Sen. Lindsey Graham Demands That Barack Obama Stop Being President

On CBS’s Face The Nation, Sen. Lindsey Graham demanded that President Obama stop acting like the president and save the negotiations with Iran over their nuclear program for the next person who occupies the White House in 2017.

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Sen. Graham (R-SC) said:

What I would suggest is if you can’t get there with this deal is to keep the interim deal in place, allow a new president in 2017, Democrat or Republican, take a crack at the Iranian nuclear program. Obama is a flawed negotiator. His foreign policy has failed on multiple fronts.

Nobody in the region trusts him. The Iranians do not fear, respect him, so he’ll never be able to get the best deal. The best deal will come with a new president. Hillary Clinton would do better. I think everybody on our side, with the exception of Rand Paul, could do better, so that’s one way of looking at this program.

What Lindsey Graham was demanding was that President Obama stop being president. Graham’s argument about not making any big new commitments might have some merit if this was the fall of 2016, but the country is nineteen months away from the next presidential election. Sen. Graham is suggesting that the Obama presidency should end roughly halfway through the president’s second term.

It is ironic that Graham would mention Iran not respecting President Obama, when he was one of the 47 Republican senators who tried to sabotage the president by sending a letter directly to the Iranian government. The problem isn’t that Iran doesn’t respect President Obama.

The center of presidential disrespect is the Republican Party. Sen. Graham is sure to be disappointed because President Obama isn’t going to voluntarily decide to surrender his executive powers and keep the seat warm for the next president. Graham’s comments were some of the dumbest and most blatantly disrespectful remarks towards the president that one can imagine.

The bottom line is that there is about as much of a chance of Obama surrendering his presidential powers as Graham has of ever being elected president.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association