All posts tagged "lindsey graham"

A Republican Party representative has called for Donald Trump's unlikely ally to have his access to the Oval Office taken away.

Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL) believes Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Senator, should be limited in how much he can speak with the president, The Hill reported. "I absolutely think he should have his Oval Office credentials revoked," Cammick said on Wednesday.

Whether Graham's Oval Office permission is revoked remains to be seen, but the veteran GOP rep has seemingly influenced Trump in a major way.

Democrats and several Republicans have balked at his apparent appetite for military aggression, comparing the Iran war to Iwo Jima, supporting the January operation to capture former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and openly calling for regime change in Cuba.

Graham, who had previously condemned Trump as a "race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot," has since become a close advisor of the president during Trump's second term.

Not only is Graham now an unlikely ally of the president, but also an influential figure and one of the key figures telling Trump to bomb Iran. Speaking with Politico earlier this month, Graham said, "We were thinking about this early, early on about how Iran is a spoiler for expanding the Abraham Accords and stability in the Mideast.

"I told him before he took office… if you can collapse this terrorist regime, that’s Berlin Wall stuff." Graham also claims he managed to cut through the naysayers on bombing Iran and convinced the president it was the right course of action to back Israel in their campaign.

He said, "There was a real fight not to do it. Let Israel do it by itself, or just not do much. So we talked a lot about this: ‘Mr. President, you want to have your fingerprints on this. You want them to know America will fight.' He’s a hard sell, but when you sell him, he’s all in."

Donald Trump's order to strike Iran had been pitched to him as a way to salvage his legacy by an unlikely ally.

The president's administration carried out strikes on the Middle Eastern country earlier this week, confirming the death of ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the process. Six US military personnel have also been killed in counterstrikes carried out by Iran. The bombing campaign on Iran came to be when Lindsey Graham took Trump to task on what he wanted to be his legacy.

Graham, who had previously condemned Trump as a "race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot" has since become a close ally of the president during Trump's second term.

Speaking with Politico, Graham said, "We were thinking about this early, early on about how Iran is a spoiler for expanding the Abraham Accords and stability in the Mideast. I told him before he took office… if you can collapse this terrorist regime, that’s Berlin Wall stuff."

Graham also claims he managed to cut through the naysayers on bombing Iran and convinced the president it was the right course of action to back Israel in their campaign.

He said, "There was a real fight not to do it. Let Israel do it by itself, or just not do much. So we talked a lot about this: ‘Mr. President, you want to have your fingerprints on this. You want them to know America will fight.' He’s a hard sell, but when you sell him, he’s all in."

Graham went on to suggest a regime change would ultimately benefit the US, and that if the new Iranian government takes the same stance as ayatollah Khamenei, the military may intervene again.

"If they want to reconstitute their country, to build more nuclear weapons and more missiles to hit us, we’ll treat the new people like we did the old people," he said. "I just don’t believe it. I think they’re going to find a way to ... be a different country.

"'You break it. You own it.' That may be true for a consignment shop, but it's not true for foreign policy. If there's a threat, break it."