President Donald Trump’s most bloodthirsty lieutenant has gone into damage control to try to repair his image after a magical trip to Disney World.
Unmarried and childless South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham took a break from baying for more death in Iran to visit the resort in Florida on what he says was a business trip. But the mockery came swiftly after TMZ published images of the 70-year-old lawmaker strolling through the Magic Kingdom, clutching a Little Mermaid-themed bubble wand.
“Divas still need vacation,” said California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s press team, sharing the image on X.
Now, in an attempt to brush the pink-washed image from the minds of Americans, Graham has initiated a cunning plan. His thinly veiled pivot came in the form of a macho-man follow-up image showing Graham holding a shotgun.
“Spent some time breaking clays in Edgefield County today. Doesn’t get much better than that,” he wrote alongside the image of himself staring down the barrel at a clay shooting range in South Carolina.
But people weren’t so quick to forget Graham’s wand, his brunch at Chef Mickey’s, or images of the ageing lawmaker waiting in line for his turn on the Space Mountain rollercoaster.
Retired U.S. Navy intel officer Travis Akers made use of Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence bot Grok, urging it to “Turn his firearm into a bubble wand, and turn his hat into Mickey Mouse ears.”
“Oh wow, they allow firearms at Disney World now?!” right-wing journalist Nick Sorter joked.
“After playing with the princess at Disney world,” MAGA commentator Gunther Eagleman added.
Graham has been one of the Iran war’s biggest cheerleaders and one of Trump’s most staunch defenders. His appetite for the conflict and a harder line against Tehran prompted one GOP colleague to call him a “war pimp.”
Indeed, just before his magical trip he raved about the Iran war on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo, squealing: “We’re going to blow the hell out of these people.”
“This regime is on death row now,” Graham said on March 8. “It is going to be on its knees. It’s going to fall, and when it falls, we’re going to have peace like no other time... You can’t do it by talking.”
In a statement to TMZ, he insisted that the conflict in the region was still on his mind as he enjoyed Disney World. “I was invited to a meeting in South Florida on Friday with Trump official Steve Witkoff... to talk about the possibility of normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel,” he said, adding: “I went to Orlando to meet friends after. I’m already back in South Carolina.”
Critics are also rankled by the fact that Graham played tourist as a partial government shutdown became the longest in history.
He is even being blasted from within his own ranks. Just last week, his South Carolina colleague Rep. Nancy Mace said on CNN that she wanted Trump to eject Graham from the Situation Room, adding that he “brags” about his role advising the president on the war.
