What keeps Republican presidential candidate South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham up at night?
Speaking in Spartanburg, S.C., on Monday, Graham said President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran has been the source of many sleepless nights.
“Of all the things that keep me up at night, and there’s a lot to choose from, this is the one that bothers me the most,” the White House hopeful told an intimate group of voters at the North Spartanburg Rotary Club.
Graham, who is struggling to win over voters in his home state despite his recent promise to “beat [Donald Trump’s] brains out” in a fight for South Carolinians’ support, continued to rebuke the President’s executive agreement with Iran Monday and promised to do everything within his power to stall its implementation.
“We are on the verge of empowering a nuclear regime and because of their religious beliefs they would actually use a weapon if they develop it,” Graham said Monday.
“But this can all be avoided, this is not inevitable,” he added.
If Congress is unable to stop the deal when it reconvenes in September, Graham says he will “find ways to slow [it] down” and provide the next president with with the tools to negotiate a better one.
“To those who say we would isolate ourselves if we withdrew from this deal hoping to get a better one, tell me how you isolate America?” he asked, before adding that it can’t be done.
“I don’t believe you can isolate us, but I believe we can make your life difficult if you continue to do business with a regime bent on making our life difficult,” Graham said.
The characteristically hawkish senator, who believes “almost anybody running could get a better deal, including [Democratic front-runner] Hillary Clinton,” told the audience that with the current deal in place, the U.S. is essentially bankrolling leading terrorist organizations.
“You might as well write a check to Assad, Hezbollah, and Hamas because that’s where the money is going to go to in large part,” he said. “If a man tells you he wants to cut your throat, you don’t buy him a knife [but] that’s what the Obama Administration has done.”
“This regime slaughtered its own people in 2009,” he added. “If they would kill their own kids, what do you think they would do to yours?”
Congress is set to vote on the agreement between the U.S., Iran and five other countries when it returns from recess next month. Following Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley’s announcement Sunday that he plans to join other Democrats voting in favor of the deal, the Administration is just three votes shy of a Senate vote that would render Republicans incapable of overcoming his veto.
According to a Quinnipiac University poll released Monday, 56 percent of Americans believe Obama’s deal with Iran makes the world “less safe” and 55 percent oppose the deal altogether.
Fresh off a two-day swing through New Hampshire, Graham will file for South Carolina’s first-of-the-South Republican primary on Tuesday. The state GOP currently requires that presidential candidates sign a “loyalty oath,” ruling out a third-party run and pledging to support the eventual GOP nominee, before their name is included on the Feb. 20 ballot.
