NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. — U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham has made a new bet on how he thinks history will remember President Donald Trump and the violent mob that ransacked the Capitol on Jan. 6 in Trump’s name and his unfounded allegations of election fraud.
In an interview with The State Monday, the South Carolina Republican predicted the upcoming 2022 midterm elections — not the insurrection itself — will determine whether Trump’s presidency is forever linked to the events of Jan. 6.
“That won’t be his legacy,” Graham insisted, before qualifying, “That won’t be his legacy if we win in 2022. If we lose in 2022, then Jan. 6 becomes his legacy.”
It was a departure from the assessment Graham made in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack, when the senator told CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Feb. 7 that Jan. 6 was “a very bad day for America, and he’ll get his share of blame in history.”
Graham’s comments on Monday also come as the longtime Trump ally finds himself ping-ponging in and out of favor with the former president, who still holds a powerful sway over the Republican Party.
Over the weekend, Graham told a group of Michigan Republicans that he hoped Trump would run for president again in 2024. But even in his remarks at the Michigan Republican Party’s leadership conference, which received applause from attendees, Graham conceded that he may not have the ear of the 45th president.
“I don’t think Trump is listening. He might be,” Graham said, according coverage of the event from The Detroit News. “I hope President Trump runs again.”
That renewed show of public support came after Trump ripped Graham in a statement last week after the Washington Post reported on a new book that, in one of its chapters, details Graham’s repeated — and unsuccessful — attempts to persuade Trump to drop his 2020 election fraud claims.
Asked Monday why he wants to support a figure who has openly sought to undermine and discredit America’s democratic process, Graham bristled.
“I don’t agree with that,” he said.
“I think he was a good president. I think his policies will stand the test of time. I think he’s capable of leading us away from the abyss, but I encourage him to look forward not backward,” Graham said of his conversations with the former president. “The more we talk about 2020, the harder it is to make the case for change for 2022 and 2024.”
Graham’s comments came a day after another high-profile Republican figure struck a different tone about how they think the party should move forward after the Trump presidency.
U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyoming, told CBS News’ “60 Minutes” in an interview that aired Sunday night that she thinks Trump “is very dangerous” and criticized Republicans like Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California for their continued embrace of Trump after what happened on Jan. 6.
“I’m saying that there are people who supported Donald Trump because of his policies. But there’s a difference between somebody who voted for Donald Trump and being the Republican leader after an insurrection, and setting all of that aside and going to Mar-a-Lago, and rehabilitating him, bringing him back in. That to me is unforgivable,” she said.
Speaking to reporters in North Charleston on Monday, after an infrastructure roundtable, Graham addressed the recent criticism from Trump by saying he thought Trump was a great president.
”The 2020 audits are over for me. I accept the results,” Graham said.
Then, Graham made one last prediction.
”I think President Trump is in a good position to win,” Graham said of Trump’s 2024 odds, describing it as potentially “the biggest comeback in American history.”
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