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News of the second failed attempt to assassinate former president Donald Trump had barely broken on Sunday when a prominent South Carolina politico dove headfirst into the spotlight.
It’s fair to say U.S. senator Lindsey Graham tripped all over himself in the hopes of highlighting his outrage over the incident – not to mention his purported fealty to Trump. In fact, he was one of the very first public figures to issue a statement after the incident at Trump’s Florida golf course.
“He is one of the strongest people I’ve ever known,” Graham said of Trump. “He’s in good spirits and he is more resolved than ever to save our country.”
“I’m pissed that this could happen again,” an indignant Graham said on Fox News hours later.
Why the rush to react so aggressively? Because the second Trump assassination attempt has created a serious optical issue for our state’s senior senator. As it turns out, Graham and the man who positioned himself behind a chain link fence overlooking Trump’s golf course with a scoped AK-47-style share something in common – something at odds with the presidential candidate Graham was fawning over (and is ostensibly hoping to help reelect).
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Shortly after the assassination attempt, we learned its would-be perpetrator – Ryan Wesley Routh of Greensboro, N.C. – enthusiastically supports Ukraine in its bid to repel Russian forces which invaded the country two-and-a-half years ago. Routh even flew to the beleaguered Eastern European nation and tried to join the fight. Rejected due to age and inexperience, he returned home and set about trying to recruit troops from all over the world – including Afghanistan – to fight in Ukraine.
Graham, meanwhile, has been relentlessly pushing for massive expansions of taxpayer aid to Ukraine with a similar objective in mind.
Then there’s Trump – the man Graham wants to elect and whom Routh allegedly wanted to kill. He has consistently opposed U.S. involvement in Ukraine and promised to end the war if elected.
Thus we are left with a proverbial Gordian Knot: Per Routh, Ukraine is good and Trump is bad. Per Graham, Ukraine is good and Trump is good. Per Trump, Ukraine is bad and Trump is good.
Lots of luck sorting out that mess.
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Graham rarely passes up an opportunity to relate what big BFFs he and the former president are. To wit: In the “pissed off” interview mentioned earlier, Graham told former South Carolina congressman turned Fox News contributor Trey Gowdy he was supposed to have been in Trump’s golfing party last Sunday and how Trump called him from the links to let him know about the attempt on his life.
However, despite the buddy-buddy aspects each candidate likes to portray publicly, deep political fissures in the friendship lurk just beneath the surface. Or, often, above the surface.
Their policy positions on Ukraine are one such example.
When you get right down to it, though, Trump and Graham share a bond that keeps their tenuous relationship intact: Mutual survival.
Political survival, it should be noted.
The future of the MAGA movement within the Republican Party could hinge on whether Trump wins in November. Conversely, defeat could spell the beginning of the end for it.
Graham isn’t up for reelection this year, he is rightly concerned about 2026, when he will face Palmetto voters for the fifth time as a Senate candidate. And it is precisely the MAGA wing that concerns him most.
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Think back to the night of the South Carolina primary last February. Graham was loyally at Trump’s side amid a sea of SCGOP potentates at a victory party in Columbia that night. Yet when Graham stepped up to the podium to talk, he was openly booed. Before that, Graham was hissed and even called “traitor!” by opponents in the crowd at a Trump rally in Pickens.
Trump defused the moment in Columbia by calming the audience.
“He’s a good man,” Trump insisted.
That may have mollified the disgruntled party faithful that night. But displeasure with Graham runs deep within Republicans ranks. And the senior senator knows it.
Which is why he’s going to extraordinary lengths these days to make sure he is seen as being “Trump’s Guy” – even if his foreign policy views (and overt “pro-life” positioning) run counter to Trump.
The act seemed to play fairly well for a while, but then Routh – the only American more interested in killing Russians than Graham – stuck an AK-47 barrel through a chain-length fence at Trump International Gold Course in West Palm Beach and tried to kill Trump.
And suddenly, we’re reminded anew that things aren’t peaches and cream between the two candidates after all.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
J. Mark Powell is an award-winning former TV journalist, government communications veteran, and a political consultant. He is also an author and an avid Civil War enthusiast. Got a tip or a story idea for Mark? Email him at mark@fitsnews.com.
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4 comments
“The future of the MAGA movement within the Republican Party could hinge on whether Trump wins in November. Conversely, defeat could spell the beginning of the end for it.”
No it won’t. Because Republicans have gerrymandered the fringe base into power. It’s the monster they have created and cannot control anymore. Republicans will be expected to toe the MAGA line or not make it past the primary stage.
Good luck with that.
We’re going to be hobbling on an injured right leg for decades to come thanks to the GOP.
I wonder if Lindsey, in bragging about how he and Trump are BFFs, mentioned to any Ukraine fanatics that he was going to be playing golf with Trump.
Geez, you court the worst and craziest bigots in the country to be MAGA and then you wonder why they are not very keen on the most famous closeted homosexual in the country?
MAGA is so weird and confusing that Trump has been targeted by his own supporters twice, that we know of. It must be a sad and confusing existence to still support Trump.