Political strategist and longtime Donald Trump critic Steve Schmidt published a blistering assessment Sunday of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), calling him a “parasitic sucker fish” and “the hollowest of hollow men.”
Writing in his newsletter “The Warning,” Schmidt attacked Graham, who died at age 71 over the weekend, as an “unprincipled man who betrayed his country for power and his decency for attention.”
Schmidt, who worked on the campaigns for George W. Bush and late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), recalled some of the warnings Graham issued about Donald Trump before his surprise 2016 election victory, only to later become one of the president’s most loyal defenders.
He described Graham as “a pathetic man, a true cynic and a faithless servant of the Constitution” who “lacked a moral core.”
Schmidt concluded, “I won’t mourn Lindsey Graham’s death, but rather the country he helped break. He was a most contemptible man.”
Trump, meanwhile, hailed Graham as “one of the greatest people” he’s known.
A preliminary examination attributed Graham’s death to aortic dissection due to arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease.