The Graham-Trump feud got extended another day with the senator mocking the reveal of his personal cell phone number by the billionaire, and The Apprentice host defending his actions.
“I get called all these horrible names by Lindsey Graham… I couldn’t care less about Lindsey Graham,” Donald Trump told CNN. “…Am I supposed to say it’s OK if I’m called these things? I’m called a jackass, I have to fight back. The country has to fight back.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) had labeled Trump a jackass after he said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Graham’s best friend in the Senate, wasn’t a war hero for being captured.
Trump then read out Graham’s phone number at a South Carolina rally.
Graham told CNN that he talked with Trump a couple years ago about Chinese currency manipulation legislation, and that’s how the real estate mogul had his number.
“It’s really not about me and Donald,” the senator said. “It’s about what Mr. Trump said about 11 million illegal immigrants that I find not true… and when he suggested that my good friend John McCain was some sort of lesser form of service member because he was captured.”
Graham said he had to speak out as Trump crossed a “line no one wants any politician to cross.”
As far as Trump’s top spot in the polls right now, “some people buy into the idea that he’s speaking truth when the rest of us are not.”
“Apparently some people agree with the idea that most illegal immigrants are rapists and drug dealers,” Graham added. “I don’t.”
He likened Trump to a “political car wreck… we’re all looking right now but we’ll move on.”
“If we’re talking about the subject matter Mr. Trump has brought up we’re going to lose,” Graham continued. “There’s no way he could win a national election… because America’s a good place.”
Asked whom he’d vote for if it was between Hillary Clinton and Trump, the senator replied, “I think she would win and that would be bad for the country.”
“The best way to allow her to win is to continue to talk about Donald Trump,” Graham added, noting that his primary competitor “wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell” versus Clinton.
Graham filmed a video with help of IJR, above, destroying his old phone — which was a flip phone.
“I need to thank Mr. Trump for moving me into an advanced telephone,” he quipped. “Without him, it probably wasn’t gonna happen.”
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