Supporters of former United States President Donald Trump booed South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham during a speech at a rally, calling the official a "traitor" after a back-and-forth relationship with the Republican businessman.
The incident occurred as Graham was stumping for the former president on Saturday when he thanked the crowd for coming to the rally despite the less-than-welcoming applause. After several minutes, the South Carolina senator tried to calm the people down to no avail.
Lindsey Graham Booed at South Carolina Rally
Graham said winning an election was getting people together who sometimes disagreed with deciding on the most crucial topics. The South Carolina senator hoped they could bring the GOP together and back Trump as the party's 2024 presidential nominee.
The two Republican lawmakers' relationship has been shaky for quite some time as when Trump was running for president in 2015, Graham called him a "race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot." The South Carolina senator noted that the former president does not represent his party, per The Daily Beast.
The rocky relationship between Graham and Trump remained that way for several years, and last year, the South Carolina official said that the former president was already losing his sense of reality after the 2020 election.
However, just this month, after Trump's indictment related to classified documents that he took from the White House to his Mar-a-Lago estate, Graham said in an interview that the former president is politically stronger today than before. Despite the support, he said he did not support taking sensitive materials from the White House.
Furthermore, in recent months, Graham has appeared on Fox News to shore up support from Republican viewers to donate to Trump's 2024 presidential campaign. And when the former president took the stage in South Carolina, he took moderate steps to protect his colleague from the crowd's potential negativity.
Trump's Show of Force
The packed crowd of supporters was a show of force for the former president, known for being able to pack crowds into arenas and fields. According to Politico, local officials estimated that the people at the rally numbered roughly 50,000.
The number of people at the event was a testament to Trump's influence in the home-state turf of two other presidential nomination opponents, Nikky Halley and Tim Scott. The event is the latest sign that Trump is gearing up for a massive fanbase coming into the 2024 presidential election.
In his speech to the crowd, Trump said that "hardworking patriots" like them built this country and argued that it would be them who would save it in the future. One woman drenched in sweat raised her Gatorade to the sky while swaying to the music, while a man in a wheelchair removed his shirt to cool himself down.
The jeers for Graham came as a 74-year-old attendee, William Billew, said he was tired of the South Carolina senator's "wishy-washiness." He added that Graham does not need to use Trump to get to where he needs to go again, said USA Today.
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