min Kim tweeted that the audience in the hearing room grew "audibly frustrated" with Graham's interruptions and that she heard one woman mutter "shut up."

During his initial remarks on Monday, Graham expressed frustration that President Biden chose to nominate Jackson rather than Judge Michelle Childs of South Carolina.

"The attacks from the left against Judge Childs was really pretty vicious, to be honest with you," Graham said Monday, adding that he believed 60 or more senators would have voted to confirm Childs.

This is not the first time Graham has become heated during a Supreme Court confirmation hearing.

"This is the most unethical sham since I've been in politics ... this is going to destroy the ability of good people to come forward because of this crap!" he yelled during the 2018 hearings for Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was accused of sexual assault.

Monday kicked off the confirmation hearings for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, President Biden's nominee to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, and senators are already off to the races.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) made waves during his initial remarks: He lamented the dramatics of confirming Justice Brett Kavanaugh, as well as his displeasure at how Jackson, rather than shortlisted contender Judge Michelle Childs, was selected to fill Breyer's vacancy.

"The attacks from the left against Judge Childs was really pretty vicious, to be honest with you," Graham said. "This is a new game for the Supreme Court, and this game is particularly disturbing to me. Because there's been a wholesale effort of the left to take down a nominee from my state."

"If that's the way the game's going to be played then I'll have a response and I don't expect it to… reward that way of playing the game," he added while guessing that Childs would have earned 60 or more votes, rather than the simple majority needed to confirm a justice.

Graham had "lobbied hard" for Childs, "and previously warned that it could be problematic for him to vote for another potential pick," The Hill writes.

The senator also got ahead of criticism he expects to follow Republicans' examination of Jackson.

"We're all racist if we ask hard questions — it's not gonna fly with us," he said. "We're used to it by now, at least I am. So it's not gonna matter a bit."

Watch his full address below:

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has been the target of strong criticism on both sides of the aisle after his Thursday call for a Russian "Brutus" to "take this guy out" — "this guy" being Russian President Vladimir Putin — went viral.

"You would be doing your country — and the world — a great service," Graham wrote on Twitter on Thursday, amid the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. Earlier that night, Graham said almost exactly the same thing during an appearance on Sean Hannity's Fox News program.

"This is an exceptionally bad idea," Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) later said of Graham's suggestion. "We should not be calling for the assassination of heads of state."

"Seriously, wtf?" added Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.)

Even firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) wants Graham to cool it.

The Russian ambassador to the U.S., Anatoly Antonov, also joined in denouncing Graham's apparent call to action, writing Friday that, "It is impossible to believe that a senator of a country that promotes its moral values as a 'guiding star' for all mankind could afford to call for terrorism as a way to achieve Washington's goals in the international arena."

Even with the backlash, however, don't expect Graham to drop the rhetoric just yet. A person familiar with Graham's thinking told The Wall Street Journal that the senator isn't likely "to tone down his language in the face of criticism, either from his colleagues in Congress or from Russia," the Journal writes.

That said, journalist Aaron Rupar shared a clip from Graham on Fox News Friday morning, in which the senator calls for Putin's arrest rather than his assassination, as Rupar points out.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki firmly distanced the Biden administration from Graham's rhetoric.

Federal appellate Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson and California Supreme Court Justice Leondra Kruger are widely considered the early frontrunners to succeed U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. But the third name on most short lists, U.S. District Judge Michelle Childs, 55, got a bipartisan boost Sunday.

Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) has been urging President Biden to elevate Childs for more than two years, since he convinced Biden to pledge to pick a Black woman for the highest court right before the South Carolina primary, The Associated Press reports. Clyburn credits Biden heeding that advice for his resounding win in South Carolina, the primary that turned around Biden's struggling bid for the White House.

Clyburn said Sunday he believes both of South Carolina's Republican senators would vote to confirm Childs.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) did not commit to voting for Childs, but he was effusive in his praise. "I can't think of a better person for President Biden to consider for the Supreme Court then Michelle Childs," he said on CBS's Face the Nation. "She has wide support in our state. She's considered to be a fair-minded, highly gifted jurist. She's one of the most decent people I've ever met."

Graham also rejected a claim by Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) that Black female nominees would be "affirmative action" beneficiaries. "Affirmative action is picking somebody not as well qualified for past wrongs," he said. "Michelle Childs is incredibly qualified. There's no affirmative action component."

Biden has looked for diversity of experience in filling federal judicial seats — Jackson, for example, was a public defender. And unlike the other two reputed frontrunners, Childs did not graduate from an Ivy League school or clerk for a Supreme Court justice. She graduated from University of South Carolina School of Law and also has a business degree from the school plus a legal master's from Duke. Before her appointment to the federal bench in 2010, she was in private practice.

Graham said he appreciated that Childs is "not Harvard or Yale." He also noted "we've only had five women serve and two African American men" on the Supreme Court, "so let's make the court more like America." A spokeswoman for South Carolina's other senator, Tim Scott (R), said Childs has a "respected reputation as a judge in South Carolina" and Scott "looks forward to engaging with her if she is the nominee."

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has publicly and privately worked to stay in former President Donald Trump's good graces, but Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) hasn't spoken with Trump since he publicly accepted President Biden's victory in the weeks before the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack .

McConnell on Tuesday sided with Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) for publicly stating that Biden won and Trump lost in 2020, earning Trump's ire. "I think Sen. Rounds told the truth about what happened in the 2020 election," he told CNN. "And I agree with him." Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) warned McConnell on Sean Hannity's Fox News show Wednesday night that he'd better mend his relationship with Trump or his job as Senate leader is in jeopardy.

"If you want to be a Republican leader in the House or the Senate, you have to have a working relationship with Donald Trump," Graham said. "I like Sen. McConnell," but Trump is "the leader of the Republican Party," and "I'm not gonna vote for anybody for leader of the Senate as a Republican unless they can prove to me that they can advocate an American first agenda and have a working relationship with President Trump. Because if you don't do that, you will fail."

Graham's warning "is noteworthy for several reasons," starting with that Graham knows McConnell "has shown no indication that he wants to make peace with the former president," Rachael Bade and Ryan Lizza write in Thursday morning's Politico's Playbook. Also, "Graham and McConnell are often allies in the Senate," and "most GOP senators and Senate candidates have sided with McConnell when asked about Trump's push to oust McConnell." The thing to watch, they add, is whether Graham's comments "trigger some Republicans to change their calculation and abandon McConnell."

When President Joe Biden last week marked the anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection with a speech castigating former President Donald Trump for inciting the rioters, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) jumped to Trump's defense. "What brazen politicization of Jan. 6 by President Biden," the senator tweeted.

Graham immediately received a well-deserved roasting on social media. "Attempted coups are political," one critic pointed out. Seems obvious enough. Over the weekend, though, Graham doubled down — a sign his complaint of "politicization" by Democrats wasn't a silly gaffe, but an intentional strategy to defend Republicans from criticism for their role in the uprising.

"I was really disappointed in the tone of the president and the vice president — of the politicized Jan. 6," he told talk radio host John Catsimatidis. "The American people reject what happened on Jan. 6, but come November 2022, they are going to reject the Democratic Party."

Graham was joined Sunday by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who went on TV to grumble about last week's Democrat-led anniversary commemorations while the House of Representatives was officially out on recess.

"You watch what they did last week when we were out, trying to politicize Jan. 6th," McCarthy told Fox News, quickly adding that "everybody believes what happened on Jan. 6th was wrong beyond wrong."

Not everybody. Most Americans agree that what happened on Jan. 6 was wrong. But poll after poll shows that Republican voters tend to take it less seriously — they describe the insurrectionists as "protecting democracy," or believe conspiracy theories that it was a "false flag" operation designed to discredit Trump and his followers. That leaves Graham and McCarthy in an awkward position. They can't defend the indefensible, but they can't criticize it too directly and remain in good standing with their party's base. That's how Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) got in trouble with Tucker Carlson. So they've resorted to a third option: Taking offense at their opponents' anger.

What's worse than an insurrection? Talking honestly about it, apparently. That's ridiculous, and also a bit anti-democratic.

Politics, after all, is how we work out our collective problems. But it's a messy and sometimes ugly process, which makes charges of "politicization" so easy and potent: Regular Americans often don't like the way politics makes them feel. A USA Today poll taken last month found that for all our political polarization, nearly three-fourths of us would love for there to be less political hostility and more focus on finding common ground.

That sounds lovely. Almost.

With rare exception, we don't start with common ground on big issues. We have to journey to meet there. Sometimes that doesn't happen, sometimes it does, and sometimes it occurs only after a years-long process of bickering and argument. Americans — humans! — have wildly disparate visions of what constitutes the common good and how to achieve it. We use politics to hash out those disagreements so that we can come to some mutually acceptable (or acceptable enough) resolution of our differences. To complain about the politicization of some issue or event, then, is often an attempt to silence that process — a way to shout "shut up!" from some ostensible moral high ground.

You see this dynamic at work often in the aftermath of America's all-too-frequent gun massacres. The resulting complaints about the easy availability of firearms quickly generate fierce pushback from conservatives that the issue is being "politicized" for partisan advantage — never mind that public safety is one of the most basic functions of government. Indeed, such disasters are when politics are most-needed: Glenn Beck's "9/12 Project" longed to return to that post-9/11 moment when America was most unified in its rage against terrorist attackers. But that arguably de-politicized moment led to torture, the invasion of Iraq, and 20 years of war-making abroad. It was a disaster. A little more politicizing wouldn't have been welcomed at the moment, but it might have helped. Similarly, it's a good thing to politicize Jan. 6, and probably impossible to do otherwise.

The irony of Graham and McCarthy's remarks, of course, is that complaining about politicization is itself a political act. They weren't genuinely wishing for more common ground — Lindsey Graham's "more in sadness than in anger" act wore out its welcome years ago — but attempting to depict Democrats as callous and mean-spirited, and thus unworthy of holding power.

They've politicized the politicization of Jan. 6. You know what? That's politics.

The intra-party disputes among Democrats are getting plenty of attention, but Republicans are having their own internal battle over how far to push their debt-limit brinksmanship ahead of a senseless and catastrophic Oct. 18 default.

So far, the party is standing behind Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-Ky.) demand that Senate Democrats raise the debt limit through the laborious budget reconciliation process. But the clock is ticking, and McConnell's caucus is "divided over whether to push their fight as far as it will go," Politico reports. Democrats want Republicans to at least stop blocking them from raising it alone. The House has already voted to suspend the debt ceiling through December 2022.

Senate Republicans have three main options: They could agree not to filibuster the debt ceiling bill, allowing Democrats to pass it with 51 votes. At least 10 Republicans could agree to join Democrats and beat a filibuster, allowing an up-or-down vote. Or they could carry on forcing Democrats to take extraordinary measures like reconciliation, ending the filibuster for debt-limit votes, or something gimmicky like asking the Treasury Department to mint a $1 trillion coin.

And if Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) does decide to embark on the reconciliation route, Republicans could make it easier for them, use delay tactics up until the brink of default, or burn everything down by blocking the measure in the Senate Budget Committee. This is where most of the GOP discord is right now, Politico reports.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), the Senate GOP's budget point man, wants to force Democrats to use reconciliation and "pick a number" on raising the debt limit — "a specific dollar figure opens the door for Republicans to launch attacks on Democratic incumbents in next year's midterms," Politico explains — but he insists "he doesn't want to string the process out so long that it actually puts the nation's credit at risk," Politico says.

"I mean, I'm not going to be a complete asshole about it," Graham told Politico. "But I'm going to make them take some tough votes."

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who's leading the charge to filibuster any debt limit bill, seems more interested in the maximalist position. "The only end place for this political theater is going to be complete surrender by Chuck Schumer, and he knows this," he said. You can read about where other Senate Republicans stand at Politico.

Lawyers for former President Donald Trump labored until the end to overturn President Biden's win, and that included making their case to two Republican senators, Lindsey Graham (S.C.) and Mike Lee (Utah), in the days before Congress certified the results Jan. 6, according to Peril, the new book by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa. Graham and Lee listened carefully to the pitches from Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, respectively, and even followed up with their own research. And ultimately, the book details, they were not at all impressed.

Giuliani on Jan. 2 presented Graham with a computer whiz who said his statistical analysis showed Biden losing, Woodward and Costa report. Graham said he needed "some names" and "evidence," so Giuliani returned two days later with several memos and affidavits claiming fraud.

Graham sent Giuliani's memos to his chief Judiciary Committee counsel Lee Holmes, who "found the sloppiness, the overbearing tone of certainty, and the inconsistencies disqualifying" and "reported to Graham that the data in the memos were a concoction, with a bullying tone and eighth grade writing," the authors write. "Third grade," Graham reportedly shot back. "I can get an affidavit tomorrow saying the world is flat."

Two days later, on Jan. 6, pro-Trump rioters stormed the Capitol. After the riot, Graham told Trump from the Senate floor, "Count me out. Enough is enough. I've tried to be helpful." Graham "has since tacked back, visiting Trump at Mar-a-Lago, speaking to him regularly," and saying the GOP needs him, The Washington Post reports. "Still, he has continued to deliver criticism directly to Trump, according to the book. In a phone call this summer, he bemoaned Trump's volatility and focus on voter fraud, telling the former president, 'You f---ed your presidency up.' Trump abruptly hung up on him." A Graham spokesman declined the Post's request for comment.

Lee, who CNN calls "one of the Senate's top Republican constitutional authorities," was equally unimpressed with Eastman's six-point plan for Vice President Mike Pence to hand Trump the election. "Lee's head was spinning," the authors write. "No such procedure existed in the Constitution, any law, or past practice. Eastman had apparently drawn it out of thin air." Eastman spoke at the Jan. 6 rally before the riot, and a week later, California's Chapman College announced his immediate retirement as law professor. You can read his Pence memo via CNN.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is working behind the scenes to increase visibility of Afghanistan's small organized anti-Taliban resistance led by Amrullah Saleh and Ahmad Massoud, Politico reports.

Graham told Politico he wants to "go all in" on Saleh, the former Afghan vice president who has declared himself the country's legitimate president, and get "his voice out." Some of his efforts include trying to connect Saleh and Massoud to high-ranking Indian and British diplomats, as well as booking Saleh spots on high-profile news shows, like Sean Hannity's, which he appeared on last month. Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.) joined forces with Graham, securing Massoud a spot on another Fox News show last week.

The resistance has taken a tumble in recent weeks, with the Taliban recently gaining control of their stronghold, the Panjshir province. Furthermore, Saleh hasn't been heard from in over a week because communications have been severed, though Graham said he has no reason to believe he's dead or fled the country (sources have confirmed Massoud is still in Afghanistan).

Still, Graham thinks the longshot resistance is worth betting on, and he wants the Biden administration to give them humanitarian assistance and some logistical support, like satellite phones. "If you continue to put all your eggs in the Taliban basket, you're on the losing side over time," Graham told Politico. "If you start helping different resistance groups, then you'll actually have some leverage with the Taliban." Read more at Politico.

The weekend before Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) tested positive for COVID-19, he was reportedly at a small gathering on his colleague Sen. Joe Manchin's (D-W.V.) houseboat in Washington, D.C, multiple news outlets are reporting.

Graham, who has a mild case and was previously vaccinated against the virus — he said he was "very happy" about that fact since he's convinced he'd be having a rougher time, otherwise— said he first developed symptoms on Saturday night. It's unclear if this was after the small gathering on Manchin's, which reportedly included other senators. Manchin's office hasn't confirmed who else was in attendance, but said the fully vaccinated Democrat is following the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's guidelines. Currently, the CDC recommends fully vaccinated individuals who are exposed to COVID-19 get tested three to five days later, though quarantining isn't necessary only necessary after a positive test.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) announced he has tested positive for COVID-19 and will be quarantining for 10 days as he recovers from mild symptoms, which he said are similar to those of a sinus infection.

Despite the diagnosis, Graham expressed relief that he had previously been vaccinated against the coronavirus. "I am very glad I was vaccinated because without vaccination, I am certain I would not feel as well as I do now. My symptoms would be far worse," the 66-year-old lawmaker tweeted, suggesting that his mild illness shows the shot did its job by significantly reducing his risk of severe disease.

Antony Blinken, President-elect Joe Biden's choice to lead the State Department, appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday and appears to have passed with flying colors. As it turns out, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) may have been his biggest fan.

Graham, who called Blinken an "outstanding choice" and gave him an elbow bump during a break, asked a series of questions, many of which resulted in answers the senator found quite agreeable. For example, Blinkin doesn't "trust" the Taliban to police al Qaeda and the Islamic State in Afghanistan after a U.S. exit. He also considers Iran the world's worst sponsor of terrorism and said he concurs with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's assessment that China is committing genocide against the Uighurs and other religious and ethnic minorities. That last point reportedly left Graham "positively gushing."

If the friendly exchange was any indication, Blinken won't have much trouble getting confirmed, but the bipartisanship on display did have receive from sharp criticism from supporters of non-interventionist policy.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) reiterated his belief that his Republican colleagues in the Senate should not embrace what he considers "an unconstitutional impeachment" of President Trump.

Speaking with Fox News' Maria Bartiromo on Sunday morning, Graham said Trump is facing a "scarlet letter" impeachment that's driven by the "radical left" and called on President-elect Joe Biden and the GOP to put a stop to it. The biggest risk of following through, Graham argued, is the destruction of the Republican Party. If the party "wants to move forward, President Trump's gonna be the most important voice ... for a long time."

That said, Graham did issue a warning for Trump, as well. When asked about the possibility of the president pardoning people involved in the deadly siege of the United States Capitol — the impetus for Trump's impeachment — Graham said he hopes "we don't go down that road" because it "would destroy" Trump. Tim O'Donnell

A week ago, as the Senate returned to work after what's looking more and more like a planned assault on the Capitol and Congress by supporters of President Trump, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said he was done with Trump. "Trump and I, we've had a hell of a journey," he said. "I hate it to end the way. Oh my God, I hate it." After Wednesday's siege, "all I can say is count me out, enough is enough," Graham added, and it's time to acknowledge President-elect Joe Biden's victory and stop the madness.

But it turns out, it didn't end that way. On Tuesday, a few days after being harassed by Trump supporters upset he acknowledged Biden's win, Graham accompanied the president down to Alamo, Texas, on Air Force One. Now he's "one of Trump's few confidants" left, The Washington Post reported Wednesday night. Graham "broke with the president last week over attempts to overturn the election only to be welcomed back in the president's good graces a couple of days later," and now he's leading the lobbying effort to convince his fellow GOP senators not to convict Trump in his impeachment trial.

When news broke that the No. 3 House Republican, Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.), would vote too impeach Trump, Graham recounted to the Post, "I just told him, 'Listen, Mr. President, there are some people out there who were upset before and are upset now, but I assure you, most Republicans believe impeachment is bad for the country and not necessary and it would do damage to the institution of the presidency itself."

"The reality is that the GOP base is still firmly behind Trump," says Politico's Andrew Desiderio, but if Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) "votes to convict — which is now more of a possibility than it was before today — then I think it’s nearly certain that 17+ Republicans will vote to convict," which would be enough.

Listen, I get it: Among all the displays of Republican cynicism in the Trump era, Sen. Lindsey Graham's might rank the highest. From the maverick McCain sidekick who supported comprehensive immigration reform and legislation to mitigate climate change, to vigorous Trump critic, to resigned Trump supporter, to enthusiastic Trump enabler, golf partner, and pro-Brett Kavanaugh carnival-barker — it actually got old to wonder whether the outgoing president had compromising information on the South Carolina senator.

You know what's coming next: Graham is going to pretend like Trump never happened, pull his maverick wardrobe out of storage, and make noises about the need for renewed bipartisan comity and grand bargains on debt reduction.

The professional left can't wait to pounce. Not just on the Lindsey Grahams in Congress, but on the entire firmament of institutional support for Donald Trump, from the Rupert Murdoch media empire to the Federalist Society to every elected Republican who turned a blind eye to Trump's corruption and incompetence.

There is at least one person who likely, and wisely, will not pounce — President-elect Joe Biden. This, despite Biden's "personal disappointment" in Graham for not immediately recognizing his election victory. Whether or not Biden continues to hold a personal grudge — and who could blame him? — he can't afford to hold a political one.

Biden's strategy throughout 2020 — the Democratic primary, the long hot summer of protest, rioting, looting, and the unprecedented tumult of the transition — has been an extensive exercise in strategic restraint. Call it temperamental rope-a-dope. He knew Trump would not resist the self-defeating urge to make the presidential race about himself. So he sat back and let him. And not for one moment did Biden seem concerned about Trump's efforts to overturn the result. The coolest cucumber in Wilmington, Delaware.

At every turn, Biden's leverage has increased. First it was the majority of Democratic primary voters who, fearing an almost-certain defeat of Bernie Sanders, coalesced behind the candidate who had led Trump in literally every single poll. The eventual failure of progressive-left candidates in contested House districts has left virtually no doubt that Biden was right to run up the middle in the general election. Now, thanks in no small part to Trump's outlandish and perhaps criminal behavior in the weeks since Nov. 3, the Senate has fallen into Democrats' lap.

And that's where Lindsey Graham comes in.

With a 50-50 split in the chamber, in which the vice president can break a partisan deadlock, the Biden administration will have the slimmest of possible margins to confirm appointees and judges and pass meaningful legislation. Moderate senators in both parties will have significant sway.

You can bet that Lindsey Graham will want to be one of those senators.

Democrats should let him. Indeed, they should encourage him (privately, of course).

I have long believed that what happens and what is said in front of the curtain of American politics is more important than what happens behind it. There actually are very few mysteries. As fun as it may be to speculate about Graham's private life, he has himself plausibly explained why he behaves the way he does: He wants to be relevant. He wants to be a player. He is a 65-year-old, unmarried, childless man for whom politics is everything.

Call him shallow, malleable, or soulless if you must. But realize that those same qualities can be an asset to the Biden administration. There is a decent chance that Graham will become the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, which will be chaired by Sen. Bernie Sanders. Graham and Sanders are quickly going to play a key role in the all-important "reconciliation" bill that's not subject to the Senate filibuster rule requiring a supermajority of 60 votes.

Whether Democrats like it or not, Graham is going to be a "player."

That's why it's critical that Graham not be shot down if, as I suspect, he signals that he is open to cooperation.

Since the shocking and sordid events in the Capitol of last week, Graham has said that "Enough is enough" and that it's "time to heal and move on." In the immediate term, Graham is trying to save Trump, one last time, from a second House impeachment. But it's imperative for Democrats to explore if he means more by healing and moving on.

As repellent as you might find Graham's ability to shed one persona and adopt another, consider how useful it would be to Biden if Graham switched back to his "old self" — the guy who championed the painful but necessary solution to the shambles that is U.S. immigration law, who came closer than you think to pushing cap-and-trade across the finish line during the Obama administration. Looking ahead, Democrats need to view Graham's cynicism and self-interest as a feature, not a flaw. If any long-term good is going to result from the Biden presidency, Sen. Lindsey Graham is going to be part of it.

To make sure that happens, Democrats need to be as transactional as he is.

It's not going to be pleasant.

But I'm here to tell you that it's absolutely necessary.

"Count me out" of the plan to object to the Electoral College certification, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told his colleagues on the Senate floor Wednesday night. Graham was never really on board, but had previously suggested he was at least willing to listen to his fellow Republicans, like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who wanted to challenge President-elect Joe Biden's victory because of unfounded allegations of widespread voter fraud. By the time he spoke, though, Graham had reached the conclusion that "enough is enough."

Graham provided the chamber with a brief history lesson, arguing that the objectors were making a mistake by citing the 1876 election between Samuel Tilden and Rutherford B. Hayes as precedent for their actions. That year, there were disputed results in four states — Oregon, Louisiana, Florida, and Graham's home state of South Carolina. So, a 15-member Electoral Commission, similar to what Cruz and others want to see now, was formed. Hayes, the Republican, eventually received the votes he needed to become president.

But, Graham noted, the commission wasn't the real reason the matter was settled. Behind the scenes, Republicans met with Democrats, who agreed not to accept a Hayes victory as long as federal troops were pulled from the South, bringing an end to the Reconstruction era. The deal, which became known as the Compromise of 1877, paved the way for Jim Crow. "If you're looking for historical guidance," Graham said, "this is not the one to pick." Tim O'Donnell

Georgia's Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and his advisers were prepared for President Trump to press him on overturning the state's presidential election results during a Saturday phone call, so they decided to record the conversation, which they eventually leaked after Trump mischaracterized the exchange. But the decision was also inspired by a previous phone call Raffensperger had with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) in November, Politico reports.

Raffensperger accused Graham of asking him whether he had the power to toss out all mail ballots in Georgia counties found to have higher rates of non-matching signatures, a claim the senator denied. Either way, the call apparently prompted Raffensperger to remain on high alert if he found himself in similar situations. "Lindsey Graham asked us to throw out legally cast ballots," one of Raffensperger's advisers told Politico. "So yeah, after that call, we decided maybe we should do this."

As it turns out, Graham's attempt to help Trump win the election wound up backfiring on the president down the line. Read more at Politico.

Vice President-elect Kamala Harris on Tuesday returned to the Senate floor, where she cast the decisive vote to block President Trump's controversial pick for the Federal Reserve, Judy Shelton. Before that, though, she received a series of what appeared to be congratulatory greetings from a number of her Republican colleagues, including some who haven't yet publicly acknowledged Trump's defeat.

Sens. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and James Lankford (R-Okla.) have laid low when it comes to their stance on the election — Lankford has said President-elect Joe Biden should be receiving intelligence briefings during the "contested election" — but they both offered congratulations to Harris on Tuesday, as did Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), who has previously said it "looks like it will be President Biden." Less surprisingly, Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), who was one of the first sitting GOP lawmakers to publicly acknowledge Biden's victory, also paid his dues.

The most confusing moment, though, came when Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) gave Harris a fist bump.

Graham has been quite vocal about his support for Trump's election challenges, and a friendly exchange with Harris certainly doesn't confirm that he's switching sides, but it does at least hint that he's aware of the reality of her victory.

There have been few high-profile Republican politicians more publicly and slavishly devoted to President Trump over the last few years than Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). Words like "toady" and "lapdog" have frequently been used to describe the senator's subservience. Apparently that near-total fealty hasn't been enough for Graham to earn a little loyalty in return.

The Trumpiest corners of the conservative ecosphere have made it plain in recent weeks that they're ready to abandon Graham — who is locked in a tight re-election race with Democratic challenger Jaime Harrison — even if it means losing his Senate seat. "I don't know why anyone in the great state of South Carolina would ever vote for Lindsey Graham. It's just outrageous," Fox Business host Lou Dobbs said last week.

"It's about time" for Graham to be defeated, added a writer at the right-wing American Greatness website.

Graham has never been particularly popular among hardcore conservatives, but it is still shocking to see them turn on a fellow Republican candidate in a close general election race. For right-wing activists, the senator's problem is that he is only about 97 percent steadfast in serving Trump's wishes, instead of a full 100 percent. Dobbs, for example, pointed out that Graham — in his role as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee — had failed to pursue evidence of the fake "Obamagate" scandal that Trump has tried — and failed — to get going. It's the same reason Trump has talked about getting rid of FBI Director Christopher Wray after the election.

"He's done absolutely nothing to investigate Obamagate except to tell everyone, 'Stay tuned,' time and time again. Stay tuned," Dobbs said. "Senator Graham needs to be tuned out in South Carolina."

The rhetoric could endanger Graham's campaign: If even a small portion of South Carolina conservatives decide to withhold their support, he could lose his seat. Trump could possibly discourage the attacks on Graham if he wanted to, but so far, he hasn't. One has to wonder if the president had Graham in mind last week when he told GOP donors there were some Republican senators he just couldn't support for re-election.

"There are a couple senators I can't really get involved in," Trump reportedly said. "I just can't do it. You lose your soul if you do. I can't help some of them. I don't want to help some of them."

Trump's worried about his soul? This is the same man who endorsed Roy Moore for the Senate back in 2017 while Moore was under a cloud of allegations of pursuing relationships with teen girls when he was in his 30s. More recently, Trump endorsed QAnon conspiracy devotee Marjorie Taylor Greene, calling her a "future Republican star." It's difficult to determine the boundaries of Trump's conscience.

But Trump's silence on Graham — and his willingness to savage other GOP candidates of dubious loyalty, like Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) — suggests the president either doesn't understand or doesn't care how important a GOP-controlled Senate might be to governing in his own possible second term in office.

Republicans in the Senate have already saved Trump from conviction on impeachment charges; the president presumably liked having that security blanket. If Trump should win re-election and Democrats take the Senate, though, he will probably face more investigations and scrutiny of both his personal affairs and his operation of government. His biggest achievement, stacking the judiciary with conservative judges, would probably come to a halt. Trump wouldn't be totally powerless in such a scenario — he could speed up the pace of deregulation and continue to misuse the Justice Department — but his life would probably be a lot more difficult.

Other presidents have recognized that their power depends on their relationships with the House and Senate, of course, which is why they usually grin and bear it when taking criticism from elected members of their party. Usually, they see the bigger picture of exercising power effectively, and they know not to take it personally if a senator or member of congress expresses a bit of independence. But Trump has shown little regard for the legislative branch of government, and there isn't evidence he cares about much beyond his own ego and well-being.

Thus, it seems Lindsey Graham is being left to twist in the wind. And Republicans are in greater danger of losing their Senate majority.

It's hard to feel sorry for Graham. Any reasonable observer has seen that for Trump, loyalty is a one-way street. Yet Graham gave it, and demanded it of others. "To every Republican, if you don't stand behind this president, we're not going to stand behind you," Graham told a South Carolina crowd last year. Which raises the question: Who is standing behind Lindsey Graham now?

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A lot of Republicans agreed on a somewhat arbitrary rule in 2016 that the Senate should not confirm a Supreme Court nominee during an election year. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), the current Judiciary Committee chairman, was so convinced by the righteousness of his argument that he said he would hold off on considering a nominee put forward by President Trump if it occurred during an election year — and he urged people to keep the tape and use his words against him if he changed his mind. Well, now he's changed his mind, and The Lincoln Project rolled the tape.

The Late Show used an earlier iteration of Graham's "use my words against me" offer and took him up on it Monday night. And Stephen Colbert's writers used a liberal interpretation of his pledge. Watch below. Peter Weber

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is playing campaign adviser.

On Thursday, Graham offered President Trump a little advice for his 2020 re-election campaign, The Washington Post's Seung Min Kim reports.

"Just make it more about policy, and less about your personality," Graham said.

Graham, who called then-candidate Trump "a race-baiting xenophobic bigot" who should "go to hell" back in 2015 before flipping to become one of his most outspoken backers in the Senate, has been known to occasionally criticize Trump's style and political strategies.

"Being kind of attached to this lawless crowd is going to be a problem eventually," said Graham, suggesting Trump find a way to focus his message on policy priorities and boost the economy as quickly as possible.

But Trump's personality has always been at the center of his political success. He reportedly loves rallies "as a chance to deliver his message unfiltered," aides told USA Today, meaning it's not likely he plans to tone down his strategy and pivot to a policy-driven campaign any time soon.

Even so, with Trump's numbers against his Democratic competitor, Joe Biden, sinking in poll after poll, he just might need to give Graham's advice a second look.

Sen. Lindsey Graham's (R-S.C.) re-election is looking less and less like a given.

Graham showed some serious fundraising strength at the end of 2019, raising a single-quarter South Carolina record $3.9 million. He beat that record again in the first quarter of 2020 — but then his Democratic challenger Jaime Harrison raised even more, fundraising records released Wednesday night show.

Graham raised $5.6 million in the first three months of 2020, and Harrison, the former chair of South Carolina's Democratic party and associate chair of the Democratic National Convention, brought in $7.36 million. That leaves Harrison with $8 million in the bank to continue his challenge against Graham, and puts Graham's war chest at $12.8 million, The Post and Courier reports.

"We're so grateful for this outpouring of support from everyday people who are looking for leadership that puts them first," a Harrison spokesperson told The Post and Courier. Graham's campaign meanwhile noted that his haul came even though the senator canceled fundraisers while he led the Senate impeachment trial of President Trump.

Still, the few South Carolina Senate polls out there indicate Graham maintains a safe lead. A Marist College poll taken in late February shows Graham with a 17 point lead over Harrison, though there are still seven months to go until Election Day.

Sens. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), and Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) said Wednesday they may oppose fast-tracking the Senate's coronavirus stimulus package because they fear that it could incentivize layoffs, as well as entice people to quit their jobs because they could make actually make more money from the enhanced unemployment insurance.

The argument angered some people, like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who is threatening to hold up the bill until there are stronger protections from workers unless the GOP senators drop their objections. But others were left scratching their heads.

People are typically only eligible for unemployment benefits if they lose their jobs through no fault of their own. There are exceptions, of course, but generally speaking people who quit would need to show they had "good cause" for doing so to qualify for financial assistance.

The freedom dividend's resurgence may be over before it even began.

During a Senate GOP lunch on Thursday, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told his colleagues he was trying to talk President Trump out of supporting individual coronavirus relief checks for Americans, Politico reports. White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows was also trying to get Trump on Graham's side, per Politico.

Mandatory quarantines in the face of the COVID-19 outbreak have already left many Americans without jobs, at least until the businesses they work for reopen. And the economic effects of the new coronavirus' spread may leave some people more permanently unemployed. That's led to bipartisan lawmakers proposing issuing individual checks to all Americans; some proposals have limited them by income bracket, but others are universal. Even Trump has said he'd support individual payments, but Graham has publicly come out against issuing them to every American indiscriminately.

Still, just after the meeting, Graham tweeted a clip of his Thursday appearance on Fox News, during which he said the phase three package would provide people "income to get through this." He'd support supplementing traditional unemployment payments by providing "75 percent of people's income up to $80,000."

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) was among the first congressmembers to propose issuing $1,000 checks to every American to support them during the COVID-19-induced economic turmoil — an idea that looked an awful lot like former 2020 candidate Andrew Yang's signature policy proposal.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) wishes President Trump hadn't tweeted about the initial sentencing recommendation for his longtime adviser Roger Stone, but he doesn't seem overly concerned about the fallout.

Graham on Wednesday said Trump should've restrained from posting about an ongoing case. "I've told him that," he said.

Still, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee added he doesn't think the Justice Department's reversal of the original seven to nine year recommendation after Trump's public complaint is worth looking into. He said Attorney General William Barr won't be called in to testify about it, even though several prominent Democrats including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) have called for Barr to do just that.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, meanwhile, thinks Barr should either resign or be impeached for the Justice Department's conduct, let alone come in and testify before the Senate. Tim O'Donnell

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Sunday on CBS's Face the Nation that nobody should believe unverified information Rudy Giuliani brings back from Ukraine about former Vice President Joe Biden because it could be Russian disinformation, that Attorney General William Barr has created a special "process" through which Giuliani — President Trump's personal lawyer — can feed the Justice Department his Ukraine information, and that Biden should be investigated for possible corruption in Ukraine. Host Margaret Brennan tried to keep up.

"Has the Department of Justice been ordered to investigate the Bidens?" Brennan asked. Graham said no, but earlier Sunday, Barr "told me that they've created a process that Rudy could give information and they would see if it's verified."

Brennan tried again a few minutes later: "When you're talking about being asked to do these things in a channel being open between Rudy Giuliani and the Justice Department, this sounds a lot like this is in some ways a taxpayer-funded oppo-research operation against Joe Biden. Isn't this exactly what was at the heart of the impeachment probe to begin with?" "No, not at all," Graham said. "There are plenty of people being contacted by folks from the Ukraine." He mentioned Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) inviting Giuliani's former business partner Lev Parnas to watch Trump's impeachment trial and a 2017 prank call to Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) in which Russian entertainers — who later duped Graham — offered "compromising" nude photos of Trump. "So Democrats are being played and I'm not going to be played," Graham said.

"There would be so many things wrong with Barr granting VIP direct access to Giuliani that it's hard to know where to start," writes CNN legal analyst Elie Honig. For example, what Giuliani is doing is likely illegal, he argued, and such an arrangement would clearly show Barr "to be a spineless partisan, serving Trump's every political and personal desire."

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) isn't a fan of the whole impeachment saga, but he's not taking it personally.

Many GOP lawmakers were angered by a comment made by lead impeachment prosecutor Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) during his closing arguments Friday. "CBS News reported last night that a Trump confidant said that key senators were warned, 'Vote against the president and your head will be on a pike.' I don't know if that's true," Schiff said.

But Graham wasn't among the affronted. He said the comment was "over the top," but he's been in Schiff's shoes, so he understands that things can get away from you every once in a while in a tense environment.

Overall, Graham was complimentary of the Democrats arguments, even if the chance that they swayed his opinion is negligible. Tim O'Donnell

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a juror in President Trump's impeachment trial, is offering free legal advice to his counsel, if they want to accept it.

So far, the House impeachment managers have "done a good job" of "painting ... a tapestry, taking a series of events and telling a story," Graham told reporters on Thursday. When Trump's legal team starts delivering his defense on Saturday, they will "start pulling on the threads."

Graham also thinks Trump's attorneys will need to shift the focus to former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. Hunter Biden was on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company, and is in the center of a debunked conspiracy theory being peddled by Trump allies, including Rudy Giuliani. Graham said Trump's team needs to "really go hard at the idea that when they tell you there's not a scintilla of evidence, groundless, baseless, phony accusations regarding the Bidens, I would challenge that very hard."

House Judiciary Chair Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) is making his impeachment argument with a little blast from the past.

Nadler during Democrats' impeachment arguments on Thursday made use of 1990s-era clips of allies of President Trump, the first being Alan Dershowitz, who's serving on Trump's defense team. While arguing that abuse of power is an impeachable offense, Nadler pointed to Dershowitz — or "at least Dershowitz in 1998," he said.

In an old clip Democrats then played, Dershowitz says "you don't need a technical crime" to impeach a president if they are "somebody who completely corrupts the office of president, and who abuses trust, and who poses great danger to our liberty."

Later, Nadler turned to the words of one of his colleagues, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who during the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton argued a crime isn't required to impeach a president. In an old clip, Graham says that "when you start using your office and you're acting in a way that hurts people, you committed a high crime."

Although Graham is in attendance for the impeachment trial, The New York Times' Catie Edmondson reports the Republican senator "left the Senate floor minutes before Nadler started playing the video of him." But The Daily Beast's Sam Brodey reports Nadler drew "some astonished looks" from Democrats when he played the Graham clip, including from Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), who reportedly "shook his head and looked around at neighbors." Brendan Morrow

Anything you say can and will be held against you.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) got a little taste of that Tuesday when Jaime Harrison, who is running to challenge Graham's Senate seat, launched a new campaign ad. In the video, the Democratic candidate begins reading a statement, as Graham's voice creeps into the scene. Viewers are then transported back in time to 1998 as Graham, then a member of the House, advocates for a thorough impeachment case against then-President Bill Clinton in which "everybody had a chance to have their say."

Graham hasn't exactly maintained that position in the present day — he wants President Trump's trial over and done, and isn't one of the Republicans who's on board with calling witnesses. But despite Graham's staunch anti-impeachment stance, Harrison seems to think it's worth reminding the senator of the good old days. Tim O'Donnell

Fox News' Chris Wallace pointed out Sen. Lindsey Graham's (R-S.C.) updated view on witnesses in a Senate impeachment trial, but Graham swore the situation is now different.

House Democrats say "evidence overwhelmingly establishes" Trump's guilt ahead of his Senate impeachment trial, set to begin arguments on Tuesday. But they want to call new witnesses to testify, including former National Security Adviser John Bolton and Lev Parnas, an associate of Rudy Giuliani. Senate Republicans have so far denied the request.

Wallace said Graham's view that new witnesses should not appear "directly contradicts what you said as a Republican House impeachment manager in 1999 during the Clinton impeachment trial." At the time, Graham said "there may be some conflict that has to be resolved by presenting live witnesses. That's what happens every day in court and I think the Senate can stand that."

"Why were witnesses okay then, but they're over the line now?" asked Wallace.

Graham blamed the "railroad job" in the House, saying witnesses were available before the House voted to impeach Trump. "If they were that important, why didn't you call them in the House? Do you need them to make your case?" The Hill reports that in some cases, witnesses were not available or willing to testify until very recently. The White House also blocked several administration officials from appearing before the House. Summer Meza

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) believes his fellow Republican lawmakers who pushed back against the Trump administration's classified briefing on the killing of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani are "overreacting."

The briefing was held on Wednesday, covering the airstrike authorized by President Trump last week that left Soleimani dead. In the wake of the airstrike, Iran retaliated on Tuesday with its own missile attacks against two Iraqi bases hosting U.S. troops.

After the briefing, an angry Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) called it "insulting" and the worst he's ever heard regarding a military issue. He also revealed lawmakers were told there couldn't be any "divisions" or "dissension" because it would "send the wrong signal to the Iranians, and I think that's completely wrong." Lee said that the meeting convinced him to support the Democratic plan for a new war powers resolution.

Graham downplayed the criticism, telling reporters, "I think they're overreacting, quite frankly. Go debate all you want to. I'm going to debate you, trust me. I'm going to let people know that in this moment in time, to play this game with the War Powers Act, which I think is unconstitutional, whether you mean to or not, you're empowering the enemy."

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has revealed he knew of President Trump's intention to authorize a drone strike that would kill Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani in advance after reports that key lawmakers weren't consulted.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday complained that Trump had taken this major action against Iran "without the consultation of the Congress," and a Pelosi spokesperson told NBC News' Alex Moe on Friday that while she spoke to Defense Secretary Mark Esper afterward, she received no advance notification. CNN's Manu Raju also reports Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) wasn't informed and there wasn't a formal briefing with the Gang of Eight.

Yet Graham on Friday said he was filled in earlier this week when he visited Trump in Florida.

"I was briefed about the potential operation when I was down in Florida," Graham told Fox & Friends, saying he appreciated being "brought into the orbit."

This is likely to increase criticism against Trump's reporte failure to formally brief Congress on his move. As CNN's Jim Sciutto noted, "You have hundreds of people whose job it is to help develop policy and inform the president of the potential consequences of his decisions. This president has chosen to bypass that repeatedly."

A day after the House impeached him for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, President Trump was "still a little shellshocked," The New York Times reports. "Despite the clear momentum behind impeachment among Democrats in recent weeks, some of Mr. Trump's advisers tried to convince him — and themselves — that [House] Speaker Nancy Pelosi did not have the votes and might not even bring the articles of impeachment to the floor."

But Trump woke up Thursday "with the scarlet letter of impeachment marked with indelible ink on his page in the history books," and "however much the humiliation and the ensuing news coverage stung," the Times reports, "Trump was intent on not showing it — even in private." Trump polled his advisers about how to respond if Pelosi indefinitely delayed sending the articles of impeachment to the Senate, and "the answers varied," the Times says, "including trying to push through a trial regardless or arguing that he technically was never actually impeached in the first place."

By Thursday evening, Trump was "mad as hell that they would do this to him and now deny him his day in court," Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told Fox News.

"For a man consumed with his legacy and legitimacy," Ashley Parker writes in The Washington Post, Trump "seems to understand the severity of his historical sentence. His tweets and pronouncements and public statements have the feel of someone trying to scream away the one thing that can't be undone," this rare moment "where he has faced concrete accountability for his actions." Impeachment, Parker notes, is "not something Trump can squirm his way out of, or cut a hush-money check to make disappear."

For her part, Pelosi laughed off taunts from Trump, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-K.y), and other Republicans that she's afraid to send the articles of impeachment to the Senate. "Fear is never a word used with me," an upbeat Pelosi told reporters in her office Thursday. "I'm never afraid and I'm rarely surprised."

The Trump administration reportedly wants to throw the so-called "sanctions from hell" back where they came from, The Daily Beast reports.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who — despite generally aligning with President Trump on domestic matters — has been known to stray when it comes to foreign policy, introduced legislation earlier this year that would place new, heavier sanctions on Russian individuals and companies as punishment for Moscow targeting Ukraine, attacking dissidents, and interfering in the 2016 U.S. election, as well its activities in Syria. But the White House has joined various business groups in arguing the proposal goes too far.

In a 22-page letter, a State Department official reportedly said the administration "strongly opposes" the bill because it "risks crippling the global energy, commodities, financial, and other markets." Additionally, the White House believes it could hit closer to home and harm American banks and asset managers operating in Russia.

The sanctions also would require the intelligence community to report to Congress every 90 days about whether the Kremlin is meddling in U.S. elections, which the Trump administration reportedly considers "impossible" to certify.

The bill passed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday, and now awaits a vote on the Senate floor, though it's unclear if or when that will take place. Graham said he's willing to work with his fellow senators to make some changes to the bill so that it becomes more palatable, but it still "must be strong to be meaningful." Read more at The Daily Beast.

President Trump has "moved on to a new phase of his ever-changing defense of the indefensible, and that is: Yes, I'm being impeached, but not, like, impeached impeached," Jimmy Kimmel said on Wednesdays Kimmel Live, unpersuaded. "No, it's exactly like an impeachment. ... You are about to get impeached."

But back in Congress, "once again today, Republicans lined up to win the president's love, one in particular," Kimmel said. In a Senate hearing on the Justice Department inspector general's FBI report, "Lindsey Graham put on quite a show." After role-playing "saucy text messages" between two FBI agents — including, memorably: "Wow, Donald Trump is an enormous douche" — Graham "took his performance to heights previously unseen in the Senate," Kimmel laughed. "Has anyone ever mentioned a 'golden shower' in Congress before? I don't think so." He then played not-that-old clips of Graham absolutely trashing Trump.

"I can understand why Graham is furious — not only is that overt bias by FBI agents, they're stealing Graham's best material," Stephen Colbert said at The Late Show. He also contrasted Graham's greatest hits of 2016 with his Trump sycophancy of 2019. "Will the last vertebrae to leave Lindsey Graham's spine please remember to turn off the lights?" he asked, moving on to other Republicans eager to sacrifice their reputation to Trump's defense.

"Congressional Republicans have decided that the best defense is a really loud offense," Samantha Bee said on Full Frontal. "I have a name for this strategy — it's called Kava-Noise. That's when white men who've done something awful shout into a camera at us until it goes away," and "the really disturbing thing about this strategy is that it kind of works."

The DOJ report at the center of Thursday's Senate hearing "actually exonerates the FBI of political bias," Bee said. "While there were two agents criticizing Trump via text, there were also pro-Trump agents texting their support for him. Guess which texts Lindsey Graham did a dramatic reading of?" She suggested "he's probably going to regret" this performance, savoring the "enormous douche" comment in particular: "I cannot wait to take that out of context for the next 100 years."

After hearing Graham read the text messages, "every Democrats was like, 'I allot my time to Lindsey Graham,'" Jimmy Fallon joked at The Tonight Show. He also mashed up the impeachment debate with Santa Con, the cheating New England Patriots, and KFC-scented logs. Watch below. Peter Weber