Tuesday on MSNBC’s “MTP Daily,” Republican presidential candidate Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said without specifics on their plans, candidates like Carly Fiorina and Donald Trump will not stand up to Hillary Clinton in a general election, and Trump specifically because he is “building a wall between us and the Hispanic community that we may never be able to get over, because most illegal immigrants are not rapists and drug dealers.”
Graham said, “Well, if you’re looking for somebody with no foreign policy experience, I’m your worst choice. If you’re looking for somebody who doesn’t have a plan, don’t pick me. Carly said she could do the tax code on three pages. I’d like to see that. I like Carly, but I’d like to see how you take the tax code and make it three pages, given the economy we have today. I think that’s not unreasonable for you to ask—if it’s a three page document, let’s see it. I’d like to know how we’re going to get Mexico to pay for the wall. Do you deport 11 million people by looking at them? Do they get a hearing? Do they get a lawyer? How much would that cost? At the end of the day, things being said on our side are simplistic and are not going to lead to us winning in 2016, because if you go in the debate with Hillary Clinton and you say you have a tax code of three pages, you better be able to show it.”
He continued, “Donald Trump is on the stage with Hillary Clinton. Do you think she could challenge whether or not he has a realistic plan to deport 11 million people including their legal citizen children? Do you think it may come up in that debate? How do you deport someone who is a U.S. citizen because their parents are illegal? How do you do all the things that are going to make us great without telling us? You tell me you have a plan for Syria, but you don’t want to give it away. Well, at the end of the day, I think a lot of this is going to catch up with us. If you’re going to be in the ring with Hillary Clinton, you better have your act together. And if you say things, you better be able to produce the product for the American people and say things that can be done, that can be accomplished.”
He added, “That’s what this election is going to come down to. If you want to beat Hillary Clinton, you better have a foreign policy that you can articulate. If you’re going to talk about immigration, you should not drive a deeper wedge between us and the Hispanic community. We have a problem demographically, Donald Trump is building a wall between us and the Hispanic community that we may never be able to get over, because most illegal immigrants are not rapists and drug dealers. Our problems in 2012 are being made exponentially worse in 2016 thus far.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.