Congressional Republicans should use their majorities “to reform the government, to make life better for the American people,” Sen. Lindsey Graham said. | Getty Sen. Graham on GOP move to gut ethics panel: 'Dumbest fricking thing'

House Republicans’ move to gut the Office of Congressional Ethics is “the dumbest fricking thing I’ve ever heard,” South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said Tuesday.

In a closed-door meeting Monday night, Republicans had adopted House rules changes that would gut their own oversight watchdog, defying GOP leadership by advancing a proposal to put the congressional ethics office under jurisdiction of the House Ethics Committee.


In a Fox News radio interview Tuesday morning, Graham said he stood with Trump, who criticized the new Congress in a pair of tweets earlier Tuesday for prioritizing “the weakening of the Independent Ethics Watchdog” rather than tax reform, health care “and so many other things of far greater importance.”

“It’s the dumbest fricking thing I’ve ever heard,” Graham said, taking a shot at the other chamber. “The first thing you do after getting a mandate from the American people is introduce detaining the ethics committee. That is not the message the House needs to send to the American people.”

Congressional Republicans should use their majorities “to reform the government, to make life better for the American people,” Graham said, listing slashing taxes, deregulation and destroying the Islamic State as examples.

“It was a dumb move by the House,” Graham continued. “I hope they’ll change it, and President-elect Trump was right to call them out.”

House Republicans ultimately reversed course on the rules change. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy offered a motion to restore the current OCE rules, which the Republican conference accepted Tuesday afternoon.