While everyone was trying to figure out whether Mitch McConnell was still alive during his extended hospital stay, another legacy anti-LGBTQ+ GOP senator bit the dust.
Lindsay Graham, a proud opposer of gay rights, died suddenly at the age of 71 this weekend. Meanwhile, 84-year-old McConnell broke his silence about the event that put him in the hospital. Though McConnell’s team confirmed that he’s alive and apparently recovering, we don’t have an update on when he’ll be returning to work.
All this spells disaster for an already struggling GOP. Because of Graham’s death, the Republican majority the Senate once enjoyed has been threatened even further. At this point, only one Republican vote stands between Tr*mp’s agenda getting through the ranks, or dying on the vine.
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McConnell will be back in action presumably within the next month or so, and South Carolina will hold a special election to replace Graham in the Senate between now and January. But in the meantime, it will take only one flipped vote to massively screw up the GOP’s plans for pushing through Tr*mp’s agenda.
The Graham Platner controversy threw a sudden wrench into Democrat’s own plans for the Senate, but now it looks like the playing field is equaling out. If one senator’s loyalty is all that stands between Tr*mp continuing to get away with unconstitutional wild card moves, there are at least a few Senators we can (hopefully) count on to do the right thing.
Last month, Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy notably flipped on Tr*mp after losing his seat to a Tr*mp-backed opponent. At a fiery Republican lunch break, Cassidy held Tr*mp’s feet to the fire, demanding answers on the president’s illegal war in Iran.
Susan Collins, the Republican Senator from Maine, also recently flipped along with Cassidy in passing the War Powers Resolution Act through the Senate, along with Kentucky Senator Rand Paul and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski.
This is pretty big news on a few fronts. Tr*mp’s dreams of passing the SAVE Act? Gone. “The cannot pass the [act] with a one-vote majority,” Aaron Parnas explains.
Nor can they protect their president—and his attorney/AG Todd Blanche—from further Epstein fallout. Graham was on the Senate Judiciary Committee investigating the continuing scandal, and despite Blanche’s recent garbage fire Epstein testimony, he would have voted to approve Blanche’s nomination this week just to stay on Tr*mp’s good side.
But without McConnell and Graham’s vote, it would only take someone like Cassidy stepping up and calling BS on the appointment. In the House, Thomas Massie has been successfully leading a charge against Tr*mp specifically in regards to the Epstein cover-up. In late June, a judge found Blanche guilty of breaking the law in regards to certain redactions made in the files. Instead of protecting victims, they protected powerful men in league with Epstein, and possibly Tr*mp.
Blanche counted on his proximity to Tr*mp keeping him safe from the fallout. Thanks to these new twists, Blanche is swaying in the wind. Only one vote stands between him and the job he desperately hopes to keep, and any one of the Senate Republicans could do the right thing and c*ck block the “complicit” Blanche’s appointment.
The question is… will they?
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