Former President Donald Trump did not hold back against his political rivals and critics, blasting President Joe Biden as "crooked" and Chris Christie as a big mouth.
He even, playfully, chided ally and endorser Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., as a "progressive."
"Very interesting, Lindsey Graham, the progressive from South Carolina," Trump said in his Make America Great Again rally in Manchester, New Hampshire, which aired live Thursday on Newsmax. "No, he's a progressive, but he's got some good things too, OK?"
Graham has been one of Trump's staunchest allies, even standing up for him at Trump's South Carolina campaign leadership team launch earlier this year, saying "there are no Trump policies without Donald Trump."
Trump's chiding of Graham as a moderate came when Trump himself was telling a story about proposing trade reciprocity, imposing equal tariffs on trade with any country that imposes them on America.
"But Lindsey Graham, I said to him, 'Lindsey, you've got to go along with this,'" Trump said, delving into one of the newer campaign stories he often repeats at his rallies. "We were all set to get it done.
"'You've got to go along with this,'" Trump continued, recalling the conversation with Graham. "He said, 'so let me let me get this straight: If they charge us, we charge them the same thing?'
"He said it's not his strength – other things are his strength," Trump continued. "He said, 'So they charge us, we charge them the same thing, right?'
"'Yeah,'" Trump responded.
"'You've got my vote,'" Graham said back.
"That's so easy," Trump said.
Graham, while moderate on some issues, is not a progressive, his critics would argue, particularly abortion advocates in the Democratic Party. Graham had come under fire for suggesting a nation-wide ban on abortion, which even Republicans and Trump had rejected as too extreme to campaign on.
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Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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