Senator Lindsey Graham is the son of a bar owner and likes a drink so much he thinks drinking more might just solve the problems in Washington. So it made some sense that CNN invited him onto their pre-debate “Politics on Tap” event, where he got behind the bar and then proceeded to trash-talk with the network’s chief political correspondent, Dana Bash.
The senator from South Carolina poured shots of whiskey, may or may not have drank them, talked about how well Hillary Clinton holds her liquor, and was coaxed into playing a (sanitized) version of the Fuck, Marry, or Kill game that Bash revised — out of respect for the dignity of our national political discourse ( “I can’t say it on TV, but it rhymes with truck“) — to Date, Marry, or Make Disappear Forever. Hillary Clinton, Carly Fiorina, and Sarah Palin were his choices. He interjected, “You don’t want me to do the Mormon thing here,” said Graham, who was maybe mulling the idea over. Turns out, he’d date Palin ("We could go hunting”), marry Fiorina ("She’s rich and would let me continue to live in the manner I’m accustomed to”), and maybe marry Clinton, too ("I thought she was rich, but she says she has no money”).
“To the Donald!” Graham toasted at one point after pouring journalists and attendees a round of the hard stuff, while Bash goaded him on. The “kids’ table” debates he’s relegated to? “I think it sucks,” he said. “With all due respect, I know there are a lot of us running but I don’t think I’m an undercard candidate when it comes to national security. I think I’ve got something to offer.”
And how will he reverse his campaigning fortunes?
“It’s a secret. Even to me,” he confessed.
