After weeks of scrutiny for his focus on the Iran war and criticism for visiting Disney World during a partial government shutdown, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is turning his focus closer to home: the campaign staffers of his primary election rivals.
Graham, facing two main GOP challengers in his reelection bid, assembled local media in Greenville, South Carolina, on Thursday to demand his opponents fire aides for months-old social media posts he described as indicative of a “small but growing problem” in the GOP of antisemitism that was undermining President Donald Trump’s war efforts.
But after a nearly 12-minute-long animated appeal for the ouster of his political rivals’ employees, whose names at one point Graham could not remember, the objective and timing of the senator’s remarks still appeared lost on reporters.
“What was the goal here?” was the first question.
Graham replied that he wanted to show how primary challengers Paul Dans and Mark Lynch “have associated themselves with antisemites and slanderous comments about women.”
Yet the timing suggested a possible ulterior motive.
Days earlier, Graham was photographed at Disney World’s Magic Kingdom in Orlando, Florida, with a bubble wand in hand as he prepared to board the Space Mountain roller coaster. Congress had just embarked on the start of a two-week Easter recess without ending the weekslong shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security.
His recent media blitz calling for wider military action against Iran and elsewhere has also collided with the Trump administration’s effort to convince a skeptical MAGA base that the conflict won’t spiral into another forever war. Graham, a close Trump ally, has floated that U.S. military intervention be expanded to other countries such as Cuba and Lebanon, and he has even suggested Americans may need to send their sons and daughters to the Middle East.
Graham went on to say the purpose of his press conference was to highlight what he called a “losing message” from Dans and Lynch, as well as their aides. Both candidates rejected Graham’s call for firings.
Dans staffer Vish Burra, fired from his previous role at One America News Network for posting last November an AI-generated video portraying Jewish people as cockroaches, is an outspoken critic of U.S. support for Israel. Graham likened his social media presence to anti-Israel rhetoric from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), labeled him a “cancer” within the GOP, and called him an “opponent of decency.”
Burra conceded he “made a mistake” in posting the since-deleted cockroach video but condemned Graham’s comments as a possible motivator for political violence and for continuing to focus his attention on a foreign nation.
“Is Lindsey Graham putting a target on my back?” Burra told the Washington Examiner. “Would you fight on behalf of South Carolinians as hard as you fight on behalf of Israel?”
Dans said in a statement that Graham “apparently put his Disney princess bubble wand down long enough to criticize an internet cartoon” and that he gave Burra “more attention than he’s given South Carolinians for decades.”
Graham also directed his ire at Lynch campaign researcher Evan Mulch, who last year posted a photo stomping on a Talmud Jewish holy book along with the caption he was “thankful that the awakening against this hate filled book towards Jesus Christ is happening.” He also said in a 2022 Facebook post that the United States could “reverse the ability for women to vote until a day when women are once again married to faithful men” to address men who “have been feminized by the culture.”
“While Christians around the world are celebrating the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, Lindsey Graham’s campaign is imploding, so it is unsurprising that in his desperation, Lindsey has chosen Holy Week to throw more slop against the wall,” Lynch said in a statement.
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At one point, while speaking to reporters, Graham appeared to concede it was unorthodox for a senator to so aggressively demand the firing of staffers working for his campaign opponents. But he made the case that it was justified as part of the U.S. mission to help Israel defeat Iran.
“Really never done this before, but the world is a dangerous place,” Graham said. “Our friends in Israel are fighting for their very existence.”
