Graham to King of Jordan: “I am sorry. Trump doesn’t represent” America
Republican presidential candidate Lindsey Graham delivered a strong rebuke to front-runner Donald Trump over his call for a ban on Muslim immigrants and visitors.
In response to CNN debate moderator Wolf Blitzer, who cited polling data showing that most GOP voters support Trump’s position, Graham looked straight into the camera and called the real estate magnate’s remarks a “coup” for the Islamic State. The South Carolina Republican stopped short of saying that he would not support Trump if he were the GOP nominee in 2016, a line that no prominent GOP politician has crossed.
“You may think this makes us safe, but it doesn’t. The good news for everybody in this room is that after 36 trips to Iraq and Afghanistan, most people over there are not buying what [ISIS] is selling. This is a religious war between radical Islam and the rest of the world, and there’s only one way we’re going to win this war: Help people in Islam who reject radical Islam to fight over there and destroy this ideology,” Graham said, in Tuesday night’s undercard debate.
Graham was one of the earliest and most vocal supporters of increased ground troops in both Iraq and Syria, and, as a senator, recently introduced legislation to authorize U.S. military action against ISIS. But Graham’s hawkish approach to the actual fight against foreign enemies — typical of the GOP establishment — does not include the anti-Islamic rhetoric employed by Trump and other far-right conservatives. Graham included a direct-to-camera apology to King Abdullah of Jordan and President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi of Egypt.
“Donald Trump has done the one single thing you cannot do: Declare war on Islam itself. [ISIS] would be dancing in the streets — they just don’t believe in dancing. This is a coup for them,” Graham declared. “And to all of our Muslim friends throughout the world, like the king of Jordan and the president of Egypt, I am sorry, he does not represent us. If I am president, we will work together, people in the faith through all over the world.”
According to recent polling, nearly 6 in 10 Republican voters support Trump’s proposal to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the United States. It’s unclear if Graham’s rebuke will win him any support from a Republican electorate so indifferent to him that he cannot make the main debate stage — or if his mea culpa will even reach the foreign leaders he name-checked.
But at least one person liked Graham’s message: Former top Barack Obama adviser David Axelrod.
“But @LindseyGrahamSC shows courage in attacking@realDonaldTrump anti-Muslim screeds,” Axelrod tweeted, in a message unlikely to play well with the conservative base.
