Lindsey Graham on White House bid: 'I'm running' Senator will hold event on June 1 to formally announce his intentions

Sen. Lindsey Graham said Monday that he will announce his decision about whether to run for president on June 1 in his hometown of Central, South Carolina, but left little doubt about his intentions by saying “I’m running.”

“I’m running because of what you see on television; I’m running because I think the world is falling apart; I’ve been more right than wrong on foreign policy,” he said on “CBS This Morning,” when asked if he was running because he was unimpressed with the rest of the field (and appearing to dispense with the pretense that he hasn’t decided whether to jump in). “It’s not the fault of others, or their lack of this or that that makes me want to run; it’s my ability in my own mind to be a good commander in chief and to make Washington work.”

Graham, who is one of the Senate’s leading national security hawks, would be a long shot in the crowded Republican presidential field but could be influential in pressuring the other contenders on foreign policy issues. In recent weeks, the chances of his running, according to Graham, have gone from 91 percent to “98.6 percent” to 99.9 percent. He has also staffed up his exploratory committee.

“You’re all invited to come, spend money when you do, and I will tell you what I’m going to do about running for president,” he said about the June 1 event.

Graham was also asked whether he would have gone into Iraq if he had known of the intelligence failures that are widely known now. It’s a question that has tripped up several other 2016 contenders, including Jeb Bush and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.).

“Going into Iraq, if I’d known … then what I know now, would I have launched a ground invasion? Probably not,” he said, adding that if he knew the “intelligence was faulty,” he would have “reconfigured” his approach to taking on Saddam Hussein, who “needed to go.”

“But at the end of the day, he is gone,” Graham said. “And I’m worried about an attack on our homeland.”

Graham, a media fixture, is well-known for his assertive national security posture and for working with Democrats on issues like immigration reform. But hosting the June 1 event in the town where he grew up allows Graham to highlight his personal story, which isn’t widely known. He was raised in the back of a pool hall and bar owned by his family, and when his parents died young, he brought up his sister while in college and in the military (Graham is trained as an Air Force lawyer). That tough background, his team believes, better positions him to connect in a compassionate way with voters.

The senator added that he was also weighing a run both because he wanted to take on “radical Islam” and because he wanted to promote more bipartisanship.

“In my view, Democrats and Republicans work together too little,” he said. “And I would try to change that if I got to be president.”