November 11, 2021

Lindsey Graham Calls Off His Friendship With Biden for Political Points

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) speaks during a news conference in response to President Joe Biden's decision to pull all American troops out of Afghanistan.Kent Nishimura/Getty

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On Thursday, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) went on Fox News to tell President Joe Biden that their friendship could not continue, on account of “what he did in Afghanistan.” 

“I will never forgive,” Graham said of Biden’s withdrawal—before continuing on with a gleeful hope of stopping the Democrat’s “socialist train” in the upcoming election.

Graham does this all the time. With his faux-gentlemanly air, he pays lip service to his relationship with Joe Biden before denouncing his friend’s actions on national television and demanding that he face severe punishment. The underlying message always seems to be: This time Biden has just gone too far! Of course you have to believe me! I’m Biden’s friend. 

Graham took a similar tone when he called for a special prosecutor to investigate the business dealings of Biden’s son Hunter. He insisted that he still liked Biden personally. But, especially during Donald Trump’s first impeachment trial, something had to be done.

According to the New York Times, Graham called Biden in November 2020 to make amends over his attacks on Hunter, allegedly explaining that he was simply trying to placate Trump supporters. But around that same period, Graham made additional calls to election officials as part of Trump’s attempt to overturn Biden’s presidential win.

Biden and Graham were genuinely close friends from their time serving together in the Senate. In 2015, Graham told Huffington Post that the then–vice president was “as good a man as God ever created” and “the nicest person I think I’ve ever met in politics.” 

“If you can’t admire Joe Biden as a person, you’ve got a problem. You need to do some self-evaluation, because what’s not to like?” he said. 

How many times will Graham use that friendship to throw Biden under the bus?

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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