IN A FOXHOLE

Panicked Fox Panel Admits Trump Picked ‘Weak Candidate’

Even the president’s staunchest defenders at Fox News doubted his handpicked Senate candidate.

President Donald Trump’s handpicked Senate candidate was getting a brutal assessment from an unlikely source Tuesday night: his own allies at Fox News.

During Fox News’ “Democracy 26” election special, MAGA loyalist Laura Ingraham warned that Sen. Darline Graham—who replaced her late brother, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham—faced a “tough” fight to hold on to her seat, despite Trump’s endorsement.

She cited high gas prices tied to the ongoing war with Iran and Graham’s lack of foreign policy experience as major hurdles for the interim senator.

“There is public frustration with the Iran conflict,” Ingraham said. “Lindsey Graham was obviously a big foreign policy hawk… I think the voters probably just believe she was a blueprint of Lindsey Graham on the issue that is the toughest for Republicans right now, and she struggled in the beginning on some of these fundamental questions.”

Despite her misgivings about Graham’s candidacy, Ingraham was careful not to lay the blame at Trump’s feet, praising his political instincts even as she questioned his decision to back Graham in July’s crowded Republican primary.

“It’s always risky when, for nostalgic reasons, you pick someone who was the relative of someone who had a big personality and a big presence,” Ingraham continued. “It was a risk. I thought it was not the right call, but the president’s political judgment has been, almost always right.”

Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume was even more blunt in his assessment of Graham’s candidacy.

“This woman, for all of her character, which may be sterling, she’s a weak candidate. When she was asked a foreign policy question, she said ‘I don’t really know anything about foreign policy.’ Oh, great,” Hume said.

In August, Graham faced questions about U.S. tensions with China over Taiwan and the South China Sea during a debate in Newberry, South Carolina.

“I’m just going to be honest here: I’m not that informed on national security, so—but I do support the military,” Graham responded. “National security is not my thing, not my area of expertise, but I do support the military.”

The admission only deepened concerns among GOP officials who believed Trump had backed Graham largely because of her famous last name. Nevertheless, buoyed by the president’s endorsement, she defeated Republican Ralph Norman in the late-August primary by five points.

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Norman took aim at Trump’s decision to back Graham in a Tuesday interview with The New York Times’ Michael Gold.

“I think they say pride goeth before the fall, and we’re seeing that all across the country,” Norman said. “You can’t force a person on South Carolina... that’s pretty evident now.”

Trump’s latest campaign-trail pitch for Graham, meanwhile, focused less on her qualifications than on the legacy of her late brother, lending credence to critics’ concerns that her famous last name was her biggest selling point.

“You [Darline Graham] are going to go, you’re going to go and your brother’s looking down. He’s going to be Tuesday night. Let’s make Lindsey really happy and proud,” he said.

By Tuesday night, Democratic candidate Annie Andrews led by more than 100,000 votes, with 67 percent of ballots counted, according to The New York Times.

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