Lindsey Graham Slams Activists Who ‘Yell and Spit,’ Praises Colleague Susan Collins

In an appearance Friday night on Fox News’ “Hannity” show , Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) had high praise for Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) for her comments Friday afternoon on the floor of the Senate about the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh and the process of nominating and confirming justices for the U.S. Supreme Court.

Collins, a moderate Republican, had been seen as a swing vote on the Kavanaugh confirmation before she chose — after excruciating deliberation, as she revealed — to support President Donald Trump’s latest choice for the country’s highest court.

In a thorough and clearly articulated speech that lasted nearly an hour on Friday afternoon, Collins explained her ultimate decision to support the Kavanaugh nomination — while criticizing the highly politicized process.

Her speech is worth reading in its entirety.

On Friday night, Sen. Graham told Fox News host Sean Hannity, “If I had to tell somebody a good reason to vote for Judge Kavanaugh, I would ask them to look at Susan’s speech. It was just incredible in detail, forcefully delivered. She didn’t look like she was pained.”

“She hated what happened to the process,” he continued, “but she was confident that Judge Kavanaugh was the right guy at the right time. So I think she saved the Senate and the judiciary from sliding into the abyss.”

Graham also said voters in this fall’s midterm elections will have one of two choices when they go to vote: “the Susan Collins way or the protester way,” as Fox News Insider also reported of the exchange.

“Who do you want to run the government? Conservatives aligned with Sen. Collins, trying to work toward empowering people, making us safe, more money in your pocket? Or do you want to turn your government over to people who just yell and spit on you? To me, this is a really important time in American history,” Graham said on Friday night.

“If you vote for the Democratic Party, you’re turning your government over to people who follow you around, spit on you, and try to intimidate you.”

“If you vote for the Democratic Party, you’re turning your government over to people who follow you around, spit on you, and try to intimidate you. If you keep the Republican Party in place, that means there’ll be an alliance between Susan Collins and others to keep us safe and make our lives better. That’s a pretty simple choice.”

The senator is referring to the liberal activists — many of them paid protesters — who have shown up on Capitol Hill in various venues and in other places around Washington, D.C., to chant, mock, yell at, shout down, and otherwise antagonize various lawmakers about the Kavanaugh nomination.

“This has been building … You have to clear the halls of where your offices [are],” said Sean Hannity on Friday night. “I honestly fear somebody’s going to get hurt here.”

Graham agreed the issue is concerning.

“Again, I just want to compliment her [Susan Collins] for stopping what I thought was the closest thing to McCarthyism in my lifetime,” he said, “that a man is guilty until proven innocent, [that] facts don’t matter, [and that] smearing him equates to him being disqualified. She stood pretty tall.”

Related: Sen. Lindsey Graham’s Defining Moment: ‘Most Unethical Sham Since I’ve Been in Politics’

Two liberal women last week cornered Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) in an elevator over his intentions to vote for the Kavanaugh nomination — after which he, together with Democrats, asked for a supplemental FBI investigation into the allegations raised against Kavanaugh, thus delaying the vote.

Liberal activists hellbent on making their views known and insisting that women who have sexually abused need to be heard have shown up in restaurants, in parking lots, outside private homes, in the hallways of congressional buildings and at many other venues to yell and scream at various members of Congress and others for their views on Kavanaugh and the nomination.

Watch this video:

(photo credit, article image: Sen. Susan Collins, CC BY 2.0, by Shirley Li/Medill / Lindsey Graham, CC BY-SA 2.0, by Gage Skidmore)