Lindsey Graham warned on Sunday that party leaders need to work with Donald Trump because he will continue to play a role in politics.
If you don't have a relationship with Donald Trump, you can't be effective as a Republican leader. Graham said on Fox News Sunday that he hoped they would get on the same page.
Graham made the comments as he discussed the cost of the Biden plan, which Republican opponents of Biden have lambasted as socialist spending.
Last week, Trump and his allies made jabs at McConnell over his debt ceiling deal with Democrats, which some Republicans saw as a betrayal. Fourteen Republican senators voted in favor of a maneuver that will allow Democrats to raise the debt limit without any Republican support.
On Friday, Trump said that McConnell had given up the most powerful negotiating tool to derail Biden's social spending initiatives.
The build back worse plan is going to be done now, said Trump on the Mark Davis Show. "Mitch McConnell could have killed it if he had taken money and thrown it out the window."
"If you help them, you're legitimizing this spending," Graham said on Sunday. We let a lot of people down. We're going into an election cycle where the wind is to our back, and Senator McConnell has been a great leader on many things. We can't do this again.
Donald Trump is the most consequential Republican in the history of the party since Ronald Reagan, according to Graham. If you want to lead this party in the House and the Senate, you have to have a working relationship with Donald Trump.
