Fact Check

Lindsey Graham Didn't Badmouth Republicans

Lindsey Graham did not badmouth the Republican Party after dropping out of the 2016 presidential race.

Published Dec. 22, 2015

Claim:
Lindsey Graham badmouthed the Republican Party after suspending his 2016 presidential campaign.

Shortly after South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham declared on 21 December 2015 that he was suspending his presidential campaign, the the Free Wood Post published an article about Graham's announcement reporting that he had asserted "the Republican party is f*cked":

Concerned for his nation, but more for his party, Lindsey Graham spoke to Free Wood Post candidly after he announced he was dropping out of the race:

"Listen, the Republican party is f*cked. There's just no nice way to put it. Look who's leading in the polls. You have the knucklehead Trump in first place, followed by that sleazebucket Ted Cruz. Then who? Carson? Jeb? Rubio? For f*ck's sake, they could have at least allowed me onto the main debate stage to actually have a solid voice of reason against the overwhelming buffoonery. As Pussy Galore would say, 'I'm a damn good pilot. Period.' And I'm a damn good candidate for president. Too bad the rest of America didn’t have a chance to notice. If Trump wins the nomination, you can kiss the GOP as we know it goodbye. We're toast.”

When Lindsey Graham suspended his presidential campaign, he did not badmouth his Republican colleagues in his announcement of that decision. Instead, Graham said that he was confident the remaining GOP candidates would be able to provide strong leadership for America:

Today, I'm suspending my campaign for president. I want to thank everyone who has taken this journey with me. You have honored me with your support.

I believe we've run a campaign you can be proud of. We put forward bold and practical solutions to big problems, like retiring our debt and fixing a broken immigration system. This has been a problem solver's campaign.

However, the centerpiece of my campaign has been securing our nation. I got into this race to put forward a plan to win a war we cannot afford to lose and to turn back the tide of isolationism that was rising in our party. I believe we've made enormous progress in this effort.

Four months ago at the very first debate, I said that any candidate that did not understand that we need more American troops on the ground in Iraq and Syria to defeat ISIL was not ready to be commander-in-chief. At that time, no one stepped forward to join me. Today, most of my fellow candidates have come to recognize this is what’s needed to secure our homeland.

I am far more confident today that our party will reject the Obama doctrine of leading from behind and will provide the strong leadership America needs to restore our military, take the fight to our enemies and do what it takes to make our country safe and preserve our way of life.

This is a generational struggle that demands a strategy and the will to win. I will continue to work every day to ensure that our party — and our nation — takes on this fight. I'm suspending my campaign, but never my commitment to achieving security through strength for the American people.

God bless our fighting men and women, and God bless America.

The web site on which this item originated, the Free Wood Post, is a satirical one:

Free Wood Post is a news and political satire web publication, which may or may not use real names, often in semi-real or mostly fictitious ways. All news articles contained within FreeWoodPost.com are fiction, and presumably fake news.

Dan Evon is a former writer for Snopes.