Last May, Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) visited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv, warmly embracing the embattled leader and later urging President Biden to \u201cdo more\u201d to help the nation as it fights off Russia\u2019s invasion.<\/p>\n
But this week, Graham voted repeatedly against sending $60 billion in aid to that nation as well as against other military funds for Israel and U.S. allies in the Indo-Pacific. The longtime hawk dramatically announced on the Senate floor that he also would no longer be attending the Munich Security Conference \u2014 an annual pilgrimage made by world leaders to discuss global security concerns that\u2019s been a mainstay of his schedule.<\/p>\n
\u201cI talked to President Trump today and he\u2019s dead set against this package,\u201d Graham said on the Senate floor on Sunday, a day after the former president said he\u2019d let Russia do \u201cwhatever the hell they want\u201d to NATO allies at a rally. \u201cHe thinks that we should make packages like this a loan, not a gift,\u201d Graham said.<\/p>\n
Graham\u2019s about-face on Ukraine aid sends a stark warning sign to U.S. allies that even one of the most aggressive advocates for U.S. interventionism abroad appears to be influenced by the more isolationist posture pervading the Republican Party.<\/p>\n
It marked a departure for the senator who was harshly critical of Donald Trump\u2019s \u201cAmerica First\u201d foreign policy when he ran against him for president in 2015, in part on a message of launching a U.S. invasion of Syria. And even as he cozied up to Trump once he became president on numerous other issues, the Air Force veteran continued to criticize Trump on foreign policy, including for wanting to withdraw from Afghanistan and Syria.<\/p>\n
With his latest move, Graham has tied himself even tighter to Trump as the former president appears to be on a path to clinching the Republican nomination.<\/p>\n
The episode has also eroded Graham\u2019s credibility among colleagues who worked closely with him to shape a bipartisan package of border policy reforms that Republicans demanded be attached to the foreign aid in exchange for their votes \u2014 only to backtrack and help kill it in the end.<\/p>\n
Graham\u2019s work on the border measure was a throwback to his earlier Senate role as a dealmaker on immigration, including as a key member of the failed Gang of Eight immigration group in 2013 and the Trump-era negotiating group in 2018. But now firmly in the MAGA wing of the party, Graham was one of the senators imploring GOP leadership that border security must be part of any Ukraine bill last fall.<\/p>\n
The senator appeared sincerely interested in getting a deal through, publicly defending the negotiations from right-wing attacks and arguing the policy could help Trump if he wins reelection.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo those who think that if President Trump wins, which I hope he does, that we can get a better deal \u2014 you won\u2019t,\u201d Graham told reporters in January. \u201cYou got to get 60 votes in the United States Senate.\u201d<\/p>\n
But some negotiators believe Graham\u2019s tone changed after a mid-January visit with Trump at the former president\u2019s Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida, according to people familiar with the negotiations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the matter candidly. Shortly after the visit, Trump began posting more harshly against the bill, and Republican senators began defecting from the deal before it was even announced. Graham began raising more pointed concerns about whether the parole provisions of the deal were strong enough.<\/p>\n
Still, Graham stayed at the table as negotiators worked to assuage his concerns. He pushed for a tougher rollback of the president\u2019s use of parole at land ports of entry, which was eventually agreed to after Graham signed off. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), a key negotiator, ran point on the relationship, ensuring that Graham was happy with the final deal. But Graham\u2019s shifting demands prompted her to privately refer to him as a \u201cchaos monster\u201d at times, according to two people who heard her use the term.<\/p>\n
Just a few hours before the text of the deal was released, Graham praised it in an interview with Fox News Sunday. \u201cI hope people keep an open mind,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you believe, as President Trump does, our laws are broken, then you got to fix them.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the day after the deal was released \u2014 amid a Republican backlash, a declaration from House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) that it was \u201cdead\u201d and an angry retort from Trump \u2014 Graham backed away from the plan, to the annoyance of those who he negotiated it with. (Graham was not alone, however. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who also helped negotiate the deal, also abandoned it amid the GOP furor.)<\/p>\n
The tensions between Graham and Sinema from the final weeks of the negotiations spilled out onto the Senate floor last Thursday after just four Republicans voted to pass it. She interrupted his floor speech bemoaning the inadequacies of the border deal. Sinema repeatedly pointed out to Graham while he was speaking that he helped negotiate the deal and that the only way to introduce the changes he claimed he wanted was to vote to proceed on the bill and then offer amendments.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t have a snow ball\u2019s chance of getting it passed in the House,\u201d Graham angrily retorted.<\/p>\n
At one point Graham called the policy in the deal \u201cgood\u201d and at another point a \u201chalf-ass effort\u201d in the short speech, before yielding the floor. He then began talking once more \u2014 just long enough to tell the prime minister of Poland, who had criticized Republican senators who voted against the deal, that he \u201ccould care less\u201d what he thinks.<\/p>\n
The display provoked anger from some of his fellow negotiators.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis top staff were in the room when we negotiated the bill,\u201d Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) wrote in a social media post about the Sinema-Graham back and forth. \u201cWe negotiated key provisions directly with him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Graham not only backed away from the border deal, but also declined to join 22 of his GOP colleagues on Tuesday to support the foreign aid package after it was stripped of the border provisions.<\/p>\n
The drastic change of heart \u2014 even in a politician who has shown a chameleon-like proficiency at adapting to the Trump takeover of the GOP \u2014 has prompted speculation that Graham could be worried about his political standing in his pro-Trump state or that he may have his eye on a Cabinet position in a future Trump administration.<\/p>\n
\u201cGraham\u2019s always worked on the premise that he\u2019s going to do what it takes to be in the room where he thinks he can have influence \u2026 but for those who\u2019ve watched his independent streak over the years, it is perplexing,\u201d said Chip Felkel, a communications strategist who has worked on multiple Republican campaigns in South Carolina. \u201cAfter the passing of John McCain, we have seen less and less of that independent streak.\u201d<\/p>\n
Graham was a longtime foreign policy ally with McCain, an Arizona senator, but the two began to part ways on some issues before McCain\u2019s death in 2018.<\/p>\n
Others speculated that Graham, who is not up for reelection until 2026, might be responding to the intensity of feeling in the GOP base on Ukraine. \u201cGoing against Trump [on Ukraine] right now is a death sentence,\u201d said one Republican House lawmaker, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the political backlash they have faced. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of risky for him at this point given how angry the base is.\u201d<\/p>\n
Graham and his staff declined an interview request for this story. But the senator attempted to explain his shifting position in an hour-long floor speech on Monday. He slammed isolationism as a worldview, criticized a lack of adequate defense spending in the United States, and said it \u201cbreaks my heart\u201d that the United States pulled out of Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
But he also declared he would not support the aid package, after thinking about the issue for \u201cdays\u201d and acknowledging a \u201ctug of war\u201d between him and Trump on foreign policy. He said he had visited Iraq and Afghanistan more than 50 times, often with his friend McCain, and that the U.S. withdrawing from its role around the world would only embolden autocrats.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut having said all of that, for me to be able to convince people in South Carolina to continue to support conflicts overseas, I have to prove to them I get it when they tell me what about their own country,\u201d Graham said. \u201cSo I\u2019m not going to Munich, I\u2019m going to the southern border.\u201d<\/p>\n
He encouraged the House to change the package by making the aid a loan, among other things.<\/p>\n
The announcement came as a shock to those who have watched Graham\u2019s career. He served as the co-host of the bipartisan delegation to the international conference in recent years, a group that nicknamed itself the \u201cMcCain delegation\u201d after the late senator who was a fixture of the conference. In 2017, Graham declared to world leaders gathered in Munich that it would be \u201ca year of kicking Russia in the ass in Congress.\u201d<\/p>\n
John Herbst, the former ambassador to Ukraine during the Bush administration, said Graham\u2019s U-turn on Ukraine aid is \u201cnot a positive message\u201d for allies. \u201cThis really is a time for people who understand American national security interest to stand up,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
McCain used his last trip to the Munich conference to reassure U.S. allies that Trump\u2019s view of the world \u2014 and hostility to NATO \u2014 would not shake congressional support for the current world order.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis old buddy Senator McCain has got to be rolling in his grave right now,\u201d said Jim Manley, a former top aide to the late Sen. Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) when he was Senate leader. \u201cThey struck a very hawkish, pro-U. S., pro interventionist stance time and time again. Now when the stakes couldn\u2019t be higher he\u2019s bending the knee to the demands of Donald Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n
Paul Kane contributed to this report.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Last May, Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) visited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv, warmly embracing the embattled leader and later urging President Biden to \u201cdo more\u201d to help the nation as it fights off Russia\u2019s invasion. But this week, Graham voted repeatedly against sending $60 billion in aid to that nation as well as against other […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1041,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}