guy. he s a race-baiting xenophobic religious bigot. he doesn t represent my party. he doesn t represent the values that the men and women who wear the uniform are fighting for. there s something about trump. there s a dark side and there s some magic there. and what i m trying to do is just harness the magic. he could make the republican party something that nobody else i know could make it. he could make it bigger. he could make it stronger. hi again, everyone. it s 5:00 in new york. that evolution or devolution, i should say, of the republican party is why robert kagan writes in the washington post, we need to stop worrying about an upcoming constitutional crisis. why? because it s already here. kagan lays out in great detail the threat the cult of personality around trump creates for this country right now. how trump supporters believe not the party, not the policy, but
know about donald trump. let s remember, he wasn t always donald trump s greatest admirer. he s a staunch ally now, of course. so i wondered whether he thought the world misunderstood the u.s. president. have a listen to this. he s very curious. he asks a lot of questions. he wants to know how things work and what makes people tick in the world. have i come to be so close? we play golf. we have a lot of fun. he s trying to sell me a condo all the time p. so you no longer believe as you did during the 2016 campaign that donald trump is a shallow, race-baiting xenophobic, religious zealot? i wasn t a fan of his
senate. lieberman, mccain, graham. the republicans from back then call the lindsey graham of today a trump supplicant. the way they tell it it s as if the coolest kid from school has allowed him to be his friend. and remember, graham s love for trump required a little getting used to. watch this idiot lindsey graham on television today and he calls me a jackass. he s a jackass. and he gave me his number. and i found the card. i wrote the number down. i don t know if it s the right number. let s try it. lindsey graham is a disgrace. and i think you have one of the worst representatives of any representative in the united states. he s a race-baiting xenophobic religious bigot. he doesn t represent my party. he doesn t represent the values that the men and women who wear the uniform are fighting for. despite all of that lindsey graham found a way to look through it. and at every turn in the ukraine
office. reporter: it hasn t always been this way. the graham of today i have the president s back because i think this is a setup. reporter: is a far cry from the graham of a few years ago. we know how you make america great again, tell donald trump to go to hell. reporter: known then for slamming trump during the campaign. he s a race-baiting xenophobic religious bigot and he doesn t represent my party. reporter: and at times going against him and admitting he urges senator mccain to turn over the steele dossier of trump russia allegations to the fbi. but in the last year graham has strategically cozied up to the president. the two golf and speak on the phone often. we have a man who has become a friend of mine. it s shocking, isn t it? i like him and he likes him. reporter: graham has a lot to gain politically in hitching his wagon to trump. the senator is up for re-election in south carolina in 2020, where tanding with the
mick wants to be the smartest guy in the room, the focus of attention. this is a guy who again has no core. he talked about well, i don t see the data that says why meals-on-wheels and the school lunch program and all of these programs for ot working class people, for the poor and for children, why they have any relevance. but at the same time when it came to this trillion dollar tax cut, he talked about the deficits and he said you know, we need new deficits in order to justify this. again, this is a person with no moral compass, knock core conviction. senator graham who you re running against used to talk about donald trump the way you do. yeah. take a look. he s a race-baiting xenophobic religious bigot. he doesn t represent my party. do you think he s a racist? absolutely not. is that a focus of your campaign or are you about moving beyond trump? it is a focus. it s not about trump that s the