Senators from both sides of the aisle who have worked for years with Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., are furious about his decision to oppose a $95 billion defense and foreign aid package, The Hill reported on Monday.
Graham's backing was seen by architects of the bill as pivotal to obtaining a majority of GOP senators to vote for it and put as much pressure as possible on Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to bring it up on the House floor. Instead, the bill failed despite 22 Republican votes in favor.
Some saw Graham, who has been a staunch supporter of aid to Ukraine, as making a blatant attempt to curry favor with former President Donald Trump, who lobbied senators last week to oppose the package to deny President Joe Biden a political win.
One Democrat senator who was involved in strategizing for the bill said Graham "was supposed to be the guy" who would work to double Republican support for the bill "and then in the last week he became part of the [GOP] that you couldn't even count" as possible "yes" votes.
"[Graham] got sucked into the Trump orbit, and he is so zealous about his own self-preservation in South Carolina [where a recent poll has his approval rating at only 30%] that he literally would push his mother in front of a train to get to where he needs to be. I hate to say it because I actually like him," the Democrat senator said.
Graham in June led a charge on the Senate floor to delay action on a deal to raise the debt limit and set caps on defense and nondefense spending, because it didn't include money for Ukraine.
"We need to send a clear message to Russian President Vladimir Putin that when it comes to your invasion of Ukraine, we're going to support your loss," Graham shouted on the Senate floor. "If we don't do that, then we're going to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory."
The bill Graham opposed last week included $60 billion for Ukraine.
Graham defended his opposition to the bill as a principled stand to pressure Biden to place hard caps on the number of migrants crossing the U.S. border.
"The reason I'm going to vote no to this package is because I've been telling people for months now that I want to help Ukraine, I want to help Israel, I want to help Taiwan, but we've got to help ourselves first," Graham said.
But a Republican senator who worked on putting together the defense package questioned Graham.
"I don't know what he's doing, because Lindsey is a super smart guy," the senator said. "I don't know whether he's just trying to cover for Trump or what he's doing, but I find it worrisome. He's just so all over the map."
Another Republican senator who requested anonymity added: "It's annoying. It's tiresome. Generally, when a person gets to a place, you expect him to stay there.
"This is out of character for the issues he has championed for a long time. ... Lindsey's always been thought of [as] the national defense, military defense, foreign affairs [leader], and he's decided to take different path."
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.