In a biting column for CNN, political analyst Chris Cillizza used a deep dive by the New York Times on what makes Sen. Lindsey Graham tick to ridicule the South Carolina Republican's professed belief he can "fix" Donald Trump.
With friends of Graham admitting they are still stunned the longtime legislator has so closely allied himself with the former president after tweeting in 2016, "If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed.......and we will deserve it," Graham painted himself as a missionary out to save Trump from himself.
As the Times reported, "He alone can fix the former president, he believes, and make him a unifying figure for Republicans to take back both houses of Congress next year and beyond. To that end, he says, he is determined to steer Mr. Trump away from a dangerous obsession with 2020," telling the Times, "What I say to him is, 'Do you want January the 6th to be your political obituary? Because if you don't get over it, it's going to be.'"
Cillizza's initial response with a terse "HA!" before he listed the problems with reining Trump who has shown no signs of being anything than what he has always been.
Quoting Trump issuing a statement on Sunday where he claimed, "It is time for Joe Biden to resign in disgrace for what he has allowed to happen to Afghanistan, along with the tremendous surge in COVID, the Border catastrophe, the destruction of energy independence, and our crippled economy. It shouldn't be a big deal, because he wasn't elected legitimately in the first place!" Cillizza wrote, "Yeah, that totally seems like a guy who is ready to move on! He's totally coming to terms with losing the 2020 election."
The CNN analyst went on to point out there is no evidence that Trump can be reformed, writing, "The truth is -- and always has been -- that there is no pivot possible. There is not other gear that Trump can go to, some other side of his personality he hasn't shown yet. He's a 75-year-old man who has behaved the same way -- boorishly, crudely and utterly without introspection -- for his entire adult life. The idea that he will suddenly change -- because Lindsey Graham told him to! -- is beyond ridiculous."
Cillizza added, "That Graham thinks he can change Trump, then, speaks to two things: His own towering sense of self-importance and his fundamental misreading of who Donald Trump is (and always has been). There is no 'new' Trump waiting to be discovered by Graham (or anyone else)."
"There's just Trump. Take him or leave him," he concluded.
