“It’s like being shot or poisoned,” Graham told reporters Thursday in response. “What does it really matter?” | AP Photo Graham: Choice between Trump, Cruz like 'being shot or poisoned'

Sen. Lindsey Graham unloaded on GOP presidential front-runners Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, comparing the choice between the two “like being shot or poisoned.”

The South Carolina Republican, who recently endorsed former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush after ending his presidential bid in December, was asked whether he preferred Trump or Cruz as the nominee during a news conference on Capitol Hill.


“It’s like being shot or poisoned,” Graham told reporters Thursday in response. “What does it really matter?”

But Graham wasn’t quite finished teeing off on Trump and Cruz. The hawkish senator, who had focused his long-shot campaign bid on national security issues, said Trump on foreign policy “disturbs the heck out of me” and when he talks about the issue, “It scares the hell out of me.”

“Donald Trump, I think, is the most unprepared person I've ever met to be commander in chief,” Graham said. “And when it comes to Sen. Cruz, he's exhibited behavior in his time in the Senate that make it impossible for me to believe that he could bring this country together.”

But Graham didn’t save the criticisms solely for his own party. He called Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders, a self-identified socialist, “by far the most liberal person to ever offer themselves as a candidate in a serious fashion for president of the United States.”

“So in Bernie's world, the big banks are out to get you and rich people are screwing the system so you don't have a chance. In Donald Trump's world, the illegal immigrants [are] gonna sell drugs to your kids and rape your wife. Foreigners are going to take your jobs,” Graham said. “This is not exactly the America that I envisioned for the 21st century. I will tell you this, that we have an election cycle that is beyond strange.”

The senator concluded: “If the past is any indication of the future in terms of these three people, I think America would be in trouble if any of them got to be president of the United States."