Graham's U-turns have Senate colleagues fed up: 'Annoying,' 'tiresome'
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Source: The Hill
02/19/24 6:00 AM ET
Republican and Democratic senators who have worked for years with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) are fuming over his decision to oppose a $95 billion defense and foreign aid package. Architects of the bill saw Graham’s support as crucial to mustering a majority of Republican senators to vote for it and apply as much pressure as possible on Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to bring it up on the House floor.
With Graham voting no, the bill fell short of that goal even with 22 GOP votes in favor, and now it is considered unlikely to pass the House. Senators who thought Graham was on their side feel like he pulled the rug out from under them, especially after last year, when he railed on the Senate floor about a budget deal including “not a penny” for the war in Ukraine.
Some saw Graham as making a blatant effort to curry favor with former President Trump, who lobbied senators last week to oppose the package to deny President Biden a political win.
One Democratic senator who was involved in strategizing for the bill said Graham “was supposed to be the guy” who would work to double Republican support for the bill. The senator explained “the way this was supposed to work was they were going to have” 60 votes for the bill, including 10 Republicans, and “he was supposed to bring the second 10” GOP votes, “and then in the last week he became part of the 10 that you couldn’t even count” as possible yes votes.
Read more: https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4476241-grahams-u-turns-have-senate-colleagues-fed-up-annoying-tiresome/
The only one who could control him was John McCain.
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