Former MSNBC host and progressive commentator Joy Reid delivered an extended, sharply critical monologue on her podcast Monday in response to reports about former South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham’s death, at one point saying that “hell opened its doors for at least one more.”
“You’re going to be remembered as someone who betrayed your friends, who betrayed your country and who claimed that you cared about relationships,” Reid said during an episode of “The Joy Reid Show.”
She continued, “But, in the end, the only relationship you actually cared about was the relationship with Donald Trump. You sold your soul. You betrayed your friends, your legacy, your own soul. You sold your soul to the devil, and now you get to meet him in person.”
Reid also rejected the notion that major media outlets should offer laudatory remembrances of Graham, describing that approach as “f–ked up-ish.”
“There is a thing that happens when people who are not good people, and who’ve done a lot of bad … the media reacts to them in a very specific sort of ‘f—ed up-ish’ kind of way, particularly when they’re conservatives,” Reid said Monday. “So, it’s been interesting kind of watching the fallout from the surprise passing of Lindsey Graham, who was not the Republican that we thought we were going to hear reports had passed away.”
In a separate remark, she said she would not be pressured by corporate media expectations into offering what she viewed as insincere praise. “I cannot tell you how many anchors are on television saying, ‘The world is mourning the death of Lindsey Graham, the unexpected’ — Nope!” Reid said.
Reid went on to criticize Graham’s record on the Senate Judiciary Committee, calling him “one of the most snide, mean, horrific interrogators of Black nominees,” and pointed in particular to his opposition to Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson in 2022.
Here’s the latest on the death of Sen. Lindsey Graham:
Even as she condemned him, Reid conceded that Graham was “witty, intelligent, smart enough to do better and to know better,” noting that he had originally warned against Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential run before later becoming one of Trump’s most prominent Republican allies.
However, that led her to attack Graham after he “let the devils and the vampires in” by supporting Trump after his win.
“He posted, ‘If we nominate Trump, we will be destroyed, and we will deserve it.’ And eventually, your party will be destroyed. Lindsey, your whole legacy is already destroyed. You destroyed it. You destroyed your party,” Reid said.
Graham’s office announced his death early Sunday morning at age 71 after what was described as a “brief and sudden” illness, which was later revealed to be a heart condition.
He had served in the US Senate since 2003 after first being elected in 2002 and was seeking a fifth Senate term after winning the Republican primary last month.
