The Joyce Kaufman Show 7/13/26 Senator Grahams passing, and where are the moderate Democrats? There aren't any.

In South Florida, only the sun is hotter. It's the Joyce Kaufman show now. Now. Now. On News Talk 850, WFTL. Well, it's a sad day for many people, particularly political junkies, who have been following Lindsey Graham's career for decades. Lindsey Graham passed. apparently of a short but dramatic illness. I mean, the last thing I was thinking about all weekend was Lindsey Graham possibly dying. I thought maybe Mitch McConnell might pass, but I woke up this morning. My husband had the flag at half staff in honor of the late Senator Lindsey Graham, who he had tremendous respect for. But I have to tell you, there's so many aspects to Lindsey Graham's career. You know, first and foremost, again, he was 71 years old, and that's really troubling to me because these are my contemporaries. You know, now I'm watching people my age and brief and sudden illness take them out. They didn't initially even say what this was, but news outlets today are reporting that emergency services were dispatched to his home in D.C. and that they had given treatment to a man suffering from a cardiac arrest. On Sunday, his office said that a preliminary examination found he died of aortic dissection due to arterioschlorotic cardiovascular disease. I always found Lindsey Graham to be one of the more interesting in the crowd. He always stuck out, first and foremost, because he was a political animal. He could get along or take on anybody on either side of the aisle. He was an Air Force veteran who was elected first to the House back in 1994. Then he moved to the Senate in 2002. He is a foreign policy hawk like nobody else. But interestingly enough, he was a key ally for President Donald Trump, and he became one of his closest advisors after initially he didn't, you know, he opposed him during the 2016 election. A staunch supporter of Israel, as a matter of fact, Benjamin Netanyahu today said he lost a friend.

important supporter of Ukraine. He got military aid for Ukraine and Israel during these years of conflict with Russia and Hamas. He chaired the Senate Budget Committee and the Judiciary Committee at one point. Of course, he was a foreign policy expert. And in his truth social post yesterday, President Trump called him. And this is high praise coming from Donald. One of the greatest people and senators I have ever known. Senate Majority Leader John Thune remembered the senator as a trusted advisor and colleague to me and many others, whose influence on the federal judiciary, our national defense, and his beloved South Carolina will be felt for generations. Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel has lost one of its greatest friends. America has lost a great patriot and I have lost a beloved friend. Volodymyr Zelensky, with whom Lindsey Graham met with last week during his visit to Ukraine, said the senator was a true defender of freedom and the values that make our world safer. He took 10 trips to Ukraine since the start of that war, that invasion by Russia. The governor of South Carolina, Henry McMaster, who's a Republican, will name a replacement to serve out the remainder of his term. He was running for re-election. He had won the Republican nomination in June, and now the state party has to hold a new primary this summer to choose a replacement candidate for the November midterms. I've heard names like Nancy Mace. interested in running, but the president has said that he thinks that Henry McMaster should appoint Graham's sister, Darlene Graham Nordone, to serve out the term. Wouldn't be the first time a family member did that. What you're hearing from everybody, though, is pretty much praise. I mean, obviously not the left, but who cares? I don't even pay attention to what they say most of the time anymore. It's like cartoonish. Bro Ro Khanna, with his cartoonish, Israel detained me nonsense. But the one thing you could say about Lindsey Graham was he was very effective. And his greatest strength really was in finding areas of consensus. He had a very interesting alliance with President Trump and the whole MAGA crowd. But he was a very fierce advocate for what he believed in. And I had plenty of disagreements with his policies over the years, particularly, you know, some of his hawkish policies. He was an interventionist to a fault. The bedrock of his foreign policy was, you know, he believed in the goodness and the efficacy of American power. And while I believe that, I think it has to be portioned off carefully. He supported, you know, the U.S. alliance system. He promoted democracy everywhere. He was a steadfast friend to Ukraine and Israel. And really just an enemy of tyrants.

of every type. He knew the importance, though, of staying on Trump's good side. On top of everything else, he was a politician who had a very independent streak. But on issues he was concerned and committed to, he never wavered. And he never lost touch with the South Carolina voters. They sent him to Washington for over three decades. And his death is definitely a loss to the Senate. And to the conservative causes with which I agreed with him on. So, yeah, he was a person of worth and note. The consensus senator, they called him. Here in the trust of people who agreed on almost nothing else. In Washington, where relationships cannot survive disagreement and loyalty lasts until the next news cycle, that's a heck of an accomplishment, if you remember nothing else. He knew exactly what people were saying about him. He knew the political winds weren't blowing in his direction often, and yet he walked into the next hearing as calmly as he could and made his case over and over again. Whether you agreed with him or not, you never had to wonder where he stood. And it wasn't that everyone agreed with him. They didn't. But he never changed his message to fit his audience. He believed that America needed a stronger military, and he believed that weakness invites aggression, and that's what I believe. He believed that our alliances mattered, and that's what I believe. He believed American leadership was indispensable, and that's what I believe. Those weren't talking points that he dusted off, you know, for one audience and then put away for another. They were convictions and they remained his convictions, whether he was speaking to 12 people in a fundraiser or to 12 million on television. He was definitely one of the most influential, if unlikely, leaders in Trump's world. Because, you know, Trump is not hawkish. And most people thought he's going to just completely marginalize Lindsey Graham. And that's not what happened. McCain was sidelined before his death in 2018 for pretty much the same views. So were a lot of Republicans that were in the first administration, John Bolton. But instead, Lindsey Graham was able to, like, get into a close personal relationship with Trump. And arguably, he managed it better than any other Republican lawmaker over the last 10, 15 years, which kept him at the front of the party, at the front of the movement of populism, nationalism, America first. He was there. And you can see his influence in the war in Iran.

And you can see his influence in Trump's off and on again support of the Ukraine in its war with Russia. Which, remember, the president vowed he was going to end that in his second term. But when it counted, Graham had more sway with Trump than anybody. And long before Trump, Lindsey Graham was a media-savvy Capitol Hill dude with friends across the political spectrum who... was nevertheless maddening if you didn't like his expansive views on immigration and foreign policy like me there were rough moments but most of the people on the left are they're just critical of him And there was a whole period of time when some of them were, you know, questioning is sexuality and all that stuff. I mean, you know, just the very people who say, oh, Republicans are not compassionate and they're not friendly to the LGBTQ community. They were trying to out Lindsey Graham. Although from what I can see, Lindsey Graham didn't have any relationships of any kind. And they would call him an opportunist because he, you know, cozyed up to Trump. Well, guess what? It was in cozying up to Trump that he persuaded Donald Trump to do some things nobody thought they could persuade Trump to do. So where is the line between opportunism and pragmatism? Think about it. After January 6th of 2021, it looked like they were, you know, breaking up. He said on the Senate floor, count me out. Enough is enough. Then a few months later, he said, well, you know what? We can't move forward without President Trump. So we got to grow with him. Very interesting. He did, you know, suffer sacrificing his relationship with his, you know, to his getting along with Donald Trump. But he got plenty in return. He died with a budget, a judiciary, and an entire world order that were all shaped in part by his influence over Trump. He also leaves behind a deeply unsettled party as Trump enters his lame duck period, right? On foreign policy, the Iran war failed to achieve its goals. And many hawks have been disappointed, including Benjamin Netanyahu. So. My take is that he had a great career. And I can't really say much bad about him. I really can't. It's complicated his legacy. And if I wanted to, I could focus slowly on the admirable parts of it. You know, he came from working class roots. He grew up in the back room of a bar and grill and that his parents ran when he was a kid. He adopted his youngest sister when both his parents died within 15 months and he put himself through law school. And then he dedicated his life to public service. He served in the Air Force. And then in the National Guard, the South Carolina National Guard. And he was a reservist until 2015 while he was building a career in Congress.

And he was famously in love with being a senator. He was always finding ways to reinvent himself. The gang of eight, the three amigos, and he could work across the aisle. So today I have nothing bad to say about Lindsey Graham. And I think the Senate has lost a real fighter. Whatever your opinions, maybe of his political viewpoints, he was an important figure in my lifetime in politics. Don't forget to download that 850 app. You can put it on your phone, your laptop, wherever you want it. And that way you get breaking news, listen to podcasts, participate in our contest and all that good stuff. If you don't want to download the app, at least visit our website once in a while, it's 850WFDL.com. Let me take a quick break. There's so much to talk about today. I'll be right back.

So some interesting pieces. I spent a lot of time this weekend thinking about this whole Democrat socialist movement in this country, because we can't ignore this anymore. And we can't chalk it up to, you know, a small, not going to be around very long movement at all. But there's a big, Kurt Schlichter wrote a great piece. He was talking about how there's a big empty lane in democratic politics right now. And it doesn't seem like anybody is smart or brave enough to get in it. You know, and the lane, it's simple. Don't be crazy. But don't be completely ancient. It's that simple. Someone could swoop into that spot. But so far, nobody is willing to take the risk and fight the fight to capitalize, although they all do hate capitalism. It's a tremendous opportunity. All they have to do is just act normal and not be a million years old. I mean, look at the age of these people. On both sides of the aisle, mind you. And maybe they could win by appealing to normal people again. Instead, they're crowding the freak lane. And they've left the normal lane empty. It's amazing to watch. Apparently it's too much to ask that they not be complete freaks. The Democratic Party is full of old, old, old people. So the boomer generation clutched its way into power and sucked the lifeblood of the young to keep themselves in office forever. Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, Maxine Waters. These people are ancient. What do they have in common? They think Methuselah's the contemporary. Only now they're beginning to loosen their grip. And that's simply because they're too old to even fight. What you see now inside the Democrat Party is not so much a fight over ideology. It's a socialism has been the ideology of the Democrat Party for decades, but now they're moving into full scale communism. And they're just, they're a little bit shy about telling the truth to the voters, right? The moderates are social Democrats and the social Democrats are outright communists. There are really no moderates left. There's no Democrats of that kind that you can recognize like from the 60s or the 90s for that matter. So what we hear about as an ideological fight is nothing of the sort. They agree on the ideology, just not on the labels. They were socialists a decade ago, but only now are they embracing that label because these youngans are really communist. So they're kind of running one label behind. The socialist label is a branding exercise meant to distinguish the young progressives from the old progressives. It's literally a fight between generations, not policy. They agree on the same policy. They hate America. They hate Americans. And they want to steal your money to give it to the third world peasants that they're bringing in to replace you. And that will provide them with power forever. That's the Democrat platform.

One that's totally committed to everything and anything that screws normal people. Name a Democrat policy that actually helps normal people. You can't. They talk about health care, but it's their own health care policy they're complaining about the Obamacare. They like crime, they like criminals, but they hate normal people who are trying to protect themselves with guns. They swoon over freaky perverts and want to inflict them on your daughters in locker rooms. They want to take your money and give it to people who shouldn't be here in the first place and they hate you. You're racist and sexist and all those other things. Understand that there's no disagreement on this stuff among most Democrats. The older generation agrees with it. They just cover it up better. The younger generation... Just trumpets Marxism even louder. So they gain an advantage in the heavy blue districts where they do so well. But at the end of the day, it's a matter of winning. They were both willing to eagerly endorse a rapy outhouse with a Nazi tattoo and 500 other black marks on his resume just to get some power. Abandoning him only when it looked like he couldn't pull it off at the polls. There's a huge space for someone young who can also appeal to normal people. And they tried that with the Virginia governor Abigail Spanberger and that shrew from New Jersey. They ran on the, we're just moderate moms platform. Although Abigail Spanberger was running next to a guy who touched himself like platinum in a toilet. But once they got into power, they ruled like every other lefty. They didn't even pretend. They're one social media campaign away from passing a bill outlawing, you know, heterosexuality. But what if the Democrat was actually normal? What about a Democrat who could say no to the most unpopular positions of the Democrat Party? Imagine a young Democrat who could be on the 80s side of at least 80, 20 issues. It's not like the Republicans are beloved. The GOP's intermittent success is due to the Democrats' failure. Now, Bill Clinton pulled it off in 1992. He came out against crime. He came out against the perpetual welfare cheats. He said he wanted to stand up for the people who worked hard and played by the rules, and he won. Can you imagine any Democrat doing that today? They literally want to defund the police and close the prisons. They literally want to give free money to bums, and they literally don't want people to play by the rules. Look at how they moan when we deport illegal aliens. Bill Clinton won because he made it safe to vote for a Democrat again, because he was a Democrat who wasn't going to cater to the deadbeats and who wasn't going to let criminals run rampant. If you make people safe and secure and don't insult them by stealing their money to give it to slobs who don't work, you're going to get a lot of leeway from the American people to do other things.

And they would let things slide like Bill Clinton's, you know, sex, you know, nonsense. And it's the obvious flex for some Democrats to stand up and steal his playbook, or they would say redistribute it. But none of them dare to. They dance around moderation, but it's fake and performative. And in the end, they don't commit. Governor Gavin Newsom, the Patrick Bateman of American politics, sort of looked like he was going to go that way for a while, but he didn't have the guts to hold on through the heat he'd face. Maybe if he had, California wouldn't be such a cesspool, but he doesn't have the stuff because you're going to get in trouble by the rest of the Democrat Party if you do that. But there is a huge value to pulling off a sister soldier moment. Another Bill Clinton play where he took on one of the more annoying people associated with this party, repudiated her, and ended up looking good to the normals. Now, U.S. Democrat Representative Ro Khanna? was playing at that for a little while. He's a pretty lefty guy, but he kind of gave the impression that he didn't hate normal people and that he might even be able to meet them halfway or more on some of the things they were concerned about. But he couldn't do it. In the final analysis, he's out there now claiming that the IDF detained him. And then people thought, oh, maybe Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania. It was insane that Kamala Harris passed over this very popular guy for Tim Walz. But she couldn't take the heat. She couldn't get someone who was perceived as not a radical. And she certainly couldn't get someone who was Jewish because, well, now you know, the Democrats now hate the Jews and love the Palestinians. But if she had actually gone for him, she might have actually pulled it off. Which put Josh Shapiro in a very favorable position. He was the obvious guy to occupy the empty We Are Sane Lane. His state adores him. In many ways, he's been a competent governor. And the rejection of Kamala Harris and her humiliating defeat gave him the argument that Democrats need to do something different. And he was different. And they might have swallowed the whole Jewish thing if they thought they had a winner. But instead of differentiating himself from the most extreme leftist, he's chosen to cater to them, which is stupid in many ways. It's not going to work. They're never going to accept him as one of their own. He's too moderate, too effective, and too Jewish. His only play was to distinguish himself by doubling down on his moderate image. He needed to be an alternative because he's never going to satisfy the weirdos. So instead of doing that, he, you know, he got down with the trans kids and all the nonsense. The Democrat Party is full of cowards. None of them are brave enough to stand up to the fanatics, except for John Fetterman. He's like the honey badger of the Democrat Party because he doesn't give a rat's pituit whose feet he steps on.

But somebody else who hasn't been collecting Social Security for two decades could come along and not antagonize the left while actually being a competent person who could govern. That guy could do very well in a general election. But it will be tough in the primary. He'll have to fight. He's going to get a lot of grief. And that's why the normal lane is going to remain wide open for now. Even as the Democrats can, you know, are crowding into the gridlocked cookie lane. Do not look for a maverick in 2028. They'll need to be humiliated another time or two before they're desperate enough to try not being complete idiots. Thank you, Kurt Schlichter, for some pretty profound words. Anyway, let me take a quick break. Please stay right where you are. I'll be right back. I tell you, there's a lot happening. Missouri's moving to ditch their state income tax. Behind the scenes, a lot of people are actually looking at making big changes while everybody is concentrating on these huge stories. And that's a good thing. I saw a piece in, I guess it was in the Jerusalem Post. where Alan Dershowitz actually, he said that Jews who voted for the New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani, are idiots. They embraced a candidate who runs contrary to their own identity. He was on Rudy Giuliani's show. And he said, that's your city, mayor. The same city that once elected Rudy Giuliani elected Zohran Mamdani to the same office. It's absurd. I mean, Dershowitz said, Zohran Mamdani should be the mayor of Tehran. And then Dershowitz said, my people, the idiot Jews in New York, who live on the Upper West Side, who live in Park Slope, who voted for Zohran Mamdani, remind me of the 7,000 Jews who voted for Hitler. because 7,000 Jews formed a party in 1932 and voted for Hitler because they thought he would be good for the economy. He said, thank God we have Italian Americans, Irish Americans, and other Americans who have a lot more sense that many Jewish Americans do. And then Giuliani said, but there are a lot of very strong Jews on this issue. The two agreed that nothing woke them up in 1932. referring to Jews who continued to back Nazi figures, you'd think they'd learn their lesson, but no, they voted for Brad Lander. Brad Lander is an anti-Israel Jewish-American candidate. He is the Zohran Mamdani endorsed nominee for the 10th Congressional District in New York. He beat Goldman, who's Jewish, in last month's primary. And unbelievable. You know, now Dershowitz sounds like a conservative Republican. But where's he wrong? You can't show me where he's wrong. He's on a show with Giuliani, who is a member of course of the Republican Party, a tough on crime mayor who reshaped New York and led the response to 9-11. They called him America's mayor.

And now he's permanently disbarred from practicing law because of his efforts, you know, on Trump's behalf. And Dershowitz's own reputation has been under a lot of scrutiny lately. Left will eat their own. You know, they question his ties to Epstein, Jeffrey Epstein. I mean, obviously, Alan Dershowitz was on Epstein's legal team and helped negotiate the 2008 non-prosecution agreement that allowed him to serve a reduced sentence. And he was later named in a defamation claim by Epstein, accuser, Virginia, what's her, Geoffrey, who said in 2015 that Dershowitz had also abused her. Then she dropped those allegations against him in 2022 saying, well, maybe I made a mistake. And of course, Dershowitz denied any wrongdoing. And he's never been charged in that case. Oh, what a tangled web, right? Our political scene is despicable. And I just, I sit here. And I try to make sense of it, but I can't. And, you know, I don't, I don't know what happens next. I think, though, that, you know, Lindsey Graham's death is going to shake things up for a while. I was looking at a bunch of pollsters over the weekend. All of these predictors of what's going to happen in the midterms. And of course, the left dominates the polls and the reporting of the polls. So to hear them tell it, you know, the Democrats will get control of the House, which I don't believe. You know, I don't see that. I looked at some of the races that they were calling. And maybe, but probably not. Could a Democrat win those seats? But, you know, where am I going to get some accurate information? There was a time when I could count on a lot of different polls, many of which were substantially, you know, were not biased and where they'd have broad cross sections of voters. I couldn't find any of them this weekend. Really, people who I used to depend on. So I'm not inclined to agree with the majority of pollsters who think that they will take back the House, but they will not get the Senate. I'm actually going to be a contrarian and tell you I do not believe they will take back the House. And I'm a little more worried about the Senate than anybody appears to be. When you're looking at one thing, you have to be careful. to not take your eyes off the other thing. And that's where, you know, that's how a magician fools large crowds, right? He's got you looking at what he's doing with his right hand. And meanwhile, his left hand, which is under the table, is doing something completely different. And I think there's going to be some races that are being called for Democrats that are not going their way.

But in that same vein, there could be some races that are now being called close that won't be close. You just don't know. You don't know who to trust. You look at these numbers. And you just don't know. So my question, and I ask it not my brilliant idea, I think Alicia Finley asked it in the Wall Street Journal. That who was this last week worse for? Democrats or JD Vance? Yeah. You had the Democrat party trying to wash Graham Platner out of their hair after the woman he dated accused him of sexual assault. You know, now the Democrats are praying that voters move on quickly, which they tend to do. But the vice president meantime had a bunch of misfortunes. Remember the book Alexander and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day? That's what happened to JD Vance this week. The ceasefire went up in smoke. His foreign policy of retreat and defeat went up in smoke after Russia banned diesel exports due to a fuel shortage caused by the long-range strike on the Ukraine launched on its refineries. And then President Trump diverged from him by signaling that he supported the Ukraine now. And to cap it off, the hedge fund magnate, Ken Griffin, who's a big-time Republican donor, said he would favor Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State and a match-up between the two for the nomination. Isn't that what I've been saying for the last couple of months? You know, unlike Alexander and his no good, very bad day, all of these problems are the vice president's own fault. These are his doings. You know, when Mr. Trump on Friday said they ceasefire with Iran is over, well, first and foremost, how could something that never really happened be over? They never were abiding by it anyway. They violate the agreement every day. They lie. They cheat. They kill people. So wasn't it Mr. JD Vance who said, we'll have peace in our time? We're going to have a MOU, a memorandum of understanding, which none of us knew what that meant anyway, with Iran last month? Apparently, he did not understand the regime with which he was negotiating. He kept saying, I think they see there's a real opportunity here to turn over a new leaf so long as they do the right thing. We've got the cards. And if they don't honor the commitment, we'll figure out what to do when we get there. Well, now we're there. It didn't take long. They began firing at ships going through the strait of our moons a week after the deal was signed. Upon the signing of the memorandum of understanding, the Islamic Republic of Iran violated everything. Let me ask you this. As a real estate developer, would Donald Trump ever have leased a property on the condition that the tenants make arrangements using their best efforts to pay rent and only for 60 days?

So one of the most comical characters to me is Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor. First of all, he's just grotesque to look at. And he's a failure. He failed. There's a presidential candidate. He failed. He could have probably been a rising star if he had not. decided to go up against Trump when he had no ammunition. But he made a prediction on some podcast, Hassan Minhaj is some comedian. The name of the podcast is Hassan Minhaj doesn't know. Why would anyone listen to that? But anyway. So he said, do you think Republican voters want to know the truth? And Christy says, well, probably not. Not a majority of them. But they're going to lose. He said the Democrats will win the House. This is what Chris Christie said. And frankly, I think they've got a better chance at the Senate today than I thought they would have given the map. This is the same Chris Christie who got crushed in the 2024 Republican primaries who was booed relentlessly by conservative crowds and who positioned his entire campaign as the anti-Trump alternative, right? He dropped out early after failing to connect with the base that had already rejected his brand of politics earlier. President Trump himself trolled Chris Christie last December, saying that he fired the former governor because he wanted to eat all the time. You know, you can't, you cross Donald Trump and you're going to get trashed in. very unkind ways. That's simply the truth. And if you don't get that, you're probably not sophisticated enough to do politics anymore. Or maybe it's you have too much sophistication to do politics anymore. It'll be very interesting now to see what happens in terms of Ukraine and Russia, because Lindsey Graham, that was his final mission, saving the Ukraine. So we'll see. We'll see how that story ends, but I'll be watching carefully. I thank you for your time this time until next time. I've got a plan. That plan is to be back here tomorrow at the very same time at 3 p.m. if it be his will and he delays his coming. What goes before us and what comes after us, tiny matters compared to what lies within us. So wherever you are, just be yourself. Everybody else is taken. And then may God bless you. May God bless Israel. And may God bless the United States of America. Stay safe. I'll see you tomorrow.