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'Count me out': Graham severs ties with Trump after DC riots

"Enough is enough."

By Chris AgeePublished 3 years ago 3 min read
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Although Donald Trump had convinced a sizable group of GOP lawmakers to join him in his ill-fated and unsubstantiated claims that election fraud was responsible for President-elect Joe Biden’s landslide win in November’s election, the deadly violence he incited on Capitol Hill this week caused many of his allies to abandon him at the last minute.

Among the notable defectors was U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who issued a scathing rebuke of the outgoing president on Wednesday after rioters stormed the Senate floor earlier in the day.

His remarks came from the same location and offered a glimpse into what it took for him to break ranks with the former reality TV host.

“Trump and I, we had a hell of a journey,” Graham said.

He went on to denounce the violence that Trump’s unhinged rhetoric unleashed, asserting: “I hate it being this way. Oh my god, I hate it. … But today all can say is count me out.”

According to the South Carolina Republican, he “tried to be helpful” to the Trump administration to no avail.

“Enough is enough,” he declared.

The about face came after weeks of subservience and sycophancy in the face of Trump’s outlandish claims

A short time after the November election, Graham claimed: "If Republicans don't challenge and change the U.S. election system, there will never be another Republican president elected again. President Trump should not concede. We're down to less — 10,000 votes in Georgia. He's going to win North Carolina. We have gone from 93,000 votes to less than 20,000 votes in Arizona, where more — more votes to be counted."

He did, however, shy away from the position endorsed by Trump’s most avid bootlickers who promised to contest the valid Electoral College vote tally as amassed in the free and fair 2020 election.

On Sunday, he called such efforts a “political dodge” before calling on his own party to stand down from the seditious undertaking.

“I don't buy this, enough is enough," he said. "We’ve got to end it."

Graham also turned his attention to Vice President Mike Pence, whom Trump has harangued in an attempt to convince him to assume powers he does not have and overturn the election results.

"Vice President Pence -- what they’re asking you to do you won’t do, because you can’t,” he said.

Earlier in the day, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., offered a similar take on the controversial topic.

“We cannot simply declare ourselves a national board of elections on steroids,” he said from the Senate floor prior to the siege by a violent pro-Trump mob. “The voters, courts, and states have all spoken. If we overrule them it would damage our republic forever.”

For his part, Graham’s recent rhetoric appears to hearken back to the pointed criticism he shared toward the six-time bankrupted businessman.

Ahead of the 2016 election, he derided Trump as a “race-baiting bigot,” alternately referring to him as a “jackass,” a “kook,” and “the most flawed nominee in the history of the Republican Party.”

In typical fashion -- at least according to former Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C. -- Graham went on to yield to his former foe throughout much of Trump’s first term.

As Gowdy said of Graham during the latter’s period of fealty to Trump: “When I ran for Congress, he endorsed the guy I ran against. I think the first call I got was from Lindsey. Typical Lindsey: You beat me, now I’m going to be the best friend you got. I was the least surprised person in the world that the president and Lindsey play golf with each other.”

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About the Creator

Chris Agee

Writer. Editor. Communicator

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