Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said he believes President Donald Trump put a hold on roughly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine because he doesn’t like spending money on foreign aid.
When asked by a reporter on Thursday if he thought Trump would have put a hold on the aid if former Vice President Joe Biden (D) was not running for office, Graham said, “I think he’d hold up aid tomorrow to almost anywhere.”
He continued:
“Have you not been listening to this president? He cut foreign by 21%. He wants to withdraw all of our forces from Africa. He wants South Korea to triple what they’re paying. He has a world view that we’re being taken advantage of.”
Watch his comments below:
Asked whether he thinks Pres. Trump would have held aid to Ukraine if Joe Biden weren't running for president, Sen. Lindsey Graham says Trump would "hold up aid tomorrow to almost anywhere."
— ABC News (@ABC) January 23, 2020
"He thinks we're chumps and being taken for a ride…I don't." https://t.co/yVUZNnQQsC pic.twitter.com/q9EqLerqBI
“He thinks we’re chumps and being taken for a ride, and the Ukraine is sort of a hopeless endeavor — I don’t. Now that’s just a world view that has been consistent,” he added.
Additionally, Graham said that “somebody” should investigate whether there was a conflict of interest as a result of Biden’s son — Hunter Biden — being named to the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma while Joe Biden was the vice president.
“I love Joe Biden, but I can tell you if the name was Trump, there’d be a lot of questions asked. So what do I want out of all of this? I want the public to understand that the claims they’re making that there’s no ‘there there’ in Bidens nobody’s looked, somebody should.”
Watch his comments below:
.@LindseyGrahamSC on Hunter Biden's position at Burisma: “I’ve looked and I've got a lot of questions. Were they buying insurance by hiring Hunter Biden? Because they sure as hell weren't hiring expertise.”pic.twitter.com/ZILJ8GNwYp
— Tommy Pigott (@TommyPigott) January 23, 2020
“I’ve looked, and I’ve got a lot of questions,” Graham said, adding, “Were they buying insurance? By hiring Hunder Biden. Cause they sure as hell [weren’t] buying expertise.”
Biden has said “it looked bad” for his son to be named to the board of Burisma, but denied any wrongdoing.