Ever since the once-RINO GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina became the scrappier so-called Lindsey Graham 2.0 during the Trump years, conservatives have mostly held their fire. After all, in a field of politics, where the motto could be “what have you done for me lately?”, Graham has done a good deal.
However, that history still lingers — and it re-emerged after Graham became one of the most prominent Republicans denouncing presumptive party presidential nominee Donald Trump for what some conservative commentators saw as a fence-sitting position on abortion.
Trump being Trump — and political elephants having long memories — excoriated Graham on Monday for “the millions of people dying in senseless, never-ending Wars that he constantly favors and promotes” and said “what he doesn’t understand, or perhaps he does, is the Radical Left Democrats, who are destroying our Country, will never approve anything that he or the Republicans want” and that they “love this issue, and they want to keep it going for as long as Republicans will allow them to do so.”
The back-and-forth came after the former and possibly future president made a pitch for his position on abortion Monday in a video posted to Truth Social.
“My view is now that we have abortion where everybody wanted it from a legal standpoint,” Trump said. “The states will determine by vote or legislation or perhaps both, and whatever they decide must be the law of the land. In this case, the law of the state.
“Many states will be different. Many will have a different number of weeks or some will have more conservative than others and that’s what they will be,” he continued.
“At the end of the day, this is all about the will of the people. You must follow your heart, or in many cases, your religion or your faith.”
WATCH: Trump releases new statement on abortion policy, saying abortion restrictions should be left to states. Do you agree? pic.twitter.com/hCv13xgt1h
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) April 8, 2024
“We have to bring our nation back from the brink, and that’s where it is,” he said. “Always go by your heart, but we must win. We have to win.”
Do you think Trump is right about abortion?
This position — as well as the fact Trump made it clear in the video that he was calculating the political risks and rewards of supporting a federal 15-week or post-first trimester abortion ban, at the very least, and deciding against it — led to plenty of backlash from both the left and, more importantly, the right.
“I actually think he’s taken the worst possible political position,” said former George W. Bush speechwriter Matthew Dowd in an appearance on MSNBC, according to The Hill. “But from a political perspective, he would have been better off, I think, going for a 15-week or a 16-week federal policy on this because he can still motivate and there are some swing voters that agree with that online market.”
It wasn’t just ex-politicos like Dowd who were criticizing him, either.
“I respectfully disagree with President Trump’s statement that abortion is a states’ rights issue,” Graham wrote in on X. “Dobbs does not require that conclusion legally and the pro-life movement has always been about the wellbeing of the unborn child – not geography.
“The states’ rights only rationale today runs contrary to an American consensus that would limit late-term abortions and will age about as well as the Dred Scott decision,” he continued. “The science is clear – a child at fifteen weeks is well-developed and is capable of feeling pain.”
The states’ rights only rationale today runs contrary to an American consensus that would limit late-term abortions and will age about as well as the Dred Scott decision.
The science is clear – a child at fifteen weeks is well-developed and is capable of feeling pain.
— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) April 8, 2024
Graham went on to write that he’d push for a “national minimum standard” for banning abortion while noting that most other Western nations have far stricter abortion laws than America’s.
However, until we achieve this goal, the least we can do is to provide anesthesia to an unborn child facing an abortion at fifteen weeks because they can feel pain. Therefore, I will be introducing new legislation requiring abortion providers to administer anesthesia to an unborn…
— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) April 8, 2024
“Forty-seven of fifty European nations have national limits on abortion between twelve and fifteen weeks. This is the civilized world’s position,” he wrote.
However, until we achieve this goal, the least we can do is to provide anesthesia to an unborn child facing an abortion at fifteen weeks because they can feel pain. Therefore, I will be introducing new legislation requiring abortion providers to administer anesthesia to an unborn…
— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) April 8, 2024
Trump didn’t spare any of his Republican critics his ire, but special vitriol was reserved for Lindsey Graham.
“Senator Lindsey Graham should spend more time focusing on all of the many people being killed because of our now non-existent Border, and the millions of people dying in senseless, never-ending Wars that he constantly favors and promotes, and should spend less time on taking away our Great Roe v. Wade Victory of sending a complicated and controversial Issue back to the States where, according to Highly Respected Legal Scholars on both sides, it belongs,” he wrote in one Truth Social post.
“The Democrats are thrilled with Lindsey, because they want this Issue to simmer for as long a period of time as possible. They are destroying our Country, and they don’t want to talk about Inflation, a Bad Economy, the Horrible Open Border, Rigged Elections, Afghanistan, Ukraine/Russia, or the Attack on Israel, all of which would never have happened if I were President. Great job Lindsey!”
He went on to say in a subsequent post that Graham’s positions themselves had shifted on the issue — and that his political stance was actually doing “great disservice” to the United States by handing Democrats an issue they can use to further an agenda that’s doing incalculable damage to the country.
Trump wrote that the South Carolina senator is “doing a great disservice to the Republican Party, and to our Country. At first he wanted no Abortions under any circumstances, then he was up to 6 weeks, where you’re allowed Abortion, now he’s up to 15 weeks, where you’re allowed Abortion, but what he doesn’t understand, or perhaps he does, is the Radical Left Democrats, who are destroying our Country, will never approve anything that he or the Republicans want.”
Nor did Trump let the issue go easily, as it turned out:
You get the idea.
Now, it’s true that these two things aren’t mutually exclusive: Trump’s decision to punt to the states may indeed have been a poor one and Lindsey Graham is still a war hawk who helped enmesh us in conflicts we still haven’t been able to quite extricate ourselves from.
It’s also true that — if the decision to leave abortion law to the states is the politically expedient one and Trump wins a second term in part because his position neutralizes abortion as a turnout issue for Democrats — in the end, this could end up saving more unborn lives than the alternative.
That said, Trump isn’t wrong when he notes that Graham is a hawk among hawks, someone who will work with Democrats if it means keeping America’s forever skirmishes alive. Furthermore, as Politico notes, while Graham has generally been a staunch proponent of the federal government’s role in pushing a national limit to abortion, the gestational age has varied over time.
In many ways, we can be thankful for Lindsey Graham 2.0 while acknowledging that he still carries over some bugs from version 1.0, as well. The fact that we’re even in the position we can talk about this is because of Donald Trump winning the 2016 election and appointing three justices to the Supreme Court. His campaign in 2024 has been effective enough, too, that he leads the sitting president in most polling metrics, particularly in swing states.
In other words, if someone wanted to hit Trump for middle-of-the-road cynicism, the last person who should be doing it should be Lindsey Graham — a man who was, for many a moon, a Democrat’s favorite upper-chamber Republican.
