South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said on Tuesday that he thinks President Donald Trump has been taken advantage of by the Saudi crown prince. During an appearance on “The Story With Martha MacCallum,” Graham criticized the response to the investigation into the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
A team of Saudi agents flew to Istanbul, Turkey, and killed Khashoggi. He was strangled to death immediately upon entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2 and was later dismembered, Turkish prosecutors said last month. (RELATED: Saudi Arabia Allows Inspection Of Consulate Where Khashoggi Is Said To Have Disappeared)
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“The president made his very first trip to Saudi Arabia. Why do you think you all — everybody knows that there is a lot of bad actors and bad actions in the world,” MacCallum said. “Why is this so different for you?”
“Everybody in the world is watching, by the way. When you sell weapons to somebody and when you let them have access to your economy and you treat them as a real ally, that is different than having a relationship with China, Iran or Russia. They are not our allies. They are our foes. Sometimes you can only do so much,” Graham responded. “I am a pretty practical guy. I introduced MBS six months ago in town as being the hope of the mideast. Boy, was I wrong. Here’s the way I feel about it, I was played. I was used.”
Earlier on Tuesday, Graham was one of a handful of Senators who had a private meeting with CIA Director Gina Haspel on the subject. Following the briefing, he told reporters that there was a “smoking saw” pointing to the crown prince.
“Do you tell the president you think he is played on this?” MacCallum asked.
Graham answered, “Yes.” (RELATED: Bolton Fires Back After Reporter Asks If He’s Listened To Khashoggi Tape)
A general manager of Alarab TV, Jamal Khashoggi, looks on during a press conference in the Bahraini capital Manama, on December 15, 2014. MOHAMMED AL-SHAIKH/AFP/Getty Images
“Clearly they don’t respect you. They don’t respect us. They feel like they can do anything and get away with it. Now is the time to come down hard. Now is the time to be the leader of the world. Not accept this as just the way things are. I’m going to cut them off. I have gone from being this guy’s biggest champion to his biggest nightmare,” he continued.
Graham concluded by offering a warning, saying, “But what I would caution the president is that Obama was weak in the eyes of our friends and our enemies. In the mideast, if you give this guy a pass after he disrespected you, you will look weak. You don’t want to look weak. Right now you have to be strong. Everybody is watching.”
