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Sam Stein
Hey, everyone, it's me, Sam Stein, managing editor at the Bulwark. And I'm joined by Will Salatin, fly fisherman extraordinaire. Love the hat, love the vest. Now, Will, Will is here because we are talking about something or someone, I should say. Who? I think you probably are the foremost expert. I would. I don't think that's like hyperbole in this case.
Will Salatin
I think my wife got jealous. Yeah. Because I was. Spent so much time studying this guy. Yeah.
Sam Stein
We are talking about Lindsey Graham. So Lindsey Graham is having a classic moment. He might be, this might be like nirvana for him because we're bombing Iran and he is on cable all the time and he's incredibly excited about what is happening. He seems to have gotten Trump's ear. But it's, it's, it's alarming some people, including people who would normally be, I don't know, empathetic, sympathetic towards his worldview, I would suppose. So let's set the stage here and then Will's just gonna, you know, go crazy. But Lindsey Graham went on the shows yesterday, primarily Fox News, and he was asked about what's going on in Iran. Obviously, there's a lot going on in Iran, including some incredible bombing campaign, really horrible destruction, the death of what appears to be 170 schoolgirls and so on and so forth. And his response to all this is that just wait, just wait because it's gonna get so much bloodier. So here's Lindsey Graham talking about blowing people to smithereens over the next two weeks.
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Doing it. President Trump is in the process of doing it. They're going to lose and we're going to win Israel and the United States. You just wait to see what comes in the next two weeks.
The next two weeks, meaning what?
We're going to blow the hell out of these people. This regime is in a death row now. 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. We're going to have prosperity unlike anyone could ever imagine. Peace brings prosperity. You can't do it by talking. The Democrats criticize this operation.
Sam Stein
Okay, we get the point. So Will you said that's not even the worst clip. You think there's a worse out there?
Will Salatin
No, but wait, let me, let me proceed for a second because you can see what Lindsey Graham is having the time of his life. This, I mean Lindsey Graham has been wanting to invade a series of countries forever. Forever. And Iran was on his list. You know, Venezuela was on his list. He's sort of going through it. We'll just show on screen this Tweet where Megan McCain representing the more realist, less interventionist wing of the party.
Sam Stein
McCain. Yes.
Will Salatin
Meghan McCain, sorry. The party that Trump claimed to represent, the MAGA people. We're going to not get into a whole bunch of wars. So here's her response. She says, I have known Lindsey Graham since I was a child. I am imploring anyone who will listen in the Trump administration to stop sending this man out as a surrogate. He is scaring people and doing damage to whatever message you're trying to sell to the American public about the Iran war. She's saying you're scaring people, Sam. The problem is not that Lindsey Graham is scaring people. The problem if you're from the Meghan McCain, not the John McCain wing of the Republican Party or the Marjorie Taylor Greene wing, the MAGA wing, the people, the JD Vance wing, the people who actually elected Trump. The problem is Lindsey Graham is actually leading Trump into wars. Right, Right. We just had two of them. We've had like the invasion of Venezuela which turned. It was a one day operation. But this Iran thing is going to go on for weeks and there's a whole series of things after it. And so she is concerned, she's pretending or imagining that the problem is Donald Trump is still one of still like her. Donald Trump doesn't want to go in and Lindsey Graham is making is. Is scaring people. That is not the problem.
Sam Stein
Well, I think it's worth backing up for a second one is the reason. So John McCain, for those who are unaware, John McCain, my McCain's was incredibly tight with Lindsey Graham. They were part of a trio of senators. The other was Joe Lieverman who, you know, bandied together. They. But they also were neocons and they wanted to invade various countries and they were proudly pro American military intervention. John McCain and Lindsey Graham were also more socially moderate, or I would say, I don't know if I'm socially moderate. It's the right word. But they were not flamethrowers domestically back in the day. Lindsey Graham, though, since John McCain's passing especially, but also under the age of Trump, has become something altogether different. And you wrote about this, and I'm just sort of, for the viewer's sake, trace this sort of chapter of Lindsey Graham. He's always been this type of voice on foreign policy, sort of belligerent, pro military, bomb them to smithereens, Peace will flourish in the aftermath. But it. He wasn't this almost cartoonish about it, unless I missed it. So what can you help us understand how he got to this place?
Will Salatin
So I would argue that he actually was here all along.
Sam Stein
Okay, sure.
Will Salatin
So I wrote a long series for the Bulwark about Lindsey Graham, and the series is about Lindsey Graham selling out to Donald Trump on all of the domestic issues and the constitutional issues. Lindsey Graham was not like an authoritarian. He gave in to Trump's authoritarianism. I would argue, Sam, that what's happening now is Lindsey Graham is getting the other half of the deal.
Sam Stein
He's.
Will Salatin
Trump is coming to, has come to him. He has talked Trump into this. So Graham. And my take on it is Graham understood that Trump is an authoritarian. But, Sam, an authoritarian is very useful if you are an interventionist like Graham and you want a strong man to go out and take down these regimes all around the world. And so Graham's getting that. He's getting that in Venezuela. He's getting in Iran, that excitement that you're seeing from him, that is real.
Sam Stein
So how did he figure out how to manipulate Trump then? Because Trump, you know, Trump has resisted this type of stuff in the past, but clearly he's all in right now.
Will Salatin
Yeah. So a couple of ways. Graham understands that Trump is a businessman. I mean, Graham is moral. He's actually interested in going around the world. And I want to play a clip, because the one that got Meghan McCain upset is not even the worst of them, but he. He wants to go around and, like, take down all these regimes around the world. Trump doesn't care about that. Trump's not moral. But Trump likes money, and Graham understands that. And if you go back through Graham's history with Trump, there is a long history of Graham telling Trump, you know what, if you will take down this government, if you will intervene militarily in this or that country, we're going to make a ton of money off it. He has Done it with minerals. He did it mineral in Afghanistan. He told them, hey, you know what? If you keep the troops in Afghanistan, well, there's some valuable minerals there. He did that in Ukraine. He told Trump, you know, we can, you can get.
Sam Stein
Right?
Will Salatin
And lo and behold, Sam, we've got that deal, right? In Syria, he told him, you know what, if you go into Syria, there's a lot of oil there. And he did it in Venezuela, right. And what does Trump say? In Venezuela, we're getting oil. So that's all working.
Sam Stein
So he can get. He can get his way with Trump. But then occasionally he kind of overdoes it, I guess would be the way to do it. He just gets so excited and he talks so openly and thirsty about the next regime he wants to topple. So this is the clip that you. I was so then, just so people understand, when I saw the Lindsay interview, the clip that we played early on, I saw, I was like, oh, my God, here he is. Just, we're gonna blow the hell out of people without any sort of, I don't know, hesitation to the loss of life, to, like, the human suffering that that would cause to, you know, the fact that there's not really good history about just toppling a regime and then blowing its people to smithereens, as he wants to do, and then having the outcome be, you know, tidy. But you said there's another clip that's even worse. So let's play the clip right now where he continues to talk about other things he wants to get done with respect to regime toppling.
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I'm in Miami. You see this hat? Free Cuba. Stay tuned. The liberation of Cuba is upon us. It's just a matter of time. Now, you see this hat? Make Iran great. President Trump said the only way to make Iran great is for the people to take over. We're marching through the world. We're cleaning out the bad guys.
Will Salatin
We're.
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We're going to have relationships with new people that will make us prosperous and safe. I've never seen anybody like it. This is Ronald Reagan. Plus, Donald Trump is resetting the world in a way nobody could have dreamed of a year ago. He is the greatest commander in chief of all time. Our military is the best of all time. Iran is going down and Cuba is next. So that.
Will Salatin
That is Lindsey Graham. That's what he's all about. I mean, he literally says there's. We're marching through the world. We're cleaning out the bad guys. Right? That is. I mean, Meghan McCain was responding to the clip. That was on Twitter. But this was later in the interview and this is, this is the whole vision. He all but says, Sam, that we're, we're going to be the world's policeman, Right?
Sam Stein
Yeah.
Will Salatin
It's not just that we're, we're going to go intervene. He says, we're cleaning out the bad guys, Sam. That means, I mean, you got, you kidnapped Maduro. That was relatively easy. What are you going to do in Iran? The son of common A is like, probably going to be the next leader. You're going to, like you said, this is going to be a four week operation. The bad guys are still there. What are you going to do? Stop? If that's the agenda, you got to keep going.
Sam Stein
No, you got to keep going. It's just like, I don't know, the open again. It comes back to me. The sort of chilling element of it is that there's never consideration to the consequences or the risks or the fallout or the fact that this hasn't worked in the past. It's just him speaking with such conviction and such simplicity about how the world can work where you just go in, you take people out and you know what? Good things happen. Just not the case. And oddly enough, Maga. Maga seemed to have known that in the 2024 campaign. They seem to have forgotten that now that we're in Iran. But Lindsay's having the time of his life. I will say there have been a couple occasions where Lindsay has said, maybe that's too much. So this morning I was, I was tickled by the fact that, and I'll read this tweet, he, he got a little bit upset with Israel because Israel took out a bunch of oil refineries at peers in Iran that they were not supposed to do or that they didn't get clearance for with the United States. He writes, our allies in Israel have shown amazing capability when it comes to collapsing the murderous regime in Iran. America is most appreciative. However, there will be a day soon that the Iranian people will be in charge of their own fate and not the murderous Ayatollah's regime. In that regard, please be cautious. He's like addressing this to Netanyahu. Please be cautious about what targets you select. Our goal is to liberate the Iranian people in a fashion that does not cripple their chance to start a new and better life. When this regime collapses, the oil economy of Iran will be essential to that endeavor. So if you are bombing too much for even Lindsey Graham, you've gone too far. I Feel like that's just. You can't. You don't want to be on that side of the Lindsey Graham spectrum.
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Yeah.
Will Salatin
Can I, Can I pick up, though, on what you said about the, like, everything's going to be great. So this is part of the Lindsey story. Iran's going down. We're going to have new partners and everything. He actually, a couple of times this week has addressed this question that you raise. What comes next? How do we know what's going to be better? We've had lots of experience going in, and things end up worse. Iraq was an example in some ways. So Lindsey has said twice now that I've seen. He has said twice. That's an insulting idea to say that things could get worse in Iran. You're insulting the people of Iran because they plainly don't like their regime. They don't. They're not bad. And he, Sam, he's too smart. He knows that that's bullshit.
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Right.
Will Salatin
He knows that the problem in Iran is not that the people want the government to be worse, it's that the people can't do jack. They. Thousands got mowed down the last time they rose up. And you have this band of clerics and radicals and, you know, militants who run the government. And there's already signs it's going to be as bad. Literally, the son of the ayatollah will be taking over.
Sam Stein
So 30 years younger, so he has longer lifespan. Same basic world philosophy as his father.
Will Salatin
Yeah.
Sam Stein
With hatred for the America because they just killed half his family. So, yeah, not great.
Will Salatin
Yeah. So you. And now the fork in the road at this point is, okay, we end up with the governments that. That is as bad and they're just going to rebuild their missiles. Or we say, as Trump says, you know what? I don't like that guy. I don't want him to run the country. I'm going to choose someone else. How. You know, at that point, you are extending your war aims. You were in a quagmire because you're saying, yeah, we took out that stuff, but we don't like their leader, so we're going to keep at it until we kill this guy. Then it just goes on and on.
Sam Stein
And what would Lindsey say to that? Great, we have more bombs than they do.
Will Salatin
Yeah, yeah.
Sam Stein
I mean, that's it.
Will Salatin
And let me. Can I just add that, like, this excitement that he's had about, like, Iran, it's not contained to Iran. So he has, in the last week, a couple of times, started to name other places where we should be Going
Sam Stein
well, he said Cuba. Yeah.
Will Salatin
So this is, he's done this a couple of times now. He said, first of all, he said this on Trey Gowdy's show on Fox News on Sunday. Remember, the war started in Iran on Saturday. Right. So that we're on day two of the war and Lindsey Graham was already talking about going into Lebanon.
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In 1983, 220 Marines were killed, 18 sailors, 100 wounded by Hezbollah. Ronald Reagan sent the Marines into the civil war in Lebanon. He had them at the end of the Runway. Hezbollah attacked and killed the Marines and the sailors. And I love Ronald Reagan. He didn't do a damn thing about it. President Trump avenged those Marines. Get in the fight with Hezbollah, finish them off. So here's my message to the Lebanese military. I'm watching everything you do. Quit double dealing, quit double talking. Join the fight. Free your country of terrorism. And if you don't, you're going to pay a heavy price. Maduro, everybody talked about him. Well, Donald Trump's got him in jail. Cuba's next. They're gonna fall this communist dictatorship in Cuba. Their days are numbered.
Will Salatin
And then he said this, he did a briefing for reporters after on this is on Tuesday. And here's, here's what he says.
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One thing to President Trump in case you're watching. In 1983, Ronald Reagan sent Marines and sailors to try to police and deal with the Lebanese civil war. They were at the end of the Runway. Hezbollah attacked the Marine barracks, killed 220 Marines, 18 settlers and wounded 100 others. Ronald Reagan, who I admire and love, withdrew and never did anything about it. So I'm calling on President Trump today. Join Israel to attack Hezbollah, avenge the Marines. President Trump come up with a new operation called Semper Fi. Fly with Israel and go after Hezbollah, who has American blood on its hands.
Will Salatin
All right, so Graham is saying, okay, we've done Venezuela, we've done Iran, we'll go to Cuba. But before we get to Cuba, why don't we take the opportunity to take a little detour from Iran. We'll go into Lebanon. The Israelis are already in Lebanon. There's bombing in Lebanon. And Graham is saying, let's join that war. And Sam, it's not just join the war because they're a threat to us, because Hezbollah is not a threat to us. He's literally talking about vengeance, about Sam, 1983, what he's talking about the bombing of the marine Barracks. That's four years ago. So you can have a 40 year vengeance campaign to bomb another country well, it's madness.
Sam Stein
And it's not going over particularly well with everybody. Not just Meghan McCain will leave here. But this afternoon, Lindsey Graham went on Twitter and we're taping this, I should say, on Monday around like 1:15 ish. And the. He went on Twitter to admit punish the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for not using their full military capabilities as part of the effort to go after Iran. And he writes, question, why should America do a defense agreement with a country like the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that is unwilling to join a fight of mutual interest? Needless to say, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia didn't like this. And we're having now some issues, diplomatically speaking, but Lindsey Graham doesn't care because he just wants to bomb countries. Iran, Lebanon, take over Cuba, we did Venezuela, he's just on it.
Will Salatin
So we want to, we're gonna have the war in Iran. We're gonna take on some other countries that are nominally our enemies. And now we're gonna take on our friends. We're gonna take on our friends, the Saudi.
Sam Stein
I don't think he's saying we're gonna Bob Saudi Arabia. He's just admonished.
Will Salatin
No, no, no. But it's like this is, he's taken on the Trump thing about threatening the friends. Remember, Trump's already like, he's, Trump's already bashing this, this Spain, the UK because they weren't fast enough on the draw to help us, Right? And now Lindsey Graham's going after the Saudis. And in that tweet, he says he's threatening to not give them the defense agreement that they want. Right. And he says if you don't get in this war with us, consequences will follow. He is, he's threatening our friends, our allies. That's crazy.
Sam Stein
He picked at Israel, too, for bombing too much. You know, he's just like, it's just him on Twitter, you know, just going nuts. You know, they kind of all learned from Trump, right? Or they, they all try to emulate Trump. They can't pull it off. But that's what they do. They go on cable, they act crazy. They go on Twitter, they start, you know, bullying different countries. It's just wannabe Trumps.
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Yeah.
Will Salatin
Yeah. So basically, Trump is going around the world beating everybody up, threatening everybody. And then you have these guys like Lindsey Graham, the flunkies, who are riding Trump's back and saying, he's our guy. If you don't, if you don't do what we want, our, our authoritarian is going to come after you, too. Oh, my God.
Sam Stein
All right, well, we'll keep monitoring it. I'm going to try to convince Will do a second installment of his Lindsey grand series. That took a long time, so it's probably not going to happen. But we'll keep monitoring Lindsay because. Well, because we have to. For that, though, you have to subscribe to the Bulwark For Our Pains, please subscribe on YouTube on Substack. Follow our work. We love you guys. Thank you so much for watching. Talk to you soon.
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Episode Title: Meghan McCain is Begging Trump to Yank Lindsey Graham Off TV
Date: March 10, 2026
Host(s): Sam Stein (Managing Editor at The Bulwark), Will Salatin
This episode of Bulwark Takes is a deep dive into the recent media blitz by Senator Lindsey Graham, whose hawkish foreign policy stances have taken center stage as the U.S. and its allies escalate military action against Iran. Sam Stein and Will Salatin unpack Graham's rhetoric, explore his influence on Donald Trump, and discuss the political reaction—including Meghan McCain’s public plea for Trump to stop letting Graham be his surrogate on TV. The conversation traces Graham's transformation, assesses the risks of his worldview, and highlights the broader implications for American foreign policy and the Republican Party.
Stein and Salatin make it clear that Lindsey Graham’s hawkish fervor isn’t just alarming to centrists or liberals; it’s creating discomfort even among traditional allies and factions of the Republican base. His robust embrace of military interventionism, willingness to antagonize both enemies and allies, and skill in manipulating Trump mark him as a significant, and dangerous, influence on U.S. foreign policy.
For continuing coverage, the hosts urge listeners to follow The Bulwark’s work and, half-jokingly, suggest there could be a “Graham series, part two.”