Graham: Trump will ‘be helpful’ to all Senate GOP incumbents

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) pledged on Friday that former President Trump will “be helpful” to all Senate GOP incumbents on the ballot in 2022, as Republicans increasingly turn their focus to the midterms.

“The president is going to be helpful to all Republican incumbents on the Senate. We’ve got a great slate of incumbents,” Graham said during an interview with Fox News Radio.

He added that Trump would be “working with our incumbents” and “helping” Republicans try to unseat Democrats in Arizona, Georgia and New Hampshire.

Trump endorsed Sen. Jerry Moran’s (R-Kan.) reelection bid this week, and Graham noted on Friday that Trump’s team had also been on the phone with Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.).

Trump hasn’t publicly committed to supporting every GOP Senate incumbent. Instead, he’s encouraged primary challenges against Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and John Thune (R-S.D.), who are up for reelection next year, and warned in a statement that he was willing to get involved in GOP primaries in order to support candidates who align with him.

But Graham’s comments come as Senate Republicans are increasingly trying to ease tensions with Trump, which spiked in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and the subsequent impeachment trial.

Republicans openly fumed at Trump after the deadly attack, when a mob of his supporters stormed the building in an effort to stop the counting of the Electoral College vote. Seven GOP senators later voted to convict him of inciting an insurrection, as part of his Senate trial.

Trump has maintained a vise-like grip on the party’s base, who Republicans will need if they want to win back the House and Senate next year. They’ve also watched as lawmakers who broke with Trump on impeachment have faced backlash back home.

Republicans are defending 20 seats in 2022, many of which are in red states where Trump remains popular.

Underscoring the shifting political grounds, Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) — who offered a blistering critique of Trump just weeks ago, calling him “morally responsible” for the attack — said on Thursday night that he would support Trump if he wins the party’s 2024 nomination.

“The nominee of the party? Absolutely,” McConnell said during an interview with Fox News’s Bret Baier.

Asked if he agreed with Sen. Mitt Romney’s (R-Utah) prediction that Trump, if he runs, would win the party’s nomination, McConnell demurred, noting that 2024 would be a “wide open race.”

“There’s a lot to happen between now and ’24. I’ve got at least four members that I think are planning on running for president,” he added.

McConnell’s comments came after Trump lashed out at him in response to his floor speech, calling him “a dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack.”

The dust-up sparked talk of a GOP civil war, and earned McConnell criticism from the president’s allies, including Graham and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.). 

Until the Fox News interview, McConnell had largely declined to talk about Trump since his floor speech, including sidestepping questions during his weekly press conferences on Capitol Hill.