President Donald Trump hijacked a Fox News tribute to Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), ranting about voter fraud for four minutes while falsely claiming Graham had been warming to killing the Senate filibuster.
Graham, a South Carolina Republican, died Saturday at 71 of a sudden aortic dissection, hours after returning from Ukraine. Fox News had Trump on Monday morning to pay tribute.
Instead, Trump used Graham’s death to push his stalled voter ID legislation — the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act — and to demand senators kill the filibuster to pass it.
Graham had publicly and repeatedly opposed eliminating the filibuster, warning it would trigger court-packing and abolish the Electoral College. Trump didn’t mention that, and instead, he told Fox viewers Graham had been coming around.
“He was very strong on fighting for the SAVE America Act,” Trump said. “He really became the primary advocate for it. And I think he would have felt the same way about terminating the filibuster.”
About a minute in, host Lawrence Jones tried to steer things back.
“And Mr. President, did you know the senator —” Jones began.
Trump kept going.
“He was really coming a long way on the terminating the filibuster,” Trump continued. “The SAVE America Act — it’s voter ID. It’s proof of citizenship. Look what happened to the kid in California. They sent a million ballots. Nobody knows where they came from.”
Nearly two minutes in, Jones tried again.
“Yeah —” the host offered.
Trump kept going, pivoting to baselessly allege fraud in a California congressional race.
Jones cut in.
“But Mr. President, did you notice anything different?” Jones pressed.
Trump ignored him again. “Millions and millions of ballots. It’s impossible,” he said, then turned to a California candidate he claimed had been robbed. “He said he thought he won. I said, why didn’t you complain?”
At the two-minute mark, Jones managed a single utterance.
“Mhmm —” Jones said.
Trump rolled on — into Republican candidate Steve Hilton’s California governor’s race, claiming he’d personally called in the FBI to stop ballot fraud there.
“I said, here we go. They’re gonna find ballots,” Trump said.
Nearly three minutes in, Jones tried once more.
“So Mr. — so Mr. President, real quickly, did you notice anything different from Lindsey —” Jones pleaded.
Trump talked over the Fox News host.
After three and a half minutes, co-host Griff Jenkins finally broke through, steering the conversation to Graham’s defense of Brett Kavanaugh’s U.S. Supreme Court confirmation.
“He was totally against me,” Trump said of Graham’s 2016 primary challenge. “I’ll get you in South Carolina. That didn’t work out too well.”
Then Trump recalled Graham’s moment of doubt on Jan. 6 — and scored it.
“So I gave him a 99 instead of a 100,” Trump said.
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