Supporters of former President Trump booed and called South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham (right) a ‘traitor’ at a rally in the senator’s home state on Saturday.
“Thank you all for coming. Thank you so much,” Graham said in response to a chorus of boos at the rally for the former president in Pickens, SC.
“Just calm down for a second. I think you’ll like it,” he added, after waiting several minutes for the crowd to settle in vain.
Graham, who has had an on-and-off relationship with Trump over the years, touted the “common ground” he and the former president found on Saturday.
“It took a while to get there, but let me tell you what happened,” he said. “I’ve come to love President Trump and he loves himself and we have that in common. And I’m going to help him become President of the United States.
“So let me tell you how you win an election, you bring people together who disagree all the time to agree on the most important things,” Graham added. “I hope we can throw this party because he will be our candidate.”
The South Carolina senator, who at one point called Trump a “xenophobic and racist religious fanatic” during the 2016 campaign, became one of the president’s strongest supporters in the Senate during his administration.
Graham briefly turned on Trump after the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. However, he eventually endorsed the former president’s bid for the White House in 2024.
The senator recently defended Trump against two indictments, saying last month that the latest charges made the former president “stronger” than before.
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