00:00Joining us now is Bloomberg Congressional reporter Eric Wasson.
00:02And Eric, I want to start with this dynamic that was really kind of characteristic of Lindsey Graham.
00:06At a time of great isolationism in the Republican Party, he was an avowed interventionalist, traveling around the world.
00:13As Christina just mentioned, most recently in Ukraine, his passion was that.
00:18And I wonder if you could talk a bit about the role that he played in the U.S. Senate
00:21over his four terms in the Senate.
00:23Yeah, first of all, I just want to say I'm shocked by this news.
00:26He was a very nice person in the hallway, very personable and friendly.
00:30And I'm very surprised and saddened by it.
00:32He wasn't interventionalist, much in the mold of Mitch McConnell and the late John McCain, a breed of Republican that
00:38seems to be phasing out in the American First era.
00:41He just announced a Russia sanctions bill that he's going to try to push in the Senate on Friday after
00:46a meeting with Vladimir Zelensky in Ukraine.
00:51Very much an interventionist, very much a war hawk.
00:54You know, he was very much in favor of the bombing of Iran, of trying to replace the regime there.
00:59Just a very assertive foreign policy voice that's going to leave that faction of the party without a very, very
01:06clear champion right now in the debates to come.
01:10Someone also a senior appropriator, someone who, you know, fought to increase the military budget,
01:17as well as, you know, leading one of the leaders on the massive Republican tax cuts that that went through.
01:23So, you know, this is going to lead an opening in the Senate.
01:27I'm hearing from a source that Joe Wilson, the representative, senior representative on the House side, is very much interested
01:34in running for this seat.
01:35It'll be a special primary and could be appointed by Governor McMaster in the coming days.
01:41You know, it's hard to see who else from the delegation could really unite the group.
01:46Nancy Mace and Ralph Norman are two other Republicans that are prominent in the delegation they ran against each other
01:52for governor.
01:53So, you know, it's very much a developing story.
01:56But this is someone, one of the biggest personalities, biggest characters in the Senate, and he's going to be going
02:00to be missed by his colleagues, I think.
02:02And Joe Wilson, for those who are not familiar with him, I remember I wrote a piece back in 2009.
02:07He was the gentleman who shouted out, you lie, during Obama's joint address to Congress, which at the time was
02:12controversial for heated political rhetoric, how the ball has moved in that time.
02:16But I first met Lindsey Graham.
02:18And his son is likely to be the next governor.
02:20Alan Wilson won the GP prime.
02:22So it's the potential rise of the Wilson dynasty.
02:25Be something to watch there.
02:26I mean, we were talking before we came on the air.
02:28I first met Senator Graham in 2016 when he was endorsing Jeb Bush for president and fighting very strongly against
02:36a candidate he didn't believe in, and that was Donald Trump.
02:39I have pulled some quotes from him this morning in that era saying that Trump was reckless and he says
02:45things that don't make sense.
02:46Can you talk a little bit about Graham's political evolution and his evolving friendship with President Trump?
02:53Trump is quoted as saying he's one of his best friends.
02:56How did we get there?
02:57You know, it's been up and down, their relationship.
03:00Certainly, Graham, early on, I remember being at a big gala dinner in Washington where he was on C-SPAN
03:05where he made fun of President Trump.
03:07You know, then he became a backer.
03:09And then after the January 6th riots, he was very critical, even saying he's done with the precedent.
03:14I'm very upset with the way that that was handled.
03:16This was the January 6th riot protesting Biden's victory that resulted in the beating up of cops.
03:23And then Graham went back into the fold.
03:25I think Graham always wanted to be in the mix, wanted to be influential.
03:29And he felt, you know, it was his duty, especially given the views he had on Israel, strong supporter of
03:35Israel, Iran, and the rest of the foreign policy portfolio to be influential and be close to the president.
03:41And so I think, you know, and he continued to push that even until his last dying breaths here, you
03:48know, pushing this Russia sanctions bill that had been stalled for years, but saying that it was going to move
03:53forward on Friday to sort of try to force Vladimir Putin to make a peace in Ukraine.
03:58Eric, last question here.
03:59Christina asking about that friendship, the evolution of that friendship.
04:02He was also a very useful person for President Trump to have in the U.S. Senate.
04:05He chaired the Judiciary Committee for many years and really worked quite ardently to enact what President Trump wanted to
04:13see.
04:13A lot more judges confirmed by that committee.
04:16Talk a bit about that, if you would.
04:17Just the way that he executed the policy vision of this president.
04:21Oh, I know.
04:22I think, you know, he was chairman during the Brett Kavanaugh hearings, very much defending Kavanaugh who came under attacks
04:27for his behavior as a teenager, you know, and that really set him up to be an ally again of
04:35President Trump.
04:36So I think he's always, you know, he's a traditional conservative in many, many ways, you know, having fought for
04:42the tax cuts, even though he once was a deficit hawk and these tax cuts cost $4 trillion, he quickly
04:48got behind them and made them happen, you know, by adjusting the way that they were accounted for.
04:55So, you know, he was obviously someone who always fought to be at the center of everything.
05:00And I would say someone who actually believed in the free media, he was someone who talked to reporters who
05:04believed, you know, that we're not the enemies of the people, and I did appreciate that.
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