How Lindsey Graham Went From Trump Skeptic to Trump Sidekick
“What happened to me?” the senator asks. “Not a damn thing.”
'As the luncheon dishes were placed down, the master of ceremonies kicked off a boisterous round of Lindsey Graham trivia. “What is the senator’s middle name?” . .
When it came Graham’s time to speak, he started out in this long-ingrained lounge-act mode. “I’m from the federal government; I’m here to help,” he said — a Ronald Reagan joke that has been Graham’s preferred icebreaker for years. But after a few minutes of breezy repartee, his tone assumed an edge. “To every Republican, if you don’t stand behind this president, we’re not going to stand behind you,” he said. As the room fell silent, Graham’s voice grew soft, even grave. “This is the defining moment of his presidency,” he said. “It’s not just about a wall. It’s about him being treated different than any other president.”
He continued: “This is a fight between the people who are so smart and the rest of us.” Heads bobbed over unfinished plates of function-room meat drowned in barbecue sauce. The continuing debate over the border wall, he went on, was not just over funding for a barrier, in the same way that the brawl over Brett Kavanaugh, whose Supreme Court appointment had been delayed over allegations of sexual assault, was not merely about a judge.
Nothing of late has enhanced the senator’s standing as a Trump loyalist, or disgust with him among former Democratic collaborators, more than his showstopping speech at the September hearing where Christine Blasey Ford, a high school acquaintance of Kavanaugh’s, accused the future justice of sexually assaulting her at a party. “What you want to do is destroy this guy’s life,” Graham exploded at Senate Democrats, many of whom he had worked with closely for years. Senator Chris Coons, the Delaware Democrat, told me that his longtime colleague is “hysterically funny” and “personally engaging.” But the personal nature of Graham’s outburst at the hearing left him stunned. “It was unprecedented,” Coons said, adding that he and Graham did not speak for several weeks afterward. “I am still struggling to renew my working relationship with Senator Graham,” he added. . .
Graham’s rush to Trump’s side is particularly baffling because not long ago, he was best known for his bipartisan deal-making on issues like climate change and immigration. He subscribed, at least theoretically, to the country-over-party credo of his departed Senate co-conspirator John McCain. McCain’s diagnosis of brain cancer and eventual death coincided approximately with Graham’s emergence as Trump’s most prominent Senate defender and whisperer. This combination of factors gave rise to the “What happened to Lindsey Graham?” question, which has become synonymous enough with the South Carolinian’s national political identity that he felt compelled to own it on the stump.
“What happened to me?” Graham asked in Greenville. “Not a damn thing.” The crowd gave him a standing ovation. . .
“Well, O.K., from my point of view, if you know anything about me, it’d be odd not to do this,” he said.
I asked what “this” was. “ ‘This,’ ” Graham said, “is to try to be relevant.” Politics, he explained, was the art of what works and what brings desired outcomes. “I’ve got an opportunity up here working with the president to get some really good outcomes for the country,” he told me. . .
But after Trump became president, Graham said, forging a relationship with him served his conjoined interests of staying relevant in Washington and getting re-elected in South Carolina. Graham told me that McCain understood his willingness to make peace with Trump, though the extent of Graham’s ingratiation bothered him a bit — especially Graham’s over-the-top praise for Trump’s golfing abilities.
But McCain, more than anyone, knew the value of reconciliation. . .
And McCain, he said, understood better than anyone that few things are more potent in politics than having access to a president, regardless of which one.
“Relevance,” Graham said, returning to the word as if it were a mantra. “That was John McCain’s word.” . .
But to this point, he and Trump have been able to work together. “He’s asked me to do some things, and I’ve asked him to do some things in return,” Graham said. . .
“At the intersection of all this theater is that he wants to be a successful president,” Graham said of Trump, “and I want him to be successful under terms that I think are good for the country.” Understood, but unspoken, was that these terms would also be good for Lindsey Graham.'
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/25/magazine/lindsey-graham-what-happened-trump.html?
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