All of Lindsey Graham’s Flagrantly Self-Serving Flip-Flops on Trump: A 5-Act Play

Graham hated Trump. Then loved him. Then spread his lies. Then abandoned him. Then got screamed at.

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham used to be dismissive of Donald Trump—like other Republicans who thought Candidate Trump was a flash in the pan, an aberration to be laughed off or ridiculed. In 2015, Graham appeared on the channel he’s called “fake news,” CNN. “There’s only one way to make America great again,” he said. “Tell Donald Trump to go to hell.”

As Trump’s violent mob descended onto the Capitol on January 6, many of his chief enablers have tried to gaslight their way into back into America’s good graces—including Graham. After Biden’s convincing win in November 2020, Graham was a strident supporter of Trump’s big lie that there was widespread fraud, and became an outspoken attack dog for the president on cable television. “President Trump should not concede,” Graham said in November, before deploying full-blown “push back” and “fight” rhetoric leading up to the insurrection.

But after the violent siege last week, Graham apparently saw the light: “Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are lawfully elected,” he stated on the Senate floor, mere hours after the attack. Just days before, the senator was campaigning in Georgia and encouraging supporters to “send a signal the squad can understand.”

It’s an impressive amount of flagrant, self-serving flip-flopping. And perhaps President Obama said it best in his memoir, released at the end of last year: “Lindsey’s the guy who double-crosses everyone to save his own skin.”

We collected all the receipts. Watch this 5-act play above.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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