Lindsey Graham bullish on Trump 2024 bid: 'one of the greatest political comebacks' in US history

Former president "has a story to tell," said the South Carolina Republican senator.

Published: September 5, 2022 2:08pm

Updated: September 5, 2022 3:39pm

Sen. Lindsey Graham says former President Donald Trump would have a "pretty good chance" of winning a 2024 presidential run, which would go down as "one of the greatest political comebacks in American history."

The South Carolina Republican said in a CNBC interview that he didn't believe Trump had a shot at winning the presidential election in 2020, but that it was "within his reach" in 2024.

"I'm literally telling you what I tell him," Graham said to CNBC's Steve Sedgwick. "If you lose again, the history about who you are and what you did dramatically changes. If you come back, it will be one of the greatest political comebacks in American history. And if you get four more years, you can do big stuff."

The former president "has a story to tell," said Graham, floating a sample campaign narrative for a Trump 2024 comeback bid:

"Remember me? I may not be your cup of tea, but when I was president, our border was secure, we had the lowest illegal crossings in 40 years. When I was president, I stood up to China, and they listened. When I was president, we had the strongest military since Ronald Reagan. When I was president, I destroyed the [ISIS] caliphate. When I was president, we had conservative judges, not liberal judges."

Trump's political base has been fired up by the FBI raid on the former president's home. Today, Trump scored a legal victory when a federal judge ordered a special master to review the documents seized from Mar-a-Lago for material protected by attorney-client and executive privilege.

"Remember, it takes courage and 'guts' to fight a totally corrupt Department of 'Justice' and the FBI," Trump posted on his social media app Truth Social in response to the ruling. "They are being pushed to do the wrong things by many sinister and evil outside sources. Until impartiality, wisdom, fairness, and courage are shown by them, our Country can never come back or recover — it will be reduced to being a Third World Nation!"