Lindsey Graham acknowledges castration tool mix-up

Iowans have noticed that Lindsey Graham doesn't know a hog castration tool from a cattle castration tool.

And he acknowledged that with some frank quips Friday afternoon in Des Moines.

"It shows my lack of knowledge when it comes to that area of farming," said Graham, a U.S. senator from South Carolina who's considering running for president.

When Iowa's new U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst was sworn in last month, Graham gave her a castration tool mounted on a plaque, with the message "Make 'em squeal, Joni!" That was a reference to Ernst's infamous campaign advertisement in which Ernst, who was raised on a farm, promised to use her skills at castrating hogs to cut spending in Washington.

But the tool Graham picked out for her is a burdizzo, a kind of pliers used for crushing a bull's testicular cords without breaking the skin, Iowa farmers said in emails to The Des Moines Register. Burdizzos aren't used on hogs, and the tool is used less frequently than in the past — the preferred method for bull calves is a sharp knife or scalpel, they said.

"This will not be the first mistake I make, but I will try to learn from them all," Graham, who is on a two-day Iowa trip, told reporters Friday.

Someone posted on an online agriculture forum earlier this month: "It'd be kind of tough to clamp hogs with a burdizzo but 'cutting' isn`t exactly Graham's cup of tea, then is it?"

On Friday, when the Register asked Graham if his slip-up translates to his budget-cutting abilities, he answered: "We'll see if there's a correlation between castration devices and foreign policy."

As he tests the presidential waters in Iowa, Graham is stressing his foreign policy and national defense experience.