Lindsey Graham is Getting Eaten Alive by Other Republicans for Suggesting Someone Should Assassinate Putin

Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) criticized his colleague Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) after Graham suggested that someone close to Russian President Vladimir Putin should consider assassinating him to put an end to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, which Putin invaded last week.

“Is there a Brutus in Russia?” Graham asked in a tweet last night, adding: “The only way this ends is for somebody in Russia to take this guy out. You would be doing your country – and the world – a great service.”

“The only people who can fix this are the Russian people,” Graham noted, saying assassinating Putin would keep Russia’s citizens from being “isolated from the rest of the world in abject poverty” and living “in darkness.”

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Cruz responded shortly afterward calling Graham’s suggestion “an exceptionally bad idea.” He stressed that the United States would be better served boycotting the Russian energy sector and providing “military aid so the Ukrainians can defend themselves.”

Graham also received a sharp rebuke from Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who called his suggestion “irresponsible, dangerous, and unhinged.”

“We need leaders with calm minds and steady wisdom. Not blood thirsty warmongering politicians trying to tweet tough by demanding assassinations. Americans don’t want war,” she responded.

Anatoly Ivanovich, the Russian Ambassador to the United States, also condemned Graham’s suggestion, saying he finds the “statement [sic] of American politics unacceptable and outrageous.”

“I find the statement of American politics unacceptable and outrageous. The degree of Russophobia and hatred in the USA towards Russia is off the charts. It’s unbelievable that a country’s senator preaching his moral values as a ‘guiding star’ to all mankind could afford a call on terrorism as a way to achieve Washington’s goals on the international arena,” he said.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle, Ja’han Jones, who writes for MSNBC, said that Graham’s suggestion would “nudge” the United States into World War III.

“Graham, it should be noted, is a war hawk who rarely opposes sending American armed forces into harm’s way, hence his avid support for the Iraq War in the early 2000s,” Jones wrote. “For that reason, it’s predictable — albeit deeply worrying — that he’d so flippantly and openly suggest that Russians put their (and our) lives on the line to kill a brutal dictator.”

Additionally, Ben Rhodes, one of former President Barack Obama’s top foreign policy staffers, ripped Graham for his allegiance to former President Donald Trump, who regularly backed Putin despite warnings from United States intelligence agencies.

“This guy was the chief apologist and enabler for an autocrat who called Putin a genius on the eve of invasion and sided with Putin over U.S. intelligence over his assault on American democracy,” Rhodes said.

Alan Herrera

Alan is a writer, editor, and news junkie based in New York.