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Republican U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, one of the most anti-LGBTQ+ members of Congress, has recently been the subject of hot debate on whether it’s OK to discuss questions around his sexual orientation or whether or not he’s hired male sex workers who call him Lady G. Regardless of what you think, there’s no denying that Sen. Graham certainly puts the q in drama queen.
Graham has mastered the art of outrage. There is no fainting couch upon which Graham won’t thrust himself to express the level of anger he performs when he wants to make a point.
Here are nine times Graham was just so darn dramatic.
As the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination, two people turned angry and beet red during the hearing: Brett Kavanaugh and Lindsey Graham.
Kavanaugh had already been accused of sexual assault by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who spoke to the committee earlier.
“To my Republican colleagues, if you vote no, you’re legitimizing the most despicable thing I have seen in my time in politics,” Graham roared during the hearing.
The quote was part of Graham’s shockingly passionate speech when he questioned Kavanaugh about allegations that he assaulted Christine Blasey Ford over 30 years ago. Kavanaugh denied the allegations.
Graham didn’t question Kavanaugh but instead gave a detailed defense of the nominee, expressing remorse for how he and his family have been treated and condemning the politics which put him there.
“This is the most unethical sham since I’ve been in politics, and if you really wanted to know the truth, you sure as hell wouldn’t have done what you’ve done to this guy!” Graham said with a furious expression.
During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing to examine "targeted killing" and the rule of law, Graham got into an argument with Hina Shamsi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's National Security Project. The senator defended the drone war by clutching his pearls against anyone who dared to criticize it.
There's only a "matter of time" before terrorists infiltrate the U.S. and kill us, says the senator from South Carolina.
"It's just a matter of time until some terrorist group — probably from Afghanistan, maybe from Syria, maybe from Afghanistan, maybe from Somalia — works its way through our southern border to kill a bunch of us," Graham announced. "America's threat from radical Islam has gone up, not down, our policies in containing the threat are not working, Afghanistan is a breeding ground for terrorism as I speak, everybody that we work with is being slaughtered, and we want to talk about closing Gitmo and restricting the drone program?" Graham ended, "You're living a dream world!"
Graham added a layer of danger to the complicated decisions Justice Department officials face regarding the investigation into Trump’s handling of classified information when Graham predicted there would be riots in the streets if the DOJ prosecuted former President Donald J. Trump.
During a Fox News appearance, Graham compared the Trump investigation to the Justice Department’s decision not to prosecute Hillary Clinton in 2016 for using a private server for State Department communications. The State Department concluded in 2019 that classified information had not been mishandled on purpose or a systematic basis.
“If they try to prosecute President Trump for mishandling classified information after Hillary Clinton set up a server in her basement, there literally will be riots in the street. I worry about our country,” he said.
"Trump is a fucking idiot," Graham exclaimed (seemingly eagerly) on live television, adding, "Sorry to the kids out there" as the South Carolina senator feigned outrage that former Department of Justice attorney Lisa Page and former FBI agent Peter Strzok had engaged in a text conversation in which Strzok used those words in the time leading up to the 2016 election. Networks that had carried the hearing live had to apologize to their listeners for the midday obscenity.
In a rare early Sunday morning exchange, Graham accused New Hampshire Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan of being dishonest and deceitful and vowed, “We’re going to call you out.”
Graham admonished Hassan, a Democratic senator facing a competitive reelection race this year, for proposing an alternative to his amendment striking a 16.4-cent-a-barrel tax on imported petroleum products.
“This gives phony and cynical a bad name,” Graham exclaimed when Hassan introduced her amendment.
Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy sternly warned Graham to refrain from impugning the motives of a fellow senator in response to Graham’s outburst.
The previous Friday, Graham warned Democrats that the budget reconciliation debate and vote-a-rama would be “hell.”
His 15-week abortion ban, which he pitched in September, had the opposite effect of uniting the Republican Party. Instead, it outraged Democrats and some Republicans alike.
His bill limiting abortion access was the first of his party to be introduced in Congress in light of the ruling invalidating Roe v. Wade this summer. After the Supreme Court struck down a nationwide right to terminate pregnancies, Graham's bill attempted to work around Republican Party divisions over whether Congress should even enforce abortion laws. To show support for anti-abortion activists, he introduced the measure.
Republican colleagues expressed amazement at Graham's decision, which is more conservative than his previous proposals, at such a precarious time.
At the end of a half-hour-long listing of nothing but grievances, Graham stormed out of a confirmation hearing for then-Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson, crying out that he wanted the prison at Guantánamo Bay to remain open forever.
During his question-and-answer session, Graham aired a range of conservative grievances and appeared to find several reasons not to vote to confirm Jackson to the high court.
Jackson’s prior experience representing detainees at Guantánamo Bay as a public defender provided Graham with the needed setup.
Graham also asserted that the recidivism rate of detainees discharged from the camp is extremely high, justifying the need to keep the base open while the war on terror continues.
In addition to arguing about recidivism, he demanded that Sen. Dick Durbin declare whether he supported the “indefinite detention” of Gitmo prisoners in federal prisons, claiming they were combatants in a world war.
As Graham stood from his chair, grabbed his drink, and left, Jackson remained silent during the awkward exchange.
According to Graham, it could be one of the “greatest political comebacks in American history” if former President Donald Trump wins the 2024 U.S. presidential election.
Graham says he told the former president that he didn’t stand a chance of winning the 2020 election but could in 2024.
“I’m literally telling you what I tell him,” Graham told CNBC.
“If you lose again, the history about who you are and what you did dramatically changes,” he said. “If you come back, it will be one of the greatest political comebacks in American history. And if you get four more years, you can do big stuff.”
After saying he was done with Trump shortly after the violent insurrection on the U.S. Capitol, Lindsey Graham made one of the most outrageous flip-flops ever.
During an interview with Axios on HBO, Graham told Jonathan Swan, “Donald Trump was my friend before the riot, and I’m trying to keep a relationship with him after the riot. I still consider him a friend. What happened was a dark day in American history, and we’re going to move forward, so here’s what you need to know about me … I want this to continue. I want us to continue the policies that I think will make America strong. I believe the best way for the Republican Party to do that is with Trump, not without Trump.”
