https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/05/12/trump-civil-war-republican-brothers-john-mccain-and-lindsey-graham-on-different-sides-of-battle/By Paul Kane May 12 at 6:10 AM
Sen. Lindsey Graham paused for five full seconds and stumbled over his words pondering the question: When is the last time he split with fellow Republican Sen. John McCain on a major issue?
“I don’t know, let me think about it,” Graham (S.C.) finally said of his closest Senate friend. “There have been several. I just can’t recall right now, right off the top of my head.”
Yet that’s what has happened in the wake of Donald Trump’s ascendancy to presumptive Republican nominee for president. In the Republican civil war over Trump, this is perhaps the most glaring example of two “brothers” fighting on opposite sides of the battlefield. It reflects a larger chasm in the Republican Party over whether to embrace the anti-establishment businessman that could end up costing the party the presidency in November.
A former Trump rival in the presidential campaign, Graham is part of the anti-Trump coalition promising to never support the businessman — he has declared the presumptive GOP standard bearer’s positions anathema to conservatives on everything from immigration to fitness to oversee the world’s most powerful military. He told reporters Tuesday that “no re-education camp” would change his mind and added he would likely write someone else in for president when he casts his ballot this fall.
McCain (Ariz.) is part of the growing ranks of Republicans who, grudgingly, have decided that the voters have spoken and it’s time to unify so they can defeat the likely Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton.
“I feel, as a Republican and a longtime Reagan Republican, that I support the nominee of the party, and that’s what I’ve said all along,” McCain said.
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