WASHINGTON, D.C. — Throughout the 2016 presidential election season, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was one of the loudest, most outspoken critics of then-candidate Donald Trump.  Graham once famously tweeted a dire prediction for his Republican Party, should Trump go on to win the election.

If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed…….and we will deserve it.

— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) May 3, 2016

However, since Trump’s inauguration, many people around the capital — and indeed the nation — have noticed a marked turn in his tone and attitude toward Mr. Trump. Since the death of Graham’s longtime friend and confidante, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, Graham has notably shifted his tone and rhetoric about Trump. Now, the president can count Graham among his fiercest defenders. 

In a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing earlier this year, Attorney General William Barr was invited to testify in regards to the Mueller Report. It had been reported thatRobert Mueller himself took great exception to how the work of his team was summarized by the attorney general. Barr has been trying his hardest to defend his conclusion, that the president didn’t commit obstruction, despite lengthy, episodic recounting of several efforts to do just that, because in his estimation, there was no underlying crime of collusion, or conspiracy, among Trump’s campaign and Russians.

Democrats have pointed out numerous times that Mueller’s report is actually much more murky on the subject of conspiracy, and essentially lays out the impeachment case on the obstruction of justice charges. In today’s hearing, Graham opened the proceedings with a speech that didn’t focus on Trump’s campaign, the Russian efforts to collude with them, or even the Mueller Report. Instead, Graham made it clear he intends to use the committee’s power to investigate the Obama administration, and even reopen the Hillary Clinton email investigation.

Graham focused more on the actions of a closed FBI investigation into Clinton than he did on the Mueller Report and Barr’s highly suspicious behavior surrounding it. Graham’s opening statement had many on the HIll wondering what happened to the man who, in 2016’s election season, had a much more critical view of Trump and his tendency to lie. Senator Graham continued to position himself closely to President Trump when he defended Trump’s racist attacks on “The Squad,” four freshmen Democratic congresswomen who have been particularly outspoken and critical about the administration’s family separation policy at the border.

This weekend, Trump erupted more than once at the Squad, telling them to “go back where they came from,” which many pointed out as white supremacist rhetoric common in the U.S. in previous eras. Graham took to Fox News and blasted the Squad, calling them “Communists” in the process.

.@LindseyGrahamSC on Fox & Friends: "We all know that AOC and this crowd are a bunch of communists … they're anti-Semitic. They're anti-America." pic.twitter.com/lsFqZi1Eu8

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 15, 2019

During a break in a senate hearing this morning, Sen. Graham was approached by reporters and gave an in-depth explanation for his about-face when it comes to Trump. In the past, Graham had been quite willing to call Trump racist and xenophobic. But recently, it’s been the opposite. 

“I guess you could say I’ve just had the opportunity over the last eighteen months to start warming up to the man,” Graham told reporters this morning. “And I’m not only warming up to him as a person, either. I’ve had the ability now to warm up to the taste of his butthole, and it’s quite exquisite, really.”

Graham said that he was already “turning the corner and going Trump’s old dirt road” before this weekend, but that his racist attacks on the Squad “solidified [his] path forward.”

“I’m a drawling South Carolinian conservative,” Graham said, “so my racism has always been there. Why do you think I’m always so hard for a war, besides all those young, sweaty, hulking men and their guns being out in the glistening sun, I mean? That’s right, because I see brown people as expendable in the pursuit of whatever it is I’m calling freedom to convince my constituents that we want another war of choice. So I see those tweets this weekend, and I thank President Trump for giving me something to show the racists who vote for me in my home state.”

Sen. Graham explained that at first, when Trump’s anus started tasting pleasant to him, he was shocked and concerned.

“No one, including me, would have ever expected that I’d grow to like, or even love, the taste of Donald Trump’s poop chute,” Graham said. “But as anyone who has watched me over the last year can attest to, I absolutely adore it. It’s like ice cream, except you know, racist, plutocratic, and with a soupcon of white collar criminal activity.”

During Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation process, Graham went viral when he railed against Democrats, emotional tears beginning to form in his eyes.

“Turns out, those tears were like the extra seasoning I needed to just belly up to the bar and suck down a nice, big pint of Donald Trump’s anal seepage,” Graham said. “I guess if the ends justify the means, it’s justified to drink from his end.”

Graham paused.

“But one thing I will not do is lower myself to fellating the president, not after he’s insulted me so much,” Graham said. “I mean, who do you think I am, Ted Cruz? I haven’t killed anyone, and I eat my boogers in private, sir!”

Graham turned on his heel and ran away.

This is a developing story.

Writer/comedian James Schlarmann is the founder of The Political Garbage Chute and his work has been featured on The Huffington Post. You can follow James on Facebook, Spotify, and Instagram, but not Twitter because they have a definition of hate speech that includes “calling Ann Coulter the C-word.”