Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said on Wednesday night that he might not back Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) for another term as leader of the Senate GOP caucus.
Appearing with Sean Hannity, Graham said he would only support a senator who has a “working relationship” with Donald Trump and supports an “America first agenda.”
Trump has bashed McConnell on numerous occasions, the latest of which came in an interview aired on NPR Wednesday morning. Trump called him “a loser.”
Hannity, who is close with Trump, brought up McConnell later that night. “He’s seeking another term as leader,” he noted to Graham. The Fox News host expressed frustration at “the swampiness of Senator McConnell” and asked, “How do you feel about it?”
Graham suggested it’s certainly possible he will not back McConnell again.
“If you want to be a Republican leader in the House or the Senate, you have to have a working relationship with President Donald Trump,” said Graham. “He’s the most consequential Republican since Ronald Reagan. It’s his nomination if he wants it, and I think he’ll get reelected in 2024. I like Senator McConnell. He worked well with President Trump to get a bunch of judges including three Supreme Court Justices on the bench. They got the tax cuts passed working together.”
Despite the praise, the senator said his
Graham explained the terms of his support for the next Senate GOP leader:
But here’s the question: can Senator McConnell effectively work with the leader of the Republican Party, Donald Trump? I’m not going to vote for anybody that can’t have a working relationship with President Trump, to be a team, to come up with an America first agenda, to show the difference between us and liberal Democrats, prosecute the case for Trump policies. And I’m not going to vote for anybody for leader of the Senate as a Republican unless they can prove to me that they can advocate an American first agenda and have a working relationship with President Trump, because if you can’t do that, you will fail.
Hannity replied by stating, “I don’t think Mitch McConnell can. I think there’s palpable hatred on his part toward all things against Donald Trump and Trump supporters. And I don’t think that works.”
Party leaders in the Senate are chosen by their respective conferences every two years.
Watch above via Fox News.