‘Painful to watch’: Lindsey Graham’s sister fumbles national security question during primary | indy100

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Ahead of the November elections, the search has begun to find the Republican candidate to take on Democrat Annie Andrews in South Carolina in November, with Darline Graham running to continue to the role she was appointed to fill following the passing of her brother Lindsey last month.

However, comments made by Ms Graham during a Newsmax runoff debate against rival Ralph Norman have sparked ridicule and concern, as she responded to a question about whether Taiwan and the South China Sea are national security issues for America.

After asking one of the moderators to repeat the question, she replied: “I’m just going to be honest here, I’m not that informed on national security, so… but I do support the military.

“My brother was in the Air Force for 33 years, so I’ll do everything I can to support the military.”

The comments were met with shocked groans in the audience, and social media users were unimpressed, too.

Democratic strategist Jon Cooper shared the footage to X/Twitter on Tuesday and added: “Oh, good Lord. Darlene [sic] Graham, Trump’s pick to fill her brother Lindsey’s seat in the U.S. Senate, is NOT the brightest crayon in the box. This is painful to watch”:

Journalist Aaron Rupar described it as “one of the worst responses to a question during a political debate you’ll ever see”:

“Oh, dear,” wrote Jim Roberts, contributing editor at The 74:

Reason reporter Billy Binion said: “’I’m not that informed on the economy, but I support people having money’ would be roughly the equivalent”:

The Bulwark founder Sarah Longwell commented: “I dunno, she sounds about informed as the average MAGA-era Republican”:

“Yeah if this is your answer, you are not qualified to be a US Senator,” said independent journalist Adam Cochran:

And Acyn, who also posted the video to his X/Twitter account, posted comments from Trump in February in which he criticised Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for her response to a question about Taiwan at the Munich Security Conference, saying it was “not a good answer”:

But not only that, Graham also claimed there are 50 million people in South Carolina, when there’s actually a population of around 5.5 million people:

Yikes.

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