Lindsey Graham Is Now Buddy-Buddy With Saudi Ruler He Called a Murderer
There aren’t many politicians, on either side of the aisle, who have been harder on Mohammed bin Salman than Lindsey Graham. The South Carolina senator squarely blamed the Saudi Arabian crown prince for the 2017 murder of Saudi-born journalist and U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi. “He is irrational, he is unhinged, and I think he has done a lot of damage to the relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia, and I have no intention of working with him ever again,” Graham said a year later, shortly after the CIA concluded bin Salman ordered the brutal assassination.
But there also aren’t many politicians, on either side of the aisle, who are as utterly full of shit as Lindsey Graham, who was all smiles as he met with bin Salman on Tuesday. “I just had a very productive, candid meeting with the Saudi Crown Prince and his senior leadership team,” he wrote on Twitter. “The opportunity to enhance the U.S.-Saudi relationship is real and the reforms going on in Saudi Arabia are equally real.”
“I also expressed deep appreciation to the Kingdom for purchasing $37 billion worth of Boeing 787s — which are made in South Carolina — for the new Saudi airline,” he added. “Investments like this are game changers.”
Here are the new friends laughing it up:
The meeting shouldn’t be particularly shocking considering Graham’s prodigious talent for reneging on his word. It’s true with legislation, with the senator last fall introducing a national abortion ban just weeks after insisting the issue should be left up to the states. It’s also true with his approach to dealing with political figures. Graham famously excoriated former President Donald Trump ahead of the 2016 presidential election — calling him “a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot” who will “destroy” the GOP — before becoming one of his most servile lap dogs.
The list of ways Graham has debased himself in service of Trump is too long to get into here, but most recently he went on Fox News in the wake of the former president getting arrested on charges related to paying off a porn star and seemed on the verge of tears as he begged viewers to help. “Pray for our country. Pray for him,” Graham wailed. “Go to DonaldJTrump.com and give money so he can defend himself.”