Sen. Lindsey Graham just responded to some vicious insults hurled his way by MSNBC host Joe Scarborough.
Joe, famous for helping Trump win and then turning his back on POTUS, has it out for any GOP member who stands with Trump.
He trashed Lindsey on his program today and Sen. Graham promptly put Joe in his place. From The Hill:
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Tuesday dismissed criticism from MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, stating in an interview on Fox News Radio that one thing he’s “not going to worry about is pleasing Joe Scarborough.”
The push back comes after Scarborough, who left the Republican Party last year citing that he could not be in a party that backed President Trump, said Graham had “sold his soul” by supporting the president on a number of issues.
Scarborough’s comments on Graham came on Tuesday morning, with the former GOP congressman arguing the South Carolina senator was only supporting Trump to solidify his standing among Republican voters in his state going into the 2020 senatorial primary.
“Lindsey Graham has a Republican primary in 2020,” Scarborough said. “He was having trouble in the state of South Carolina and recent polls show that among Republican senators he has one of the better approval ratings with the rank and file in the Republican Party in the state of South Carolina.”
“He basically … sold his political soul for, you know, 20 percentage points inside his own Republican Party.
I guess, unlike John McCain, Lindsey Graham didn’t have the confidence and the assurance in his voters that he could speak truth to power and still get reelected in his state,” he added.
The “Morning Joe” host also said Graham was acting differently than the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who was one of Graham’s closest friends and was critical of the president up until his passing last August.
“I’m a senator from South Carolina, people want me to help this president,” Graham, a vocal Trump ally on Capitol Hill, told host Brian Kilmeade. “And we have disagreements and when we do I try to work through them.”
“Cable chatter is just cable chatter, and nothing is going to change my relationship with Senator McCain,” he continued.
“He was a big influence on my life, taught me a lot about foreign policy. I think President Trump is doing a very, very good job, and I’m certain he’s going to get reelected. I really believe that.”
Kilmeade described Graham as doing “play-by-play” in praising or criticizing Trump by going issue-to-issue from a foreign policy perspective.
“Senator, by the way, actually, everything that you stand for, you want to get more aggressive in Venezuela, you’re stronger on North Korea now and the president used to be somewhat reserved,” Kilmeade noted.
