Analysis: This Lindsey Graham quote perfectly explains the GOP’s codependent relationship with Trump
By Aaron Blake Aaron Blake Senior political reporter, writing for The Fix Email Bio Follow March 27 at 2:18 PM Sen. Lindsey O. Graham on Wednesday offered his most extensive comments to date about President Trump’s continued attacks on his friend, the late senator John McCain .
Graham’s lack of a more forceful defense of McCain has been criticized, even as he has gradually weighed in more. He even copped this week to his own role in McCain turning over the Steele dossier to the FBI — the initial source of Trump’s latest McCain onslaught. That first part is key — the part about how Trump has been “good to me” and “allowed me in his world.” Graham isn’t just any senator, you see; he’s the chairman of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee. He’s one of the most potent people in what is supposed to be a coequal branch of government. Yet he’s suggesting Trump has done him an important favor by accepting his guidance.
And Graham’s conversion has paid off. After turning himself into the designated GOP attack dog during Supreme Court hearings on Brett M. Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination and sidling up to Trump, a recent Winthrop University poll showed Graham’s approval rating among South Carolina Republicans rising from 51 percent in April 2018 to 74 percent less than a year later. Graham isn’t stupid, and he has shown that his gambit — no matter how transparent — has worked.
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