Lindsey Graham mused about the effectiveness of a Clinton campaign strategy to place ads on the Weather Channel with Hurricane Matthew looming. | Getty Sen. Graham on Clinton's Weather Channel ad buy: 'I don't know if that's smart'

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham on Thursday suggested it was probably unwise for Hillary Clinton’s campaign to politicize Hurricane Matthew with a Weather Channel ad buy.

But, in the words of the former Republican presidential candidate whose own White House bid failed in the storm that accompanied Donald Trump’s campaign: “I lost, so who the hell am I to tell her what to do?”


Hurricane Matthew, a Category 4 storm with winds of up to 140 mph, has caused millions to scatter out of the storm’s path in the Southeast. The hurricane is also expected to hit key battleground states: Florida and North Carolina.

POLITICO reported Wednesday that Clinton’s campaign will spend $63,000 to reach the Weather Channel’s viewers for a five-day span, which began Thursday.

“There’ll be a lot of people watching the Weather Channel,” Graham conceded in an interview with CNN. Indeed, the channel gets a spike in viewership during natural disasters, even beyond the affected areas.

“But I don’t know if they want to see a politician talking about politics,” Graham continued. “They probably want to know about their family and friends and loved ones. So I don’t know if that’s smart. But I lost, so who the hell am I to tell her what to do?”

Clinton campaign spokesman Jesse Ferguson announced later Thursday that the campaign has “requested that stations in Florida delay any of those ads on the Weather Channel until after the storm passes.”

Graham, who says he won’t vote for Clinton or Trump in November, did credit the Republican presidential nominee for “getting better” by running a more disciplined campaign but condemned his repeated insinuations that the election could be rigged against him.

“I don't think it’s good for democracy to have a major candidate for president doubt the outcome. Now, could the election be compromised from hacking and all kind of nefarious activities?” he said. “Yeah, that’s possible, but being rigged means it’s rigged against you. And I think Mr. Trump’s fate is in his own hands. The system's not rigged against him, as far as I can tell, and when you suggest it might be, then that's a message to your supporters and to the country as a whole that you can't trust the outcome of an American election. And I don't want to go down that road. We got enough problems here at home without making people believe that we’re not gonna honestly elect the next president.”