Donald Trump has a Mini Me named Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC). The senator loyally appears on the Sunday morning talk shows to support the president’s plans, however ill-gotten. The part of him blindly following Trump is his belief that the party in power has certain rights, and part is due to his own upcoming race for senator. Still, his best friend in the Senate, Senator John McCain (deceased), must be wondering how his influence on the South Carolinian rubbed off so quickly.
ABC’s host on Face the Nation Margaret Brennan asked Graham about the president’s shutdown. Then, the senator referred to the new-again House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s comment about just giving Trump “one dollar for the wall:”
‘Yeah. It was pretty clear to me that we’re never going to have a deal unless we get a wall as part of it. Dick Durbin is a reasonable guy, but he’s not leading this parade. We’re having to negotiate with people who want to abolish ICE, not support ICE. We’re having to negotiate with people who see the Border Patrol agents gassing children, rather than defending our borders as professional law enforcement officers and we’re negotiating with people who will give us one dollar for the wall, even though it’s immoral and accuse all of us who support a wall as part of border security as racist. As long as the radical left is in charge we’re never going to get anywhere. The president will compromise but he will not capitulate. So that’s where we’re at.’
Something must have broken loose in Graham during the Kavanaugh Supreme Court hearings, when he went near-rabid against the Democrats. Rudely, he interrupted Brennan before she could get her entire question out. She asked him about specific Democrats.
Graham responded that Pelosi had “made progress” going from “not a penny to a dollar:”
‘Dick Durbin is a good guy. He’s a reasonable guy. But Nancy Pelosi has made progress. She’s gone from not a penny to a dollar. Nancy Pelosi sees the border crisis as manufactured. President Trump sees it as real. Until we see the same movie you’re never going to reach a conclusion. The president is right to dig in to get money for a wall as part of border security. It will not be a concrete wall it will be steel barriers. And every plan I’ve supported in the past with Dick Durbin has had money for physical barriers including walls and fences. Except now when Trump is president.’
Brennan asked the senator about the Coast Guard whose members will not be paid. He answered “They’re being held hostage” and went back to his “radical left” rant:
‘I do want to open up the government but the goal is not to open up the government. The goal is to fix a broken immigration system to bring reality to this table. That ICE is not the problem, it’s the solution. The goal is to repair a damaged, broken immigration system. It’s to implement policies Democrats have voted for in the past on President Trump’s watch. We’re not going to give in to this radical left – ever – until we can find a rational way forward. We’ll have wall as part of a border security plan. We’re going nowhere. Wall plus DACA plus TPS makes sense. But you’ll never convince me–‘
Then, the host asked if Trump would trade “DACA and TPS (Temporary Protected Status)” for a wall. Graham answered:
‘Yeah. But what he’s not open to is a lecture by the Speaker of the House. I’ll give you a dollar. He’s not open to the people on the left accusing his Border Patrol agents of being Gestapo agents gassing children. He’s not open to the idea that the wall is immoral. So if you bring Dick Durbin’s to the table, we’ll fix this.’
Brennan asked “When would we see that put on the table?” Then, Graham responded:
‘When you see Dick Durbin and others in the room not a bunch of staffers. When you see this rhetoric that those who want to build a wall are racists stop. When you see the idea one dollar is enough for the wall. When that stuff ends, the real negotiations begin. Right now, the people running the show on the left are radical, liberal Democrats who don’t see a border security problem. They see their own government being the problem, not the illegal immigrant. Until that changes, we’ll never get anywhere. There is a deal to be had here, but it will include a wall. And if there is no wall in this deal we’ll never have a deal.’
Featured image is a screenshot via YouTube.
