Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Sen. Lindsey Graham responds to The New York Times podcast asking, 'What Happened To Lindsey Graham?' investigating his transformation from Trump critic to Trump supporter.



"He beat me," Graham told FNC's Martha MacCallum Tuesday night. "From my point of view, he has exceeded every expectation I have and I unashamedly want him to be successful; when I disagree with him, I'll tell him so."





MARTHA MACCALLUM: You did an interview with the New York Times, and the daily podcast raised the question, what happened to Lindsey Graham? And when I listen to you talk about the president that way and you know, what you think he wants to accomplish, this is a long piece that -- that drills down on the things that you said about the president in the past, kook, crazy, all of that. So you know, in a -- in a sentence or two, what did happen to Lindsey Graham? What changed your mind so dramatically about the president?







SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM: He beat me. He is president of the United States. I want him to be successful. I wanted Obama to be successful. I wanted Bush to be successful. The people in South Carolina want me to work with the president when it makes sense. I like what he is doing. He's rebuilding the military. He cut our taxes. He destroyed the caliphate. He got out of Iran nuclear deal. He's rocket man at the table. He is deregulating the country, he put Gorsuch and Kavanaugh on the bench.



From my point of view, he has exceeded every expectation I have and I unashamedly want him to be successful; when I disagree with him, I'll tell him so. But nothing has happened to me. The only time you can be seen as a good Republican by a liberal side of the equation is when you attack a Republican. I had my shot at President Trump. The American people chose him, I want him to be successful. I'm all in to the extent that I can help this president, I will.



MACCALLUM: So, you know, you do disagree on things from time to time.



GRAHAM: Sure.



MACCALLUM: He's came out with a statement basically saying 100 percent agree we need to leave some forces in Syria.



GRAHAM: Yeah.



MACCALLUM: And I would imagine that you were persuasive on that.



GRAHAM: Well, I think he took sound military advice. He's right to want to reduce our commitment, he's right to have other people do more of the fighting and pay more of the bills. But by having a small footprint behind of Americans, we'll get more Europeans, ISIS won't come back. Turkey and the Kurds won't go to war it each other and Iran and Russia won't benefit from a hasty withdraw. I think this was a smart decision. And President Trump did something Obama would never do, listen to people and adjust his strategy. If Obama had listened to people in Iraq, there would be no ISIS.