WASHINGTON – Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) revealed that he received a call from President Trump Tuesday complimenting the heartfelt speech he gave about his best friend in the Senate, the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).
“He called yesterday after my speech and he couldn’t have been nicer,” Graham said of Trump. “He said, ‘That was very sad. I just want to let you know you did right by your friend.’ I said, ‘Thank you, Mr. President.’”
Graham said the phone call came “right out of the blue.”
“And to those who want me to say the only way you can honor John McCain is to fight Donald Trump and try to kick him out of office, I don’t agree,” he added during a sit-down Wednesday with CNN.
Trump and McCain were political nemeses, with Trump mocking McCain during the early months of his 2016 presidential run for getting captured by the Vietnamese. McCain repaid the insult by voting down a Trump-led Obamacare repeal effort in the Senate last July. He also asked that the president not attend his funeral.
Trump irritated veterans groups earlier this week when he waited 48 hours after McCain’s death to release a presidential proclamation, which would leave flags around the country at half-staff.
Graham, on the other hand, has become one of Trump’s golf partners and often carries water for the president on policy initiatives.
“I regret the relationship between the two,” Graham said of Trump and McCain. “John is my dearest friend in the world and I’m going to try to help President Trump and I will, because I think ‘Country First’ means that,” he said, pointing to McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign slogan.
Graham added, however, that when Trump “says something bad about John it pisses me off.”
CNN’s Dana Bash asked Graham what advice McCain gave the South Carolina Republican for dealing with Trump.
“Well, basically he says help him where you can, but all the drama and the b.s., watch it,” Graham said.
“A lot of people have been burned by being in Trump’s orbit,” he continued. “Bottom line is, I just want to be a bridge, to the extent that I can be, from the McCain world, to the Bush world, to all the other worlds, to the Trump world, so we can get good policy.”
