After hours of emotional testimony from both Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh Thursday, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was ready to take a stand — and become Kavanaugh’s most impassioned Republican defender.

In a lengthy, often-shouted statement, Graham declared that Democrats wanted to “destroy this guy’s life” and put him through “hell,” called Kavanaugh’s treatment “crap,” dubbed the hearing “the most unethical sham since I’ve been in politics,” and said Republicans who vote no would be “legitimizing the most despicable thing I have seen.”

As for Ford — of whom Graham said, 11 days earlier, “I would gladly listen to what she has to say” — he dubbed her a “victim.” That is, a victim of Democrats, who weren’t “protecting” her. And in an appearance on Sean Hannity’s show afterward, Graham went even further, saying he’s “convinced” Kavanaugh “didn’t do it” and that “Ms. Ford has got a problem and destroying Judge Kavanaugh’s life won’t fix her problem.”

Republicans were largely thrilled that after hours in which Republican senators had let an even-tempered outside prosecutor ask questions for them, Graham provided the emotional, combative defense Kavanaugh’s defenders were craving. “I know I’m a single white man from South Carolina and I’ve been told to shut up, but I will not shut up,” Graham said when the committee met again Friday.

Democrats, meanwhile, were horrified. In their view, Graham had become a hatchet man trying to destroy a sexual assault victim’s credibility, likely for reasons of ambition and politics. Graham has conspicuously spent a year and a half trying to improve his relationship with President Trump, and it’s widely speculated that he hoped to be named Trump’s attorney general or secretary of defense after the midterms. This performance, some theorized, was Graham’s way of publicly locking in his long-tenuous loyalty to the president — an effort to truly convince the boss that he’s on the team.

If this was what he was trying to do, it certainly seemed to work. White House press secretary Sarah Sanders praised his “decency and courage,” and added, “God bless him.” Hannity gushed, “I don’t think you’ve ever had a more powerful moment in your career.” Rudy Giuliani said Graham had “distinguished himself” as “the fairest man and the best lawyer in Washington.” Eric Trump tweeted, “You were truly incredible today.”

Of course, Graham also could have been truly sincere — concluding that there wasn’t enough proof, or motivated by disgust about what he believes to be Democrats’ unfair handling of judicial nominations over the years, or genuine fears of making it difficult to get “good people” confirmed. (And it’s possible for sincerity to coincide with ambition.)

Whatever his private thoughts, Graham indisputably made a splash in Trumpworld, providing exactly what they needed politically and telling them exactly what they wanted to hear — that Democrats were the villains and Kavanaugh was a good man.

Christine Blasey Ford — who testified that she had “100 percent” certainty that a drunken high school-age Brett Kavanaugh helped drag her into a bedroom, groped her, tried to pull her bathing suit off, and covered her mouth to keep her from screaming — was collateral damage.

To Graham, she was just a woman with “a problem.”

What does Lindsey Graham want?

After 15 years in the Senate and 10 years before that in the House of Representatives, Lindsey Graham has become one of Washington’s most prominent — and most frequently quoted — politicians. Depending on the situation, he can serve up humor, sarcasm, moralizing, or righteous fury, playing each part with aplomb.

On many issues, Graham is a standard conservative Republican. (On some foreign policy issues, he’s notably, and alarmingly, eager to muse about starting wars.) But he also has an entrepreneurial political streak. Unlike some of his Senate colleagues, who prefer to stick closely to the partisan script or avoid controversy, Graham very much likes to be at the table — to try to make an impact and get something done. Maybe not everything is negotiable for Graham, but a whole lot is.

To that end, he’s been willing to employ unorthodox strategies, often involving some political risk for himself. In the Obama years, that often entailed trying to work with Democrats who held power in Washington — spending months trying to negotiate a climate change bill in 2010 and being part of the immigration reform “Gang of Eight” in 2013. Both issues were anathema to base voters in South Carolina, and most other GOP senators wouldn’t touch them with a 10-foot pole. And both fights earned him the distrust of conservatives nationally — critics on the right dubbed him “Lindsey Grahamnesty.” (Neither effort successfully became law.)

Graham also, as he mentioned at the hearing, was one of the relatively few Republicans to vote for President Obama’s Supreme Court nominees — well, his first two. (Graham happily stuck to the party line that Merrick Garland’s nomination shouldn’t even be considered in 2016.) Through all this, he managed to avoid serious political repercussions at home.

Lindsey Graham, the impassioned critic of candidate Donald Trump

But Graham’s effort to move to a higher office by running for president in 2015 proved an utter flop. Even at the time, it was speculated that he was really running to try to get a top Cabinet job in the next Republican administration. He ended up dropping out more than a month before voting began, and spent most of the time before that — and after it — fighting with Donald Trump.

All the way back in July 2015, Graham criticized Trump and called him a “jackass” (for mocking John McCain. Trump then retaliated by reading out Graham’s cellphone number during a campaign speech, urging supporters to “try it.” Graham later called Trump “a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot,” criticizing his demagoguery on immigration and his “Muslim ban.”

It is amazing how @LindseyGrahamSC gets on so many T.V. shows talking negatively about me when I beat him so badly (ZERO) in his pres run! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 24, 2016

When Trump emerged as the presumptive GOP nominee in May 2016, as others were falling in line, Graham reiterated his criticisms. ”I don’t believe that Donald Trump has the temperament and judgment to be commander in chief,” he said. “I think Donald Trump is going to places where very few people have gone and I’m not going with him.”

If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed.......and we will deserve it. — Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) May 3, 2016

Graham stuck to his guns on this a lot longer than most others in his party, evidently under the assumption that Trump would lose, he’d be vindicated, and Washington would soon go back to normal. On Election Day, Graham proudly tweeted that he’d voted for a third-party candidate and not Trump.

I voted @Evan_McMullin for President. I appreciate his views on a strong America and the need to rebuild our military. #3 — Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) November 8, 2016

But, of course, Trump won.

Graham decided to be “friends” with President Trump

Graham, again, is a practical person. It was obvious that all his previous criticisms of Trump had had no effect. He also likes to be at the table for political dealmaking, and starting in 2017, that no longer meant working with Democrats (who were now shut out of power), but instead with Donald Trump.

So he recalibrated. As described in Bob Woodward’s book Fear — a book for which Graham seems to have been a major source — Graham started trying to build a personal relationship with Trump. They met on March 7, 2017, in the Oval Office, hugged, and agreed to “be friends.” After that, they started talking on the phone and golfing together.

Graham’s goal, according to Woodward’s book, was to influence Trump’s policies to become more like Lindsey Graham’s policies. He advised Trump on North Korea (urging him to take a harder line), on Afghanistan (urging him not to withdraw all American troops), and on immigration (urging him to cut a deal with Democrats on DACA).

But of course, Trump’s friendship doesn’t come free — and Woodward describes one time the president made his preference clear:

“You’re a middle-of-the-road guy. I want you to be 100 percent for Trump. ... You’re like 82 percent,” Trump said. “Well, some days I’m 100 percent. Some days I may be zero.” “I want you to be a 100 percent guy.”

The lesson is clear: Trump doesn’t like when Graham publicly criticizes or disagrees with him. If he wants Trump’s favor, he has to minimize or downplay those criticisms. And until he does, he’ll never truly gain Trump’s trust.

And that’s just what Graham started to try to do — rather than get cable news airtime for his criticisms of the president, he started to defend Trump, even the point of absurdity.

“You know what concerns me about the American press is this endless attempt to label the guy as some kind of kook, not fit to be president,” he said on CNN last November — even though those were the exact words he had used the previous year.

Republicans' mind-blowing hypocrisy in their attempt to attack the media, everyone: pic.twitter.com/EKfXQGUeiu — Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) November 30, 2017

Graham never quite got to “100 percent” — for instance, he continued to say special counsel Robert Mueller should be allowed to finish his investigation, and criticized Trump’s Helsinki press conference with Vladimir Putin. But he’s a whole lot closer than he used to be.

Meanwhile, it’s widely rumored that two powerful Cabinet posts — defense secretary and attorney general — will open up after the midterm elections. (Jim Mattis and Jeff Sessions both may head for the exits, voluntarily or not.) Both of these portfolios are close to Graham’s heart, and either job would truly secure his seat at the table for Trump administration policymaking. But if he hopes to get either, he would need to prove his loyalty.

And to truly knock Trump’s socks off, you have to be ... extra.

Graham, Trump, Kavanaugh — and Christine Blasey Ford

When Christine Blasey Ford first came forward on September 16 to allege that Brett Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her in high school, Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee released a statement that mainly criticized Democrats for their handling of her accusation.

Graham, however, tacked on a personal addendum: “If Ms. Ford wishes to provide information to the committee, I would gladly listen to what she has to say and compare that against all the other information we have received about Judge Kavanaugh.”

My statement on Judge Kavanaugh. pic.twitter.com/QGz3uUyzC9 — Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) September 16, 2018

The statement seemed to position Graham as one of the senators most open to hearing out Ford. It also posed a potentially serious problem for President Trump, who had staked his credibility on getting Kavanaugh through — and who has his own reasons not to want to hear out sexual misconduct accusers.

So it was notable that just a few days later, Graham conspicuously changed his tune — with a pair of sycophantic tweets praising President Trump, calling him “dead right” about Kavanaugh, calling Kavanaugh “the right person for the job” (pairing it with praise for President Trump being “dead right”), and declaring that the “Kavanaugh nomination is still on track.”

The President is dead right about Judge Kavanaugh being highly qualified, the right person for the job, and also right about letting process play out.



Kavanaugh nomination is still on track. Stay tuned! — Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) September 21, 2018

Were these tweets that so lavishly praised the president intended for an audience of one? (Trump RTed the first.) Whatever the case, it was clear Graham was back on the team. Last Sunday, Graham was saying that he wouldn’t change his vote based on Ford’s testimony unless she could supply something else new. By Tuesday, he’d declared on Sean Hannity’s show that “the allegations against Judge Kavanaugh are collapsing” and that “I look forward to supporting this good man.”

But it was his “questioning” — really more of a statement — to Kavanaugh on Thursday that truly made waves. It was a viral-ready performance that perfectly keyed in to conservative resentment. Kavanaugh had clearly been wronged and smeared, Democrats shouldn’t be trusted, the accusations were a “charade,” and Ford ... well, best not to address what she said too much.

Afterward, Emma Dumain, a McClatchy reporter covering South Carolina and Congress, tweeted that Graham is in part motivated by his own view of the recent history of judicial confirmations — a self-flattering one in which he’s been “fair” even at political risk, and Democrats have not.

So it's deeply personal for Graham. He feels he took a big risk in voting for Kagan + Sotomayor. Granted Dems might argue they're taking a bigger risk now voting for Kavanaugh given allegations but Graham still sees himself as someone who should be a model for bipartisan fairness — Emma Dumain (@Emma_Dumain) September 28, 2018

Whether Graham was completely sincere, putting on a show, or a combination of both, the results were clear — he’d satisfied a pent-up demand among conservatives and Trump allies for a bolder defense of Kavanaugh.

.@LindseyGrahamSC has more decency and courage than every Democrat member of the committee combined. God bless him. — Sarah Sanders (@PressSec) September 27, 2018

After excoriating the outrageous and unfair treatment of him, “I intend to vote for you and I hope everyone who’s fair-minded will”. @LindseyGrahamSC to Judge Kavanaugh — Kellyanne Conway (@KellyannePolls) September 27, 2018

.@LindseyGrahamSC you were truly incredible today — Eric Trump (@EricTrump) September 28, 2018

Senator Lindsay Graham distinguished himself today as the fairest man and the best lawyer in Washington. He voted for Justices Sotormayor and Kagen on old fashioned principles. I also did. If he is going to vote for Judge Kavanaugh, the Senate all should. — Rudy Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) September 27, 2018

Never thought I would say this.



Bravo @LindseyGrahamSC. https://t.co/6dJhrlPXMG — Sebastian Gorka DrG (@SebGorka) September 27, 2018

President Trump was reportedly watching the hearing — and Graham appeared on one of the president’s favorite Fox shows, Hannity, afterward, to reiterate his pitch. “I am now more convinced than ever that he didn’t do it, that he’s the right guy to be on the Court, that Ms. Ford has got a problem and destroying Judge Kavanaugh’s life won’t fix her problem,” Graham said.

Graham’s on the team. Kavanaugh’s on the team.

Christine Blasey Ford isn’t.