Biden’s sister calls Lindsey Graham ‘sycophant in chief’ in new book

Biden and the South Carolina Republican were longtime friends.

President Joe Biden’s sister railed against her brother’s former friend and Republican Senator Lindsey Graham in her new memoir, according to Business Insider.

Valerie Biden Owens writes about the South Carolina Republican in her new book “Growing Up Biden” and notes how her brother had “strong relationships” with Republican Senators during his 36 years serving in the upper chamber. But she says Mr Graham became “became sycophant in chief” to former president Donald Trump.

“The man is unrecognizable to me today,” she wrote in her book. Mr Graham had previously been complimentary toward Mr Biden, saying in 2015 that he was “as good a man as God ever created” despite their political disagreements. But Mr Graham became a vociferous critic of Mr Biden and regularly attacked his son Hunter during Mr Trump’s first impeachment trial.

Ms Owens is not the only member of the Biden family to say the friendship between Mr Graham and Mr Biden is done. In 2020, Mr Biden’s wife Jill told CNN they were no longer friends.

Ms Owens wrote about how Mr Graham was longtime friends with the late Arizona Senator John McCain and she hypothesises in her book that “perhaps a part of Senator Graham’s soul died” when Mr McCain died. She writes about how Mr Graham went from being Mr Trump’s biggest critic to engaging in “character-assassinating comments about Joe and our family”.

“Even worse, he became sycophant in chief to Trump when the very underpinnings of our democracy were being threatened,” he said. “This is incomprehensible to me.”

Mr Graham, for his part, said that their friendship irreparaly broke after the United States’ exit from Afghanistan, which led to the Taliban taking control of the country and 13 American servicemembers dying.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) speak during a news conference about the confirmation vote for Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson at the U.S. Capitol on April 7, 2022 in Washington, DC. The full Senate voted today to confirm the nomination of Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson with a vote of 53-47. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images) (Getty Images)

“I had a good personal relationship with him. He's a decent man, but what he did in Afghanistan, I will never forgive him for,” he told Fox News in November.

Mr Graham also emerged as one of the most aggressive questioners of Mr Biden’s Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson during her confirmation hearing, voting against her despite the fact he voted to confirm her to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

“If we get back the Senate and we’re in charge of this body and there’s judicial openings, we will talk to our colleagues on the other side, but if we were in charge she would not be before the committee,” he said during the committee’s confirmation vote.