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Two former friends of Sen. John McCain say his daughter Meghan McCain's pointed criticism of President Donald Trump in her speech at the Arizona Republican's memorial service on Saturday reflected the character of her late father. "She is her father's daughter," South Carolina GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union." "If you say something bad about her dad, you will know it, whether you're the janitor or the President of the United States. She is grieving for the father she adored. I think most Americans understand that." Former independent Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, who joined...

It may be heresy, but the South Carolina man who founded Bikers for Trump is sticking with the president in his feud with Harley-Davidson motorcycles. Chris Cox of Mount Pleasant has been a faithful Harley loyalist but thinks Donald Trump's battle to win the global trade and tariff war will keep his biker buddies supporting Trump over their Harley allegiance. "Harley-Davidson has been kept above water because of the blood, sweat and spit of the veterans and the blue collar," Cox told Palmetto Politics. Those are the same veterans and blue collars who helped put Trump in the White House,...

West Columbia, S.C. — COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP/WCIV) -- President Donald Trump's effort to bend the Republican Party to his will faces its next test Tuesday, when South Carolina voters choose between two GOP gubernatorial candidates who both claim to be Trump followers. President Trump is scheduled to appear at a campaign rally at Airport High School in West Columbia. Doors open at 4:00 p.m. The event begins at 6:00 p.m. on Monday and is open to the public. Registration is free, but tickets must be obtained online....

Sen. Lindsey Graham would like to see the White House apologize for a "disgusting" joke that was made about the health of his friend, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who is battling brain cancer. Last week, a White House press aide, Kelly Sadler, joked to colleagues during a closed-door meeting mocked McCain’s health after he called for his Senate colleagues to reject Gina Haspel’s nomination for CIA director. “It doesn’t matter, he’s dying anyway,” Sadler said. Graham, R-S.C., said if this was in fact a joke, "it was a terrible joke." "I just wish somebody from the White House would tell...

Republican Ralph Norman has won South Carolina’s special House election to replace Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney in Congress. Norman defeated Democrat Archie Parnell in a closer than expected race for South Carolina’s 5th Distrct on Tuesday night. Norman had 52 percent of the vote to Parnell’s 48 percent when the Associated Press called the race with 89 percent of precincts reporting. The DCCC’s money was aimed at turning out black voters, and much of the money went towards ads on African-American radio and canvassing in heavily black parts of the district. Other national Democrats, many with...

Reports that President Trump's campaign aides had regular contact with Russian intelligence officials would be a "game changer" if true and would warrant a select committee to investigate, according to Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.). The GOP senator in an interview early Wednesday called for a "preliminary investigation" to see if further scrutiny is warranted after The New York Times and CNN reported that Trump campaign aides and allies spoke regularly with members of Russian intelligence....

From the Sunday shows: Lindsey Graham and John McCain both said they'll vote to confirm Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State. Why it matters: Tillerson can clear the Senate with just Republican votes. His refusals to condemn Putin drew lots of attention at his confirmation hearing. Now it looks like he'll be just fine. The one to watch: Marco Rubio, who was the senator to put Tillerson through the ringer on Russia. He's still mum on his vote.

President-elect Donald Trump ran on a platform of being extremely tough on immigration. One of his vows to voters was that he’d get rid of President Barack Obama’s executive actions, which could include those that provided protections to young undocumented immigrants from being deported. One Republican lawmaker and Trump critic is now prepping legislation that would keep those protections in place in case Trump moves forward with his pledge. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has said he is working with both Democrats and Republicans in order to protect immigrants, known as Dreamers, who willingly came forward to give their information in...

COLUMBIA -- President-elect Donald Trump is picking South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley to become his U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, The Post and Courier has learned. The move, expected Wednesday, continues the steep political rise of the daughter of Indian immigrants that started six years ago when the Bamberg native was elected as South Carolina’s first female and minority governor. The planned nomination to the cabinet-level post, confirmed by multiple sources with knowledge of the decision, is likely to raise questions about Haley’s qualifications for a major foreign policy role since she has little diplomatic experience as state lawmaker...

This is my election vanity! TRIUMP WINS! TRUMP WINS! TRUMP WINS! I am done for now - but I'm SO excited for the future! My main issues were the Supreme Court and the 2nd Amendment, and I'm feeling very good about the future! GO AMERICA!

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. - Dale "Boomer" Ranney can get in Donald Trump's face like almost no one else. She has nudged her way to the front of 21 of his rallies, passing up book after book, photo after photo for him to autograph, finding success some 66 times. He smiles at her in recognition now. When she made a trip to Trump Tower in New York to be near him for his home state primary in April, he spotted her and told his security guards to let her into his victory party there later that day....

If ever there were a moment for Republicans to jump off the Trump train, now would be as good of a time, according to South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham. Graham wants fellow Republicans who have endorsed Donald Trump to take it all back in the wake of his repeated claims that Judge Gonzalo Curiel's heritage make him unfit to preside over lawsuits against him....

Donald Trump on Wednesday said that he would consider making Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) his running mate. “I respect Ted,” he told host Bill O’Reilly on Fox News’ “The O’Reilly Factor." "He was a very strong competitor. He really competed hard and tough." “He’s certainly a capable guy,” the presumptive GOP presidential nominee added. "It’s something we can think about.” Trump defeated Cruz in Tuesday’s Indiana GOP presidential primary, making him the presumptive nominee. Cruz suspended his Oval Office bid shortly afterward, saying that his results in the Hoosier State “foreclose” his path to the Republican presidential nomination. Trump on...

In Colorado and South Carolina, the GOP's embattled front-runner had another very bad day. Donald Trump’s struggle to win loyal delegates to the Republican National Convention grew even more desperate on Saturday, with crushing losses in Colorado and South Carolina that put victory at a contested convention further from his grasp. Trump, who handed the reins of much of his campaign this week to strategist Paul Manafort in an effort to shore up his operation before the nomination slips away, was swept out of delegate slots up for grabs at Colorado’s state convention. Adding to his woes, he picked up...

Maybe Donald Trump isn't invincible, after all. On Saturday, Ted Cruz nuked Trump from orbit in Kansas, pantsed him in Maine, and almost scored coups in the other two states, Kentucky and Louisiana, where he fell short of Trump by just two delegates in the first case and one in the second. Overall, the Texas senator trails Trump in the delegate race by a very manageable 378-295. There's an awfully long way to go to get to the 1,237 needed for the nomination. It's enough to launch a thousand think pieces on what's become of the GOP's once-unstoppable frontrunner. But...

One of the puzzlers of the South Carolina primary is why Marco Rubio lost. He had the two major endorsements: Senator Tim Scott and Governor Nikki Haley. How could he lose? Haley has a 71% approval rate among Republicans. We learned the answer this weekend. Nikki Haley spoke to the Gridiron Club. Yep. She is that establishment. Not only did she deliver the response to the State of the Union speech that blasted the Republican front-runner instead of the Democratic president, but now she is in Washington dancing to the Washington Establishment's tune. And that tine is Never Trump. From...

ORLANDO, FLA. -- Donald Trump wants to make sure Marco Rubio's campaign ends in the same state where it started. At a rally that saw the businessman leave the podium to stare down a group of protesters and attempt to lead supporters in a pledge of allegiance to him, Trump unleashed the first salvo in a 10-day campaign to finish off Rubio by defeating him in Florida's March 15 primary. Calling the Florida senator an "idiot," Trump portrayed Rubio as beholden to his donors and said voters here should reject Rubio for neglecting his day job. "What does he do...

A Black Lives Matter protester was escorted out of a $500 per person Hillary Clinton fundraiser on Wednesday after she interrupted the Democratic presidential candidate's speech, which was being held at the home of a Charleston, South Carolina attorney. Video from the incident shows Clinton supporters hissing at the activist, Ashley Williams, while others call her protest "inappropriate." The encounter took place several days before Clinton faces Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in the South Carolina primary. Williams told the Huffington Post that she and another activist donated the $500 it cost to attend the event in order to confront Clinton...

At an unhinged moment in the 2016 presidential primary season, the Republican candidates turned in a fine set of unhinged performances at Thursday night's critical debate. Let's begin with Donald Trump, far and away the strongest contender, be it in Ted Cruz's backyard or Marco Rubio's home state. For the first time, he met his rhetorical match in a surprisingly vitriolic Rubio. The Florida senator devoted himself to going shout-for-shout with Trump, dragging out old scandals and unseemly details that put the mogul's present-day promises in an unflattering light. But even when Trump visibly ground his gears, he stayed characteristically...

South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham thinks his party has gone "bats---" crazy, and joked Thursday that it's possible to get away with murdering Ted Cruz if it happened in the Senate. "If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody would convict you," the former presidential candidate said at the Washington Press Club Foundation's 72nd Congressional Dinner, referencing the Texas senator's unpopular reputation on Capitol Hill. CNN has reached out to Cruz's presidential campaign for comment. While Graham teased Democrats and other politicians in the room -- at one...