Sen. Lindsey Graham Lindsey Olin GrahamSenate Republicans signal openness to working with Biden Loeffler calls for hearing in wake of Netflix's 'Cuties' Quinnipiac poll shows Graham, Harrison tied in South Carolina Senate race MORE (R-S.C.) says President-elect Donald Trump Donald John TrumpBarr criticizes DOJ in speech declaring all agency power 'is invested in the attorney general' Military leaders asked about using heat ray on protesters outside White House: report Powell warns failure to reach COVID-19 deal could 'scar and damage' economy MORE should not mention Nazi Germany and U.S. intelligence forces in the same tweet.

Graham's remarks come a day after Trump invoked Nazi Germany on Twitter while criticizing media reports concerning unverified allegations about Russian influence over Trump. Trump tweeted that the agencies "should never have allowed" the stories, although it's not clear whether the privately commissioned intelligence dossier—already widely circulated in Congress and the media—was given to reporters by someone in an intelligence agency.

“Intelligence agencies should never have allowed this fake news to ‘leak’ into the public,” Trump tweeted. "One last shot at me. Are we living in Nazi Germany?”

In response, Graham pushed back on questions about "the competency [and] loyalty" of intelligence staff.

“I do not think it is helpful for the commander in chief to question the competency [and] loyalty of those who are risking their lives to defend the nation,” he said Thursday, according to NBC News.

“And the last thing I would say about anybody working in the American intelligence community is to compare them to Nazi Germany,” added Graham, who competed against Trump in the GOP’s 2016 presidential primary.

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“So Mr. President, with all due respect, I want to help, but that was just really unfair. I can only imagine what we would have said if a Democrat had said that.”

Trump doubled down on the Nazi comparison during his first press conference as president-elect later Wednesday afternoon.

“I think it was disgraceful that the intelligence agencies allowed any information that turned out to be so false and fake [to get out],” he said at Trump Tower in New York City.

“That’s something that Nazi Germany would have done and did do."

BuzzFeed sparked an uproar Tuesday by publishing the unsubstantiated dossier about Trump.

The controversial document, consisting of 35 pages of memos, claims Russia’s government has compromising financial and personal information about the president-elect. It also alleges people close to Trump kept in touch with Moscow during last year’s presidential campaign.

A former British intelligence agent reportedly authored the document as opposition research for Trump's political adversaries.