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Lindsey Graham melts down on air over book passage that calls Trump a ‘fascist’

South Carolina senator claims Republicans backing Harris are ‘supporting the most radical nominee in the history of American politics’

Gustaf Kilander
Washington DC
Monday 21 October 2024 19:29
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Lindsey Graham melts down on air over book passage labelling Trump a ‘fascist’

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South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham grew irate on Sunday during an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press after he was reminded that a four-star general called former President Donald Trump “fascist to the core.”

Host Kristen Welker noted to Graham that retired General Mark Milley told Watergate journalist Bob Woodward that no one has ever posed more danger to the US than Trump.

“Why shouldn’t voters trust Donald Trump’s top general on this, Senator?” Welker asked.

“You know what I fear? I fear four more years of Biden-Harris policy,” Graham pushed back.

“To General Milley, you have a right to your opinion, but I don’t fear Donald Trump,” he added.

The senator went on to say that voters should support Vice President Kamala Harris “if you want the world to stay on fire.”

Welker recalled that Graham had previously said that he had “deep admiration and total confidence” in Milley and that former Trump Chief of Staff John Kelly had said that the then-President wanted to use the FBI and the IRS to go after his political opponents.

Lindsey Graham appears on Meet the Press and got angry when part of a book was read to him
Lindsey Graham appears on Meet the Press and got angry when part of a book was read to him (Screenshot / NBC News)

Graham said these were “Democratic talking points” and that “the generals” were wrong about the former president.

Speaking to “every Republican supporting” Harris, Graham asked, “What the hell are you doing?”

“You’re supporting the most radical nominee in the history of American politics,” he claimed. “What are you doing? You’re trying to convince me that Donald Trump’s rhetoric is the danger to this country?”

“The danger to this country is the policies of Biden and Harris,” he said.

“And I can’t take four more years of this crap. You support her, you’re supporting four more years of garbage policy,” Graham argued.

“So what the hell are you doing as a Republican blessing this stuff?” he asked.

Woodward wrote in his new book War that Milley requested a meeting with the then-new Attorney General Merrick Garland in early 2021 to push him to investigate far-right militias and domestic violent extremism. The journalist noted that Milley was “deeply convinced” that Trump was still “a danger to the country” even after he left office in January 2021 following the Capitol riot.

According to Woodward, the reporter met Milley at the Willard Hotel in downtown Washington, DC, in March last year.

“No one has ever been as dangerous to this country,” Milley told Woodward.

“Do you realize, do you see what this man is?” he asked.

Milley was also a source for Woodward’s previous book Peril.

“He is the most dangerous person ever. I had suspicions when I talked to you about his mental decline and so forth, but now I realize he’s a total fascist. He is now the most dangerous person to this country,” he said.

“A fascist to the core,” he added.

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