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New audio has leaked of Senator Lindsey Graham revealing his feelings about Biden and Trump.
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In an interview after the Capitol riot, Graham is heard saying he thinks Biden is the “best person” to have.
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Graham also hears criticism of Trump in another tape, saying he “plays the TV game” and “went too far”.
New tapes have surfaced of Senator Lindsey Graham, a known Trump ally, criticizing Trump and praising Biden after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
The tapes were played on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360” during an interview segment with New York Times reporters Alex Burns and Jonathan Martin. Martin interviewed Graham on January 6 right after the riots, and the senator spoke candidly about then-President-elect Joe Biden and the former president, Trump.
In the first audio clip, Graham said he thought everyone would “come out of this stronger”.
“Moments like this reset. People will calm down. People will say, ‘I don’t want to be associated with that,'” Graham said. “This is a group within a group. What this does will have a rally effect for a while, (then) the country says, ‘We are better than this.’
He was then asked if Biden would help make that happen, to which Graham said, “Absolutely.”
“He might be the best person to have,” Graham is heard to say. “I mean, how mad can you get at Joe Biden?”
In a second tape played on CNN, Graham is heard in a post-riot interview that he thought Trump “misjudged the passion,” criticizing the former president’s actions.
“He’s playing the TV game and he went too far here,” Graham said. “That rally didn’t help. Talking about giving way to Liz (Cheney.) He created a sense of revenge.”
Graham was likely referring to part of Trump’s January 6, 2021 speech at the Ellipse, when Trump suggested that his supporters “lead all hell” out of those not fighting to topple the election.
Graham is known as a staunch ally of the former president. Graham, however, may have had a more complicated view of Trump. In Burns and Martin’s new book “This Will Not Pass,” they allege that Graham threatened to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office during the Capitol riots. Trump later mocked Graham, calling him a “progressive senator from South Carolina” at a March fundraising dinner in Mar-a-Lago.
Graham has also publicly criticized Trump for raising the possibility of a pardon for Capitol rioters, calling Trump’s idea “inappropriate.” This prompted Trump to call Graham a RINO, a GOP insult that means “Republican in name only.” The term has often been used against Trump critics such as GOP representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger.
Read the original article on Business Insider
