- Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham went on an emotional diatribe against President Biden Wednesday.
- Graham, who has enjoyed a decades-long friendship with Biden, said he reached his breaking point.
- “What he did in Afghanistan, I will never forgive him for. He has blood on his hands,” Graham said.
Despite efforts at mending their decades-long friendship as former Senate colleagues, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham gave an emotional rebuke of President Joe Biden on Wednesday over his decision to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan.
“I’ve known Joe Biden for a long time,” Graham said during an appearance on the Fox News show “America’s Newsroom” Wednesday morning. “I had a good personal relationship with him. He’s a decent man, but what he did in Afghanistan I will never forgive him for.”
Growing visibly distraught, Graham was recounting recent developments of Islamic State violence in the nation despite promises of peaceful times from the Taliban.
“He has blood on his hands, and he’s made America less safe,” Graham continued. “And he’s been the most consistently wrong man on foreign policy in my lifetime.”
Graham also predicted another 9/11-like attack will come as a result of the withdrawal, but did not cite any specific intelligence or a specific group to back up that claim.
While defending the Kabul airport amid evacuations, 13 American service members were killed in a terrorist attack back in August.
Biden has defended the withdrawal as an “extraordinary success” and that the nation’s longest war “should have ended a long time ago.”
The US-backed Afghanistan government collapsed in August weeks before US troops could fully depart the country, surprising Biden and top aides that thought that government could last for months or years. That led to choatic scenes around Kabul’s airport as people sought to flee the Taliban. The airlift evacuated nearly 130,000 people but Taliban control of the country and the press of massive crowds around the airport prevented the US from recovering every American who sought to flee; an estimated two hundred remain despite wanting to leave.
Before former President Donald Trump’s ascension to the White House, Graham and Biden enjoyed a chummy relationship from across the aisle.
“The bottom line is, if you can’t admire Joe Biden as a person, then it’s probably — you’ve got a problem,” Graham said with a chuckle during a car ride interview back during his 2016 presidential bid. “You need to do some self evaluation. ‘Cause, what’s not to like?”
In the 2016 interview, Graham described Biden as “the nicest person I think I’ve ever met in politics.”
“He is as good a man as God ever created,” Graham added.
During his Fox News hit, the South Carolina senator took a more scorched earth approach.
“I can’t wait until the next election to stop this socialist train on the domestic side, and have a chance to get a commander in chief who knows how to keep this country safe,” Graham said. “When it comes to Joe Biden, he’s made America less safe, and he’s acted in a very dishonorable way.”
