(Headline USA) Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., praised President Joe Biden as the “best person” to lead and unite the country after the Jan. 6 Capitol protests, according to an audio recording.
In the audio, which was obtained by New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns, Graham was asked whether he thinks Biden would be better than former President Donald Trump at rallying the country back together.
“Totally, he’ll be maybe the best person to have, right?” Graham responds. “I mean, how mad can you get at Joe Biden?”
Graham also predicted the GOP would “actually come out of this stronger.”
“Moments like this reset,” he said. “People will calm down. People will say, ‘I don’t want to be associated with that.’”
“This is a group within a group,” he said of the Jan. 6 Capitol rioters. “What this does, there will be a rallying effect for a while … the country says, ‘We’re better than this.’”
Graham publicly blasted Trump in a speech on the Senate floor after the Capitol protests, blaming him for the mob that broke through the Capitol barriers, even though Trump never encouraged such mob behavior and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., oversaw Capitol Police.
“Trump and I, we had a hell of a journey,” he said at the time.
“I hate it being this way. Oh my God, I hate it. But today, all I can say is count me out,” Graham said. “Enough is enough. I tried to be helpful.”
However, he has since reiterated his support for Trump. Last May, he insisted that the GOP cannot “move forward” without Trump.
“I would just say to my Republican colleagues, can we move forward without President Trump? The answer is no,” he told Fox News.
He also launched a “Draft Trump” movement to encourage the former president to run for the White House again in 2024.
“I miss Donald Trump,” Graham said last year.
“I hope he’s considering running. Let’s start a ‘Draft Trump’ movement. He’s the only guy I think can go to the American people and say, ‘Let me finish what I started. What I did worked.’”
