Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., unloaded his frustrations with the latest iteration of a government funding package backed by President Donald Trump and laid out a stark warning to the top House Republican and the White House in the process. <\/p>\n
Graham is one of the few remaining holdouts blocking the Senate from moving on to a government funding package brokered by Trump and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., as lawmakers race to beat the government funding deadline at midnight on Friday. <\/p>\n
The top Trump ally\u2019s frustrations with the funding package have little to do with the president or the deal struck with Schumer. Much of his ire is directed at a provision tucked in by the House last week that would repeal a law that allows senators whose phone records were subpoenaed by former special counsel Jack Smith to sue for up to $500,000 per infraction. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
And Graham was not happy that House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., let the repeal slip through.<\/p>\n
‘You could have called me about the $500,000,’ Graham said. ‘I’d be glad to work with you. You jammed me, Speaker Johnson. I won’t forget this. I got a lot of good friends in the House. If you think I’m going to give up on this, you really don’t know me.’<\/p>\n
Graham has been a vocal proponent of that law, which was slipped into the last funding patch by Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., with a green light from Schumer. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
He also turned his frustration on the White House.<\/p>\n
‘I’ve been told the White House doesn’t like this, and I told the White House last night, \u2018I don’t care if you like it or not.\u2019 I literally texted my friends at the White House, \u2018If I were you, I would not call me tonight.\u2019’ <\/p>\n
‘And they didn’t call me,’ he continued. ‘I don’t work for the White House. They’re my political allies. I’m close to President Trump. I don’t work for him.’ <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have charged that it\u2019s a law designed to allow their colleagues to enrich themselves off the taxpayers\u2019 dime, and tried on several occasions in the Senate to repeal it.<\/p>\n
Graham is willing to lift his hold on the package if he gets a vote on expanding the number of people and organizations who were affected by Smith\u2019s Arctic Frost probe that can sue, along with a vote on his legislation that would criminalize the conduct of officials who operate sanctuary cities. <\/p>\n
Several other lawmakers are demanding amendment votes, too, which Republican leaders are currently working to address. A positive sign, however, is that none appear to be demanding a guaranteed outcome.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., unloaded his frustrations with the latest iteration of a government funding package backed by President Donald Trump and laid out a stark warning to the top House Republican and the White House in the process. Graham is one of the few remaining holdouts blocking the Senate from moving on to a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2724,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bravemoneyminds.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bravemoneyminds.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bravemoneyminds.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bravemoneyminds.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bravemoneyminds.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bravemoneyminds.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2723\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bravemoneyminds.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bravemoneyminds.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bravemoneyminds.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bravemoneyminds.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}