Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) ripped Republicans over the rise of GOP frontrunner Donald Trump, saying his party has “lost its way.”
“To the Donald: Why don’t you go live in [Muammar] Gaddafi’s Libya? Why don’t you go live in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq? You want to be the leader of friggin free world, and you’re yearning for dictators to come back?,” Graham said during a panel Tuesday at the Milken Institute’s Global Conference.
{mosads}Trump told CNN’s “State of the Union” last year that he thought the world would be better if Hussein and Gaddafi were still in power.
“I mean, look at Libya. Look at Iraq. Iraq used to be no terrorists,” he said at the time. “Right now Libya, nobody even knows Libya, frankly there is no Iraq and there is no Libya. It’s all broken up. They have no control. Nobody knows what’s going on.”
Graham, who ended his own presidential campaign last year, has been an ardant of critic of Trump.
Trump has been leading in the polls, as well as the hunt for delegates, for months. Graham warned separately on Twitter Tuesday that if Republicans nominate Trump “we will get destroyed…….and we will deserve it.”
Though Graham has thrown his support behind Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), he appeared to hint Tuesday that he believes Hillary Clinton, the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination, will ultimately win in November.
Giving advice to the next president on defeating the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Graham said “the next president, whoever she may be.”
Earlier this year—before he endorsed Cruz—Graham told reporters that either Trump or the Texas senator would ultimately cost Republicans the election, comparing them to getting “shot or poisoned.”