Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., blasted President Joe Biden for caving to his party's far-left agenda and mourned the loss of Biden the "deal-maker," a collaborative colleague whom Graham says "no longer exists."
In an interview with the Washington Examiner, Graham lamented that Biden hasn’t been anywhere near the bipartisan negotiator he was during his decades as Delaware’s Senator.
"The Joe Biden that we know that would be a deal-maker, that would find a way forward on an infrastructure bill, is AWOL or doesn't exist," Graham said. "I don't know what's happened to the Biden administration."
Graham added: "If he does exist, he needs to reemerge and reassert."
Graham said he hasn’t spoken to Biden since he entered the White House — putting Graham in the same company as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
But he pointed to what he sees as the outsized influence of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in Congress, including in the controversial House-passed Equality Act that dealt with issues surrounding sexual orientation and gender identity.
"The idea of the Equality Act would require basically every girls sports program ... to allow biological males to play if they define themselves as a female, it would destroy girls athletics," Graham said.
On the border crisis, Graham said the president's performance has been "tragic" and "dangerous."
In February alone there was a surge of more than 100,000 illegal immigrants at the southern border, and agents in the Rio Grande Valley sector in Texas were encountering 1,500 illegals every day, the Washington Examiner reported. Graham called on Biden to "see it for yourself," even as Biden on Wednesday tapped Vice President Kamala Harris to lead his administration's response to the surge.
Asked if he thought Biden was in charge of the policy emanating from his White House, Graham told the Washington Examiner: "He's not in charge."
"You know who I think is in charge? The people who are going to primary [Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.]," Graham said, ostensibly referring to Ocasio-Cortez.
Graham added Schumer "would get fired" if he didn't back Democrat calls to make Washington, D.C. a state and abolish the Senate filibuster, a hurdle which would allow the chamber's controlling party to pass legislation with a simple majority.
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