Graham’s U-turns have Senate colleagues fed up: ‘Annoying,’ ‘tiresome’

Republican and Democratic senators who have long worked with Sen. Lindsey Graham (RS.C.) are outraged by his decision to oppose the $95 billion defense and foreign aid package.

The bill’s authors need a majority of Republican senators to vote in favor of the bill and put as much pressure as possible on Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) to move the bill to the House floor. It deemed Mr Graham’s support essential.

With Graham’s no vote, the bill fell short of its goal despite 22 Republican votes, and now appears unlikely to pass the House.

Senators who thought Mr. Graham was on their side, especially after he was lambasted on the Senate floor last year for a budget deal that “didn’t cost a penny” to pay for the war in Ukraine. It feels like the rug has been pulled out from under me.

Some saw Mr. Graham as a blatant effort to curry favor with former President Donald Trump, who last week lobbied senators to oppose policies that would deny President Biden a political victory.

A Democratic senator who helped strategize the bill said Mr. Graham “was supposed to be the guy” who would work to double down on Republican support for the bill. “What this was supposed to do is get 60 votes in favor of the bill, including 10 Republicans, and he was supposed to bring in the remaining 10 Republican votes,” the senator said. “And last week he became part of the 10 that can’t even count” was upvoted.

“He got sucked into Trump’s orbit and was so intent on protecting himself in South Carolina that he literally pushed his mother in front of a train to get where he needed to go,” the senator said. he added. “I don’t really want to say it because I really like him.”

A Winthrop University poll released in October found that just 30% of South Carolina voters approved of Mr. Graham’s performance, just 1 percentage point ahead of Mr. Biden in the state. .

In February 2022, President Trump attacked allies in the Senate, calling them “RINOs” over disagreements over whether protesters convicted on January 6 deserved a presidential pardon. .

Graham led a charge on the Senate floor in June to delay action on the deal to raise the debt ceiling and set caps on defense and non-defense spending because it didn’t include money for Ukraine. When you think about it, Mr. Graham’s vote against the defense bill infuriated his colleagues. .

“Not a penny in this bill will help Ukraine lose.” [Russian President Vladimir Putin]” Graham roared on the Senate floor. “We need to send a clear message to President Putin that we support your defeat when it comes to your invasion of Ukraine. Otherwise we will snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.” Let’s go.”

Mr. Graham raised so many concerns that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (New York) and Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Kentucky) pushed for an emergency defense supplement bill to provide funding for Ukraine. They secured a promise not to put the budget on hold through the spending cap agreement. .

“Help is on the way to the brave men and women of Ukraine who are standing up against Russian aggression and defending their homeland,” Graham declared on the Senate floor after taking the oath.

The bill Mr. Graham opposed last week includes $19.85 billion to replenish U.S. military weapons provided from the Pentagon’s inventory and $13.8 billion to allow Ukraine to buy weapons and munitions from U.S. industry. It included $60 billion to Ukraine.

It also provided $4.8 billion to the Indo-Pacific region to stop China’s invasion of Taiwan.

Administration officials warned the Senate that Ukraine’s military supplies were so depleted that the country’s military could only fire one shell for every four Russian artillery shells. NATO responded late last month by signing a $1.2 billion contract to provide tens of thousands of shells to alleviate the shortage.

In explaining his position, Graham pointed to border concerns. But one Republican senator who worked on putting together the defense package said that even with those concerns in mind, Graham’s change in stance has left him and other colleagues confused.

“Lindsay is a very smart person, so I don’t know what he’s doing. I don’t know if he just wants to cover for Trump or what he’s doing, but I’m worried. He’s all over the map. I’m here. I’m worried. I don’t know what to do,” the senator said.

The senators interviewed by The Hill requested anonymity to openly express their frustrations with Graham, but gave no reason to retaliate against the criticism.

Graham defended his opposition to the bill as a principled position to pressure President Biden and Democrats to place strict limits on the number of migrants crossing the border, telling his colleagues on the floor: Because I’ve been telling people for the past few months that I want to help Ukraine, I want to help Israel, I want to help Taiwan, but first I have to help myself. ”

He held his ground Friday during a trip to Eagle Pass, Texas.

“If you come here enough, you can learn. And the best people to learn from are the ones who live here every day and work in the local community. So what did I learn? “The Senate bill, while it has some good points, turns out to be much less up to the task than I thought it would be,” he told reporters.

“They told me that the Senate bill, which basically doesn’t have ‘remain in Mexico,’ changes things very little,” says Trump, who calls for migrants to wait south of the border until their asylum claims are processed. He referred to the policies of the administration.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) worked with Mr. Graham in June to try to get assurances from Senate leadership that the emergency supplemental bill would be brought to the floor, although she was more diplomatic than her colleagues. , admitted he was surprised by Mr Graham’s opposition.

“I was surprised by his vote…but he felt very strongly that the border provision should be included and that it was not as strong as the bipartisan group had negotiated,” she said.

Sen. Chris Coons (D-Delaware), chairman of the State Department’s Foreign Activities Appropriations Subcommittee, expressed surprise and regret at Mr. Graham’s vote against funding for Ukraine.

“Mr. Graham has been a vocal supporter of Ukrainian financing for many years, and we hope that ultimately he will be a strong supporter of Ukrainian financing.” “I’m very surprised by the rapid change in his position on border security and national security, and we’ll have to see how this plays out.”

Other senators on both sides of the aisle balked at Graham’s explanation that he opposed the emergency defense bill, which was originally bundled with border security reform. They noted that Mr. Graham acknowledged that the negotiators who put together the border deal had “produced good things on asylum” and “produced good things on parole.”

Mr. Graham’s colleagues, who supported the bill, said they wanted Mr. Graham to have more power to turn back immigrants who have made unfair asylum claims, given his deep experience on immigration policy as a leading member of the Gang of Eight. We believe that progress should have been recognized for its impact on current and future administrations. In 2013 he authored the Senate’s comprehensive immigration reform bill.

A second Republican senator, who requested anonymity, said Graham is the top Republican on the State Foreign Activities Appropriations Subcommittee, which is tasked with putting together the foreign aid bill, and that his vote against the bill was likely due to his colleagues on the appropriations committee. He pointed out that this irritated the members.

“Lindsay gets a pass on a lot of things because the answer is, ‘It’s just Lindsay.’ But that doesn’t seem to be a sufficient answer,” the Republican senator said. “He’s a very volatile person.”

“It’s disturbing. It’s disgusting,” the lawmaker added. “Typically, when people arrive at a place, they expect to stay there.”

“This is outside of the nature of the issues he has championed over the years, the issues he and he has been working on.” [the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.)] We worked on it in parallel.Lindsey was always thought of. [as] national defense, military defense, diplomacy [leader]And he decided to take a different path,” the source added.

Mr. Graham’s opposition to the package was so shocking that he announced on the Senate floor that he was stepping down as co-head of a bipartisan Senate delegation to a gathering of NATO allies at the Munich Security Conference.

His decision to forego the trip comes at a time when the South Carolina senator has become a staunch ally of former President Trump and has advocated supporting Ukraine in its two-year war against Russia. This is a tacit acknowledgment of the growing tension between the two countries.

Instead of meeting with U.S. allies in Europe to discuss Ukraine, Mr. Graham traveled to the Texas border with Sen. Tim Scott (RS.C.).

Asked about his decision to skip a news conference in Munich and visit Eagle Pass, he told reporters: “This is where I’m supposed to be. I’m at the border and I have to talk about the invasion of our country.” not.”

“Nothing has changed regarding me, Ukraine, Taiwan or Israel,” he claimed. “If Putin wins in Ukraine, he’ll keep going, he might end up fighting NATO, and China will definitely see that as a sign of weakness. It all makes sense.”

Mr. Graham’s visit drew a rebuke from Mr. Schumer, who worked closely with him to pass comprehensive immigration reform in the Senate more than a decade ago.

“It’s great to see Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott taking a field trip to the border. But their actions speak louder than words,” Schumer said in a statement.

Graham pushed back on that criticism.

“This is what I want to say to Schumer and McConnell,” he said. “Nothing will work without a House strategy. And then President Trump came out and said, let’s make the aid a loan, not a grant. If that’s what it takes to get it through the House, then we need to Please add me to your group.”