As Donald Trump undertook the seemingly impossible task of winning the presidency, he faced a phalanx of resistance not just from the left, but from within the establishment of the Republican Party he had just decided to join.
One of his most high-profile detractors within the GOP was Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), longtime establishment figure best known for his hawkish, neoconservative views on foreign policy. At first, one suspected this was little more than political posturing since Graham himself was another of the 16 candidates seeking the GOP presidential nomination.
The Mockery Began
But after his presidential bid went nowhere, the senior Senator from South Carolina quickly assumed a spot at or near the head of the GOP resistance, publicly ripping into Trump at every turn for trashing the GOP’s image, going soft on Russia and, well, for just being Trump - twice calling him a jackass on national TV.
Trump, in turn, took to mocking Graham, calling him - what else - a loser, and dropping the moniker “Mr. One Percent” on Graham for his barely-on-the-radar showing in presidential polls that forced him out of the race before the first primary. The Donald even publicly revealed Graham’s cell phone number and urged his supporters to let loose with a bombardment of calls. Graham responded with a hilarious video in which he destroyed his cell phone.
When the GOP primary field was reduced to just Trump and Ted Cruz, Graham oh-so-reluctantly endorsed Cruz, calling the choice between the two akin to “being shot or poisoned.” And Graham later announced he would not vote for his party’s nominee against Hillary Clinton either, saying "I think Donald Trump is going to places where very few people have gone and I'm not going with him."
The Movement
It seemed clear that Graham, along with his BFF Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), had become the congressional leader of the GOP NeverTrump “movement” and had reached the top of the Trumpists’ enemies list.
The feud continued after Trump was elected. And then, suddenly and inexplicably, as summer turned to fall, it stopped.
And now, out of nowhere, Sen. Graham has become such a cheerleader for the President that, if you didn’t know better, you might think he had moved over to the White House Communications shop.
Graham is now one of the GOP’s chief defenders of the President and his agenda. Just witness his recent Twitter feed:
https://twitter.com/LindseyGrahamSC/status/939157000822362112
But this transformation can be seen not just in the substance, but the tone of Sen. Graham in discussing the President. Watch below his appearance Friday on Fox News. Is this the same man who once called Trump a “race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot” who should “go to hell?”
Why and how did this political epiphany occur? Does Trump have something on him? Was Graham suddenly unable to resist the charms of the President? Did the two just come to a remarkable meeting of minds?
A Major Shift
Who really knows? It could be that the rapidly declining health of Sen. McCain, and the imminent departure of the other principal anti-Trump voices in the Senate, Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Bob Corker (R-TN), would leave Graham isolated, alone and in need of a new alliance. Maybe it’s the changing political environment, in which foreign entanglements and globalism have been replaced by non-interventionism and nationalism. Or it might be that Graham believes he has convinced Trump to embrace some of his neoconservative foreign policy prescriptions and wants to seal the deal with nice words.
As per the famous ad from days gone by, perhaps only his hairdresser knows for sure. But with McCain nearing his end, Corker tamed, Flake silenced, populism on the rise, conservative jurists rapidly populating the courts and a major GOP legislative victory finally in the books; Sen. Lindsey Graham has likely done himself - and President Trump - a most unexpected favor.
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