South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham didn’t quite defend President Trump’s comments urging prominent liberal freshmen congresswomen to “go back” to their home countries during his appearance on Fox & Friends Monday. But the comments are a long way from what he said about Trump in the lead up to the 2016 presidential election.
“‘Progressive’ Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe,” Trump tweeted Sunday morning. “Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came?”
Graham urged the president to “aim higher” with his criticism of the freshmen congresswomen — Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib — but he attacked their policy standpoints.
“We all know AOC and this crowd are a bunch of communists. They hate Israel, they hate our own country. Calling guards along our border, Border Patrol agent concentration cam guards. They accuse people support Israel doing it for the Benjamins,” Graham stated. “They’re anti-Semitic. They’re anti-America. Don’t, aim higher. We don’t need to know anything about them personally. Talk about their policies.”
But, the negative comments he made about the freshmen congresswomen are similar to those he made about Trump in 2015.
A day after Trump announced the “Muslim Ban” in 2015, Graham appeared on CNN’s New Day.
“I want to talk to the Trump supporters for a moment. I don’t know who you are, and I don’t know why you like this guy,” he began. “I think what you like about him is he appears to be strong and the rest of us are weak. He’s a very successful businessman and he’s going to make everything great.”
“He’s a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot,” Graham continued. “He doesn’t represent my party. He doesn’t represents the values that the men and women who wear the uniform are fighting for. … He’s the ISIL man of the year.”
Graham has since denounced those comments.
