Former President Donald Trump called Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham “a progressive” during a 2024 presidential campaign rally on Thursday before seemingly complimenting the South Carolina senator.
During the rally in New Hampshire, Trump protested that “every country” was currently “screwing” the United States through “taxes and trade barriers,” including India, China, and the entire continent of Europe.
Trump then said that under his proposed Reciprocal Trade Act, the United States would retaliate against any foreign company “which charges us say 100 percent or 200 percent,” by charging them the same to operate in the American market.
“So if India charges our companies a hundred, we charge their companies a hundred. It’s very simple, and yet we have people in Congress that say, ‘No, I don’t think that’s good,’” he continued, before seemingly singling out “Lindsey Graham, the progressive from South Carolina” as one of the good members of Congress who supported his idea.
As the audience booed the mention of Graham’s name, Trump said, “No, he’s a progressive, but he’s got some good things too, ok?”:
Lindsey Graham, I said to him, Lindsey you gotta go along with this. We were all set to get it done. You gotta go along with this. He said, “So let me get this straight, if they charge us, we charge them the same thing?” He said, it’s not his strength, other things are his strength. He said, “So they charge us, we charge them. Same thing, right? You got my vote.” That’s so easy.
Trump then complained that there were others in Congress who opposed the policy.
While Graham was a vocal opponent of Trump during the 2016 presidential election, warning that the Republican Party would be “destroyed” if it nominated Trump, the two have experienced a closer relationship in recent years.
Graham endorsed Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, despite previously indicating that he wouldn’t, and this month the senator asked Fox News viewers to “please help President Trump” by donating to his campaign. In February 2022, however, Trump called Graham a “RINO” and said he “doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
Watch above via Newsmax.
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