Sen. Lindsey Graham on Sunday accused President Joe Biden of playing the “race card” by slamming Republican efforts to suppress voting across the country.
In an interview with “Fox News Sunday,” the South Carolina Republican was asked to react to new measures being pushed by his party in states like Georgia to restrict access to voting, which Biden referred to as “sick” and “Jim Crow in the 21st century” during his first news conference Thursday.
“You know what’s sick is that the president of the United States played the race card continuously in such a hypocritical way,” Graham said to Fox News’ Chris Wallace.
Graham went on to disparage Democrats and a package of election and government reforms, known as H.R. 1, that passed the House earlier this month and which seeks to counter Republican efforts to stymie voting, calling the sweeping legislation “the biggest power grab in the history of our country.” It awaits action in the Senate.
“Every time a Republican does anything, we’re a racist. If you’re a white conservative, you’re a racist. If you’re a Black Republican, you’re either a prop or Uncle Tom,” Graham said. Democrats “use the racism card to advance a liberal agenda, and we’re tired of it. H.R. 1 is sick, not what they’re doing in Georgia.”
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law Thursday new legislation that includes a number of major changes in the state’s voting system, including imposing an ID requirement on absentee ballot requests, limiting the use of ballot drop boxes and shrinking the period for runoff contests.
Graham said that while he supported the law, he disagreed with some parts of it, namely a provision that would make it illegal to hand out food and water to people waiting in line to vote.
“That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me,” he said.