Sen. Lindsey Graham Lindsey Olin GrahamGraham: GOP will confirm Trump's Supreme Court nominee before the election Fox's Napolitano: Supreme Court confirmation hearings will be 'World War III of political battles' Grassley, Ernst pledge to 'evaluate' Trump's Supreme Court nominee MORE (R-S.C.) accused the media Thursday of trying to label President Trump as a "kook" who isn't fit to be president, but Graham once used those same words himself to characterize Trump in 2016.

In an interview Thursday on CNN, Graham raised concerns about the way the press covers Trump.

"What concerns me about the American press is this endless, endless attempt to label the guy some kind of kook not fit to be president," Graham said Thursday.

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"He did win, by the way."

But Graham lodged similar criticisms of his own against Trump when he was a presidential candidate in 2016.

During a previous interview on Fox News, Graham said then-candidate Trump was an "kook" and that the Republicans would get "slaughtered" in the presidential election if Trump became the nominee.

"I think he's a kook. I think he's crazy. I think he's unfit for office," Graham, who backed former Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush at the time, said during the February 2016 interview.