During a Fundraising speech at Mar-A-Lago on Friday, Lindsey Graham jokingly asked the crowd whether they wanted to see Trey Gowdy on the Supreme Court. The guests applauded.
POTUS introduced Sen. Lindsey Graham who delivered a rousing speech behind closed doors at Mar-a-Lago on Friday eve., joking about the prospect of President Donald Trump opening a hotel in Jerusalem and asking the crowd whether they’d like to see former Rep. Trey Gowdy on the Supreme Court.
With Trump looking on, Graham lavished the president with praise, ticking off a list of his accomplishments, including the booming economy, the elimination of Islamic State strongholds in Syria and Trump's decision to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
“There will be a Trump hotel there in 10 years,” Graham said, according to three people present for his remarks. Two of the people stressed that the comment was clearly a joke, and the crowd laughed in response.
The senator also gave a shout-out to Gowdy, who represented Graham’s state of South Carolina in the House until earlier this year. When Graham jokingly asked the crowd whether they wanted to see Gowdy on the Supreme Court, the guests applauded. Gowdy, the former House Oversight Committee chairman, attended the event and was seen mingling with the president.
Graham recounted how his relationship with Trump went from rocky to warm. “We found a lot in common. I like him and he likes him,” Graham said, one of the people who attended said. But Graham did not mention Trump’s repeated criticism of his longtime friend, the late Sen. John McCain of Arizona.
Graham was the keynote speaker at the annual Lincoln Day Dinner, a fundraiser for the Palm Beach County Republican Party. Graham’s appearance at the event was announced in February.
When asked to comment on the speech, Kevin Bishop, a spokesman for Graham, told POLITICO that the senator “speaks off the cuff.” Asked why Graham didn’t defend McCain to the audience after Trump’s attacks on him, Bishop noted that Graham talked about the matter on Monday and Tuesday in South Carolina.
None of the speakers at the event directly addressed Friday’s long-awaited news that special counsel Robert Mueller had completed his investigation and submitted a report to the Justice Department, according to people who attended.
“Nobody mentioned anything, other than all of us saw our phones and knew the report dropped,” one of the attendees said.
The attendee said Graham’s speech, which was peppered with jokes, easily eclipsed last year’s keynote speech from Sarah Palin.
“She decided she was making a policy speech,” the person said. “It was terrible.”
Mention of HRC evoked calls of "Lock Her Up" from the crowd.
Complete story: https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/23/mueller-report-lindsey-graham-trump-1233186