CBS’ Brennan Grills Lindsey Graham for Railing Against Trump Trial: Do Any of His Post-Election Actions Deserve Reprimand?

CBS’s Margaret Brennan confronted Senator Lindsey Graham on Face the Nation over his defense of Donald Trump ahead of his second impeachment trial.

As Brennan remarked on the argument that Trump’s fomenting of insurrection was “cultivated over time,” Graham countered that “if you believe you committed a crime, he can be prosecuted like any other citizen. Impeachment is a political process. We’ve never impeached a president once they’re out of office.”

As a reminder, Trump spent months falsely claiming the 2020 election was stolen from him, encouraged his supporters to descend upon Congress as his defeat was about to be certified, and told them “We fight like hell, and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”

Since Graham brought up Republican calls to dismiss Trump’s impeachment out of hand, Brennan noted that Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA) contradicted that argument by saying the upcoming Senate trial is “clearly Constitutional.” Brennan further commented that “people can look at this and say, look, when you can’t argue a case on its merits, you argue on process. And that’s what Republicans are doing right now.”

Eventually, Brennan asked Graham, “Do you think any of the president’s actions: the tweets calling for the rally, the language leading up to the rally, the lying to the public about the ability to overturn the election, what you described he said about Mike Pence, does any of that deserve a reprimand?”

“Well, I mean, he’s going to have a place in history for all this, but the point of the matter is that we’re in Congress. We’re not prosecutors,” Graham said. “I’m ready to move on. I’m ready to end the impeachment trial because I think it is blatantly unconstitutional. I’m ready to get on with trying to solve the nation’s problems. And as to Donald Trump, he is the most popular figure in the Republican Party. He had a consequential presidency. January the 6th was a very bad day for America, and he’ll get his share of blame in history.”

Watch above, via CBS.

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