Senior Republican's attack on the media's portrayal of Trump massively backfires

Emily Shugerman
Updated

A Republican Senator has criticised the US media for calling Donald Trump a “kook,” and “unfit for office,” despite having used those words to describe the President himself.

"What concerns me about the American press is this endless, endless attempt to label the guy some kind of kook not fit to be president,” Senator Lindsey Graham told CNN this week.

He added: “It’s pretty frustrating for most Republicans, quite frankly, that it’s 24/7 attack on everything the President does or thinks. It gets a little old after a while.”

But Mr Graham had previously attacked the President using those exact same words.

“I think he’s a kook. I think he’s crazy. I think he’s unfit for office,” Mr Graham told Fox News in a televised interview during the campaign.

In the same interview, Mr Graham suggested that Mr Trump was not a true Republican.

"I'm a Republican. and he's not. He's not a conservative Republican, he's an opportunist," he said. "He's not fit to be president of the United States."

Mr Trump responded by calling the Senator "one of the dumbest human beings I've ever seen."

The President and Mr Graham continued to spar even after the election. The Senator has been one of Mr Trump’s fiercest Republican critics, on everything from the Russia investigation to his response to the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

In July, Mr Graham suggested that Mr Trump may be “the first president in history to go down because you can't stop inappropriately talking about an investigation that if you just were quiet would clear you." After the Charlottesville rally in August, the Senator said Mr Trump was “dividing Americans, not healing them”.

But in recent weeks, as fellow Republicans such as Jeff Flake and Bob Corker have distanced themselves from Mr Trump, Mr Graham has moved closer. According to the New York Times, Mr Graham advised the President on the Congressional health care fight and even took a ride on the presidential helicopter, Marine One.

Last month, the two were spotted golfing together twice in one week. After one such outing, the Senator tweeted that Mr Trump had “shot a 73 in windy and wet conditions!"

“How bad did he beat me?” Mr Graham wrote. “I did better in the presidential race than today on the golf course!”

He added: “Great fun. Great host.”