COLUMBIA, S.C. — On Friday, Senator Lindsey Graham returned to Columbia, on day 21 of a partial government shutdown, to attend a pro-life event.
After he arrived at the event, the Senator took questions on the shutdown and his discussions with President Donald Trump.
“Well the goal is to secure the border by having barriers that make sense where they make sense. And every Democrat who’s pushing back has voted for border security with barriers in the past. So, I don’t know how this ends. I’ve tried everything I can to jump start it. But, if we don’t do the emergency declaration, the only way you can get it done is for the Senate and House to work together to pass something,” Graham told a gathering of press before entering the event.
Earlier Friday, Senator Graham tweeted his support for the emergency declaration, telling the President to “Declare a national emergency NOW.”
Also on Friday, the President said the "Easy solution is for me to call a national emergency ... but I'm not going to do it so fast,” according to the AP.
Trump said, "This is something that Congress can do,” continued the AP report.
When asked, Graham said he was not frustrated with the President’s back and forth on declaring an emergency.
“No, it’s not frustrating, because he is wanting to go back to the Congress. What’s frustrating is there’s no one to go back to,” Graham said, adding that Democrats refuse to work with Trump.
At the same event on Friday night, Republican South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster also supported the wall.
"There is enough money in the federal treasury to build that wall, it should have been done a long time ago. A lot of the Democrat leaders were for it when President Trump was not president, but now they're against it now that he's President. But that is a matter of national security," McMaster said.
Both men blamed Democrats for the stalemate.
At one point, Graham said “She’s out,” while describing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.
“Unless cooler heads prevail, this thing could go on for a while,” Graham added.
But, in light of protests nationwide, including some in front of his office in Columbia on Thursday, Graham did have a message for federal employees.
“To all the federal government employees who are going to suffer, I am so sorry you’re in the middle of a political mess. But we can make you whole, we just passed legislation today I think to pay them retroactively,” Graham said.
The Senator then repeated the President’s claims that without a wall, the United States was open to violent people coming into the country illegally. He then said families that lost loved ones would never be “made whole.”
Near the end of the interview, Graham said he would not give up nor could the President.
“I told the President, I’ve never been in this dilemma before. I don’t know what to tell you when the Speaker of the House says I’m not going to work with you to secure the border even if you open up the government,” Graham told reporters, continuing that he would return to Washington Monday to try to work with Senate Democrats.
On U.S. Representative Steve King’s recent comments:
“If you don’t understand that these terms are associated with racism, you haven’t looked very hard. So, I’m proud of [Senator] Tim [Scott] and there’s no place for this in the Republican party or anywhere else in America.”
On Friday night, Graham was asked if he thought Rep. King is a racist.
“Well, all I can say is that his view of white supremacy and mine are different. He says he’s not a racist. I know Steve, he’s apologized. But at the end of the day, it’s just perplexing that in 2019 someone could be confused about what these terms are associated with,” Graham said.
On being named chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee:
“I do believe the judiciary needs to be more conservative and less liberal. So, my number one goal is to get as many conservative judges on the bench as possible to deal with, in a bipartisan fashion, social media. All of these social media sites are unregulated, you have no idea what you’re signing up for or how they use your personal data. And when they take content down is it because of their political bias or yours?” Graham said, adding that he was “honored” to be named Chairman.