This week Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) appeared on Fox News where he appeared to take sides with Brett Kavanaugh and claimed that his accuser Christine Blasey Ford was being used by Democrats.
“I am going to look at this from a prism of being reasonable and fair to Judge Brett Kavanaugh,” Graham said. “Everything I know about Judge Brett Kavanaugh goes against this allegation. I want to listen to Dr. Ford. I feel sorry for her. but I think she’s being used here.”
Graham’s claims caused an uproar from an MSNBC panel that called out the Republican senator.
Asked to respond by AM Joy host Joy Reid, columnist E.J. Dionne unloaded on the Republican senator.
“Those clips you showed were very revealing,” Dionne said. “Whatever happened to the occasionally independent-minded Lindsey Graham? That was the phoniest sympathy by him, trying to deny her agency, saying she is just a pawn of the Democrats.”
“No,” he said. “She is someone who voluntarily came forward knowing the kind of grief — and I’m being gentle about it — she would take for doing so.”
Neera Tanden, the head of the Center for American Progress, claimed that Graham made his comments on Fox News because that’s where he feels safe.
“I just want to say, a really critical point here is that Lindsey Graham is happy to go on Fox News, but he’s unwilling to ask questions directly of Dr. Blasey Ford,” Tanden said referring to Graham’s desire to have a GOP-appointed woman question Ford.
“I’m sorry, that is cowardice through and through,” Tanden added. “He has a job. His job is to ask questions and he should not be hiding behind a woman’s skirts.”
Take a look at the video clip below:
