Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Monday deflected after Fox News' Brian Kilmeade asked him about his past friendship with former Vice President Joe Biden during an interview on his radio show.
During the interview, Kilmeade played a clip of Graham positively gushing about Biden in 2015, as he called Biden "the nicest person I think I've ever met in politics" and "as good a man as God has ever created."
Graham responded to this by complaining about the way Biden and Democrats treated the late Sen. John McCain during the 2008 presidential election.
"They tore the bark off of John McCain," Graham said, according to Washington Post reporter Aaron Blake.
Per NBC News' Julie Faye Tsirkin, Graham also said that he wasn't out to smear his longtime friend by launching a probe into Biden's son and his employment at Ukrainian energy company Burisma, but was simply doing proper oversight.
"My friendship with Joe Biden, if it can't withstand me doing my job then it's not the friendship I thought we had," he said. "I admire him as a person, I think he's always tried to do right as a person."
