Sen. Lindsey Graham at Columbia town =hall -- (screengrab)
Speaking at a town hall in his home state, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) faced down boos and complaints from attendees unhappy with how Republicans failed to hold hearings on Judge Merrick Garland to fill Antonin Scalia's seat on the Supreme Court.
Making a pitch for Judge Neil Gorsuch, nominated by President Donald Trump to fill the seat left vacant by recalcitrant Republicans, Graham lectured the crowd as boos and grew and the crowd began chanting.
According to Graham, President Barack Obama was not entitled to fill the seat because, "Scalia died in February after three primaries had started a week before the South Carolina primary.""
"Everyone that boos Judge Gorsuch, you're not persuading me at all," Graham told the raucous crowd. "Matter of fact, if you can't understand this is a qualified nominee, then you're not listening."
"If you don't understand that elections matter, then you don't understand America," the lawmaker continued as the boos grew louder. "If you think that only liberals can get their nominees and a conservative can't, then you don't understand America. And I don't believe that the Constitution was written so that you get everything you want and I get nothing. That's not the way the Constitution was written."
"I didn't vote for Obama, but he won and he had the right to pick qualified people. I didn't vote for Trump, but he won and he's got the right to pick qualified people," he said as boos continued and the crowd began chanting. "And I'm asking no more of the Democratic Party than I ask of myself."
"So I'm going to vote for Neil Gorsuch. If they try to filibuster him, they'll be turning the country upside down and it will be a sad day and I will vote, if necessary, to the change the rules," he threatened.
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