Joe Walsh rips Graham’s response to missile attacks: ‘Shut up Lindsey’

Former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.), who is mounting a long-shot primary challenge to President Trump, blasted Sen. Lindsay Graham’s (R-S.C.) response to Iranian missile attacks on Iraqi military bases housing U.S. troops in response to the killing of one of Tehran’s top military commanders.

Walsh responded on Twitter to a clip of Graham’s appearance on Fox News’s “Hannity” Tuesday night, when the senator called the Iranian attacks an “act of war” and said Trump “has all the authority he needs under Article II to respond.”

“Unless you want to put on a uniform and go fight, shut up Lindsey,” Walsh tweeted.

Unless you want to put on a uniform and go fight, shut up Lindsey. https://t.co/JFjeXteY5p

— Joe Walsh (@WalshFreedom) January 8, 2020

Walsh frequently expressed support for the Trump administration’s Iran policy in the early years of the administration, hailing Trump’s 2017 executive order barring migrants from Iran, among other nations, and saying the administration’s 2018 withdrawal from the Obama-era Iran nuclear deal “tells North Korea that the U.S. is no longer going to appease evil regimes.”

Nope. Pulling out of the Iran deal tells North Korea that the U.S. is no longer going to appease evil regimes. https://t.co/4SSLLKE5Lo

— Joe Walsh (@WalshFreedom) May 8, 2018

Graham, a retired Air Force colonel, on Wednesday morning advised against “retaliation for the sake of retaliation,” tweeting: “What is necessary is to lay out our strategic objectives regarding Iran in a simple and firm fashion.”

In my view, retaliation for the sake of retaliation is not necessary at this time.

What is necessary is to lay out our strategic objectives regarding Iran in a simple and firm fashion.

— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) January 8, 2020

The Hill has requested comment from Graham’s office.

Iran claimed credit for the missile attacks on the Iraqi bases, saying they were retaliation for the killing of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani in a U.S. drone strike last week in Baghdad. Shortly after Soleimani’s death, Iraq’s parliament took a nonbinding vote to expel U.S. forces.