Deep Left Field

Lindsey Graham Slaps Down Sean Hannity On Immigration, The Budget: ‘Your Solutions Don’t Work’

Andrew Bradford

(FILES)US Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) holds a press conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC in this November 14, 2012 file photo, regarding the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012. Graham threatened February 10, 2013 to block the confirmations of President Barack Obama's nominees for defense secretary and CIA director over the deadly attack on the US consulate in Libya. Graham said he would put a "hold" on the nominations of Chuck Hagel and John Brennan until the White House provided more information about the president's actions during the September 11, 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya. "I want to know what our president did. What did he do as commander in chief? Did he ever pick up the phone and call anybody? I think this is the stuff the country needs to know," Graham said on CBS' Face the Nation. AFP PHOTO / Karen BLEIERKAREN BLEIER/AFP/Getty Images

You don’t normally expect a member of the GOP to go on “Hannity” and tell the host that he’s wrong on any number of issues, but that’s exactly what happened Tuesday evening, and I have to give major props to Senator Lindsey Graham for doing so.

Graham told Sean Hannity that many of the so-called “solutions” to problems that Hannity and Fox continually harp on are simply wrong, adding:

“I believe you’re a principled fellow, but I’ve come to conclude that the Republican Party as a whole needs to knock off some of this stuff.”

Hannity, a perpetual smirk on his face, then tried to defend Fox’s divisiveness with this comparison:

“You’re claiming that we’re responsible for polarizing. Wasn’t Martin Luther King polarizing in a good way, standing up for justice?”

Wait a minute! Hold the phone! Did he just compare Fox News and their endless propaganda to Dr. King? Yep, sure did.

Later, when the topic of immigration came up, Hannity started in with his usual litany of what should be done: secure the border, deport everyone who is here illegally, and refuse to allow anyone else to enter the United States. Graham shot back with this:

“What I am saying is that your solutions don’t work. At the end of the day, you can’t secure the border unless you tell the Democrats what’s going to happen with the 11 million [undocumented].”

Graham was also critical of Hannity’s inane plan to cut the budget deficit. Here, in a nutshell, is Hannity’s ridiculous idea of how we solve the problem:

“I would cut a penny out of every dollar and eliminate baseline budgeting and you can balance the budget in six years.”

Senator Graham made mincemeat of that argument:

“No, you can’t. Young people have to work longer and people at our income level are going to have to take a little less, or we’re going to destroy this country.”

Personally, I think Lindsey Graham has virtually no chance of winning the 2016 Republican nomination. But I have to admit I have a newfound respect for him.

This article was originally published by the same author at LiberalAmerica.org.