While the U.S. strikes on Iran this month may have been authorized by President Donald Trump, a behind-the-scenes campaign by one MAGA lawmaker may have played an outsized role in the president’s decision, journalist Prem Thakker argued Monday in an analysis published in Zeteo — prompting him to ask the question: “Who is the real president?”
The MAGA lawmaker in question was none other than Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), one of the loudest voices pushing for military action against Iran ahead of the U.S. strike.
“Graham’s PR role for Trump’s war is all the more interesting given his apparent role in making the war happen,” Thakker wrote. “The efforts have been as pathetically paternalistic as Graham reportedly playing a word-association game with our man-child president, encouraging him to go to war.”
According to reporting from The Wall Street Journal, Graham had favorably compared Trump to former President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and went on to reference the former president’s iconic line – “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself” – in an effort to push Trump into authorizing a strike on Iran. He also reportedly pushed Trump to identify a quote of his own that may be favorably compared to Roosevelt’s.
“At one point, Graham reportedly asked Trump what his phrase would be,” Thakker wrote. “After Trump said he didn’t know, Graham reportedly offered: ‘Keep protesting, help is on the way,’ in reference to Trump’s own social media post from January prodding Iranians to protest their government.”
While Graham had publicly called for U.S. intervention in Iran countless times, behind the scenes, he was also in regular contact with Israeli officials, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom he reportedly coached on how to convince Trump to attack Iran, per the Journal.
“Graham, a US senator, coached a foreign leader on how to get the leader of the United States to enter a war of choice on the foreign leader’s behalf,” Thakker wrote. “Neither here nor there, the US Constitution defines treason ‘as levying war against the United States.’”
Graham has a long record of backing military action against other nations throughout his career, including against Iran, Iraq, Libya, Mexico, North Korea, Syria and Venezuela, among other nations.
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