'He'll destroy the party': Past comes back to haunt Lindsey Graham as old post on Trump resurfaces

There was a time when Lindsey Graham (R-SC) thought Donald Trump would be the end of the Republican Party, and said so without reservation. "If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed...and we will deserve it," the South Carolina senator warned in 2016 when X was still called Twitter. The post is doing the rounds again, and the contrast could not be more stark: Graham is now one of the most prominent Republican voices in Trump's corner, standing firmly by the President even as a handful of GOP lawmakers have begun to air their dissent.

This is not the first time the post has gone viral, drawing responses from prominent voices across politics and media each time. Actor and activist Mark Ruffalo responded in 2020, noting that the engagement on the post had "eclipsed" anything else in Graham's feed. The Lincoln Project, the anti-Trump Republican political action committee, said in 2022 that it makes a point of revisiting the tweet every few months. Brian Tyler Cohen, a YouTube political commentator, was succinct, telling Graham simply in 2021: "You called it."

The 2016 post is far from the only instance. Before his transformation, Graham had called Trump a "demagogue," a "race-baiting, xenophobic religious bigot," and "the world's biggest jackass," according to The New York Times. The reversal came after Trump won the presidency in 2016, with Graham telling CBS News that he felt compelled to accept the verdict of the American people, who had, in his own words, "rejected his analysis" of Trump.

Graham, for his part, has not wavered in his devotion. As Trump faces a wave of criticism over the interim agreement ending the four-month conflict, with even some Republicans breaking ranks, the 70-year-old, a long-time hawk on Iran, has stood firmly behind the President. Graham defended the deal on its merits, arguing that the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and the cessation of hostilities represent a clear win for American interests. The memorandum, he said, was a net positive for the United States.

The loyalty runs both ways. Trump threw his support behind Graham in April, declaring he was the man to get the job done, as he had done in 2020, and Graham has repaid that backing in kind. After fending off multiple primary challengers to secure his Senate seat just weeks ago, Graham suggested that the President was not far behind God. "President Trump's endorsement is the gold standard in the Republican world," he said.