During an interview with Newsmax aired Tuesday night, former President Donald Trump slammed GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham as a “RINO” and said the South Carolina Republican was “wrong” to say that pardoning those who took part in the Jan. 6 insurrection was “inappropriate.”
Appearing on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday, Graham was asked if he agreed with Trump’s offering pardons to those who stormed the US Capitol on January 6.
“No, I don’t want to send any signal that it was OK to defile the Capitol. I think it’s inappropriate. … I don’t want to do anything that would make this more likely in the future,” Graham replied.
Trump was then asked in his interview on Newsmax what he thought of Graham’s comments.
“You talked about the potential, if it’s appropriate, of pardoning some of the January 6ers,” Newsmax’s Rob Schmitt asked the former president. “Lindsey Graham said a couple days later, he thinks that’s inappropriate. What do you think?”
“Well, Lindsey Graham’s wrong. I mean, Lindsey’s a nice guy, but he’s a RINO. Lindsey’s wrong,” Trump said. “Lindsey Graham doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about if he says that,” he added.
Trump: Well, Lindsey Graham is wrong. Lindsey is a nice guy but he’s a RINO pic.twitter.com/TsJNV1mbhY
— Acyn (@Acyn) February 2, 2022
But Graham is not the only Republican to disagree with pardoning the Jan 6 insurrectionists.
Asked about Trump’s comments, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told reporters on Tuesday: “I would not be in favor of shortening any of the sentences for any of the people who pleaded guilty to crimes. The election of 2020 was decided Dec. 14 of 2020 when the Electoral College certified the winner of the election. What we saw here on January the 6th was an effort to prevent the peaceful transfer of power from one administration to another, which has never happened before in our country.”
