Graham: Maine secretary of state a ‘radical’ person

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) called Maine’s secretary of state a “radical” person in a Sunday interview, days after she declared former President Trump ineligible to appear on the state’s primary ballot in the 2024 presidential election.

In an interview on CBS News’s “Face the Nation,” Graham echoed Trump’s criticism of Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows (D) and expressed his confidence in the former president’s ability to clinch the GOP nomination for president in 2024 — despite the indictments he faces and efforts in numerous states to remove him from ballots under the 14th Amendment’s “insurrection clause.”

“At the end of the day, Donald Trump is in a good position to win the Republican primary because Republicans believe he had a good presidency, and I think he can win the general election,” Graham said.

“The Secretary of State in Maine is a pretty radical person,” he continued. “She said the Electoral College was a product of white supremacy. No, it was a product of negotiation. The Civil War was about slavery. The Electoral College was about negotiations between small states and large states.”

Graham’s interview comes days after Maine became the second state to declare Trump ineligible to appear on the primary ballot in the 2024 election, following Colorado’s Supreme Court decision a week earlier.

The decisions were made based on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which declares those who took an oath to support the Constitution and then engaged in insurrection or rebellion as ineligible to hold office again. Trump has vowed to appeal the ruling, and the Supreme Court is expected to weigh in on the matter.

In the days since the ruling, Bellows has said she has been the target of threats and the subject of a “swatting” incident.