By Hannah Knudsen. Media: Breitbart
TAMPA, Florida — Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is a “puppet for the Democrats,” the senator’s primary challenger, former South Carolina Lt. Gov. André Bauer, told Breitbart News during an appearance at the Turning Point Student Action Summit over the weekend.
Bauer is running against the four-term senator, whom many view as an establishment Republican thwarting President Donald Trump’s MAGA agenda. When asked to identify the main differences between himself and Graham, Bauer quickly laid it out, noting that Graham initially went into Congress in ’94. Bauer said:
He’s been there since Moby Dick was a minnow. And I’m a term limit guy. Limited myself when I ran for the House of Representatives, the State House, I said three terms and I’m out. I served one term and ended up getting late to the senate. I did one full term there, and then I ran for lieutenant governor, did two terms there.
“I could have run again and probably gotten elected, but I just didn’t think that was how you should — I’m a business guy at heart,” he said. “I’ve been out now for 15 years. I didn’t go try to make a living off the politics and get a lobbying job. I went right back to business.”
However, Bauer said that is why he has gotten frustrated — because he has seen Graham “year after year go represent all over the globe and issues of wars and stirring the pot everywhere but South Carolina.”
“We never see him in South Carolina,” Bauer said. “He’s probably been to Ukraine more than he’s probably been to Union, South Carolina in the last 30 years. And we just we want to see our effort of our senator in our home state, in our home country,” he pointed out, adding:
We want to see a border that’s actually protected. We want to see dollars allocated to the problems in our state and not all around the globe. USAID, for example, he was on the … board. They gave over $100 million away. That concerns us as taxpayers, as citizens. We’re frustrated because we don’t think he has our interests at heart anymore.
When asked if he would be able to steal President Trump’s endorsement — as he has backed Graham’s reelection, Bauer noted that he was one of the first people to endorse Trump in 2016. Trump later nominated Bauer to serve as the ambassador to Belize.
“And then in his re-election, I was on stage with Graham, and he introduced me and said, André Bauer could run for anything and win. And then we both spoke in Pickens. I had a very warm reception. And Lindsey Graham actually was born in Pickens, and they booed him for six minutes off the stage,” he said.
“I understand this is swamp, and the President’s got to work with what he’s been given, but let’s send him some people that are real conservative, that are real MAGA, that don’t flip flop, they don’t switch, that actually stand behind a record of conservatism,” he said, noting Graham fought with his own party for eight years.
Ultimately, Bauer said Graham has “never had a real opponent,” which is why voters have continued to push him into office.
“We have a real opportunity tonight to knock off one of the vipers of the Senate,” he said. “It’s going to be unbelievable year for the president … because Thom Tillis is going to be gone, McConnell’s going to be gone…”
“The biggest creature of them all in the swamp is Lindsey Graham. Let us not forget, he’s the one that said Joe Biden’s one of the finest men he ever met. He voted 70 percent of the time in ’22 with Biden — 70 percent he voted with the Democrats,” Bauer stressed. “This a guy that confirmed Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Sotomayor. He’s not looking out for our interests. He’s a puppet for the Democrats.”
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