He posted on Twitter: “If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed … and we will deserve it.” He also dismissed Trump as a “jackass”, “a race-baiting bigot” and “the most flawed nominee in the history of the Republican party”. Trump retorted that the South Carolina senator was an “idiot” and a “lightweight”.

But when it became clear that Trump was unstoppable, Graham fell into line. He was flattered to be invited to fly on the Marine One helicopter, regularly played golf with the president, and became a valued interlocutor between the White House and Congress. In 2018 he was an outspoken defender of Trump’s embattled nominee for the supreme court, Brett Kavanaugh.

That same year witnessed the death of John McCain, a close friend of Graham’s and a bitter rival of Trump. Reed Galen, who was deputy campaign manager for McCain’s presidential campaign, believes this moment was pivotal. “He’s always needed a north star and until John McCain died, it was John McCain,” Galen said.

“I’ve always gotten the sense, having worked for Senator McCain, that after Senator McCain died Graham was searching for who the next star was he was going to hitch his wagon to, and it’s been Trump.”

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Jon Hoffman, a research fellow in defence and foreign policy with the Cato Institute, a libertarian-leaning thinktank in Washington, told the Associated Press: “You’re seeing essentially a child on Christmas morning who has gotten everything that he’s ever dreamed of. And that’s not best for the country, obviously, but it’s best for Lindsey Graham’s ideology.”

A nice article about how Lindsey Graham is a slimy cowardly evil person through and through.