South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, the man who once wanted the Oval Office for himself before becoming an apologist for the current occupant, now has someone coming for his seat—Jaime Harrison, the former chair of the state’s Democratic Party.
Harrison, a former aide to Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), announced his candidacy Wednesday with a series of video clips in which he tore into Graham’s weaselly love affair with Donald Trump.
“Here’s a guy who will say anything to stay in office,” Harrison said in the video, the Washington Post reports. “Lindsey Graham can’t lead us any direction because he traded his moral compass for petty political gain.”
And Harrison came with receipts, providing clips of Graham’s wild U-turns in his assessment of Trump. Per the Post:
The video also included clips of derogatory comments that Graham made about Trump as they both were pursuing the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, including Graham labeling Trump “a kook,” “crazy” and “not fit to be president of the United States.”
“He’s a race-baiting, xenophobic religious bigot,” Graham said in one highlighted clip.
In subsequent clips, Graham is shown saying, “No, I don’t think he’s a xenophobic, race-baiting, religious bigot,” and that Trump “deserves the Nobel Peace Prize and then some.”
In the video promoting his candidacy, Harrison highlighted his biography as the son of a teenage mother who was raised by his grandparents, and someone who returned to serve his native South Carolina after completing his education at Yale and Georgetown Law School:
Following Harrison’s announcement of his run, GOP operatives tagged Harrison as “a looney liberal who was hand-picked to run by radical Washington Democrats,” as National Republican Senatorial Committee spokesman Nathan Brand told the Post.
If Harrison won, he’d be the first Democrat elected to represent South Carolina in the U.S. Senate since 1998.