Lindsey Graham compares Hillary Clinton to Kim Jong Un

Lindsey Graham says Hillary Clinton is avoiding media questions on the campaign trail because she lacks confidence in her own foreign policy record.

“Well, it’s easier to talk to the North Korean guy than it is her,” the Republican senator from South Carolina said in a “Fox & Friends” interview Thursday, an apparent reference to dictator Kim Jong-un.


“I think it’s the lack of confidence in her ability to distinguish herself from Barack Obama,” he added.

Clinton will be speaking on voting rights this afternoon at Texas Southern University, whose press guidance for the speech circulated Wednesday stipulated that there will be “NO opportunities to interview Hillary Clinton; her speech will be her interview.”

The university later re-sent the guidance that read, “There will be wifi [sic] and restrooms available. We look forward to accommodating you.”

Clinton’s “biggest nightmare,” Graham said, is for someone to ask, “‘Hey, do you think the war on terror is going well? Do you agree with Barack Obama’s foreign policy? If you don’t, tell us why.’”

The Democratic candidate took questions from journalists last month in New Hampshire and Iowa after going nearly a month without answering any reporters’ questions.

Graham touted his own foreign policy credentials during the Fox interview, praising Jeb Bush as the current GOP front-runner but saying that he has a stronger message for regaining ground lost to ISIL and countering Iran in the Middle East.

“The Iranians — as we negotiate their nuclear program — have control over Syria, a lot of influence in Baghdad, Lebanon and Yemen,” he said.

Everything President Barack Obama has tried to do in that respect, Graham said, “has blown up in his face.”

“People are very interested in about what I would do, not just how much I think Obama sucks,” Graham said in a later interview with MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “So at the end of the day, if you’re running for president, you need to let go of the idea that everything Obama has done has been wrong, so what are you going to do?” he asked.

Graham reiterated that he would take the fight to ISIL and “pull the caliphate up by its roots” while putting troops in Syria to take out Bashar Assad.

He also dismissed criticism that the country is weary of war after more than a decade in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“I think our soldiers are not war-weary,” Graham said. “You may be tired of fighting them, they’re not tired of fighting you.”

Regarding Jeb Bush’s announcement Thursday that he will make public his run for the White House on June 15, Graham said on Fox News that the former Florida governor “has to convince people that one more Bush is not one Bush too many.”

“I like him a lot,” Graham added.

The South Carolina senator also took a shot at colleagues who saw surveillance under the PATRIOT Act as a “privacy issue.” Obama signed into law this week the USA Freedom Act, a diluted version of the 2001 legislation that takes away the National Security Agency’s authority to collect Americans’ phone records.

“But in the effort to make sure we protect our privacy, and this is not a privacy issue as far as I’m concerned, we’ve destroyed the program. So, well done. Anything else you want to tell the terrorists? Do you want to tell them how we do roving wiretaps?” Graham asked. “We’re at war. We’re turning the war into a crime, and I am sick and tired of this.”