The G.O.P.’s Life After Lindsey

**Julia Ioffe** (0:03)
She's like, Hi, I'm Jewish, I'm in Ukraine. There are no Nazis here. I was wrong. I was parroting Russian propaganda talking points without even realizing. And I was like, holy shit, what is happening?

**Leigh Ann Caldwell** (0:20)
Welcome to The Powers That Be Daily, Puck's podcast focused on the intersection of Wall Street, Washington, Silicon Valley, and Hollywood and the players who run it all. I'm Leigh Ann Caldwell, in for Peter Hamby who's taking some time off.
It's Wednesday, August 5th. Today, I'm joined by my colleague Julia Ioffe to talk about Republican foreign policy in a post-Lindsey Graham world, and her juicy interview with Laura Loomer, the MAGA influencer, once a Putin apologist, and now a Zelensky cheerleader. We'll talk about what she told Julia and what it means for MAGA. We'll talk about all of this and more on today's episode of The Powers That Be.
Happy Wednesday. I'm Leigh Ann Caldwell sitting in for Peter Hamby, who is taking a well-deserved week off. I'm here with my partner Julia Ioffe, and we are going to talk a lot about foreign policy, perhaps the old school Republican theology of foreign policy versus the MAGA of today. Julia, thanks so much for joining us today.

**Julia Ioffe** (1:37)
Hi, Leigh Ann. Good to be here.

**Leigh Ann Caldwell** (1:40)
I always love talking to you about your such detailed knowledge about American foreign policy, especially when it pertains to issues of oppression in Ukraine. We're going to get to your conversation with Laura Loomer a little bit later. But first, let's talk about Senator Lindsey Graham, the late Senator Graham, who was this vestibule of old school Republican foreign policy, trying to drag the president along with him to actually some pretty good success. But I would love your take.
Where do you see the Republican Party, even Donald Trump, in his last two and a half years in office, when it comes to foreign policy, without Senator Graham in his ear all the time?

**Julia Ioffe** (2:39)
Well, I think, you know, he went from... I remember being in New Hampshire, writing about the New Hampshire Star Ledger and the editor-in-chief back in 2016, I believe. And he was running for president. And, you know, I was sitting there, he came to talk to the editorial board and try to win their endorsement. And he was trashing Donald Trump and saying what a joke he was and what a wannabe authoritarian he was. And then, like so many Republicans, including a fellow senator named JD. Vance, he understood that you either line up with Trump or you're out of politics. And that's just the long and the short of it. And I think he, you know, a friend of his I talked to was like, he really understood of the three amigos, you know, Joe Lieberman, John McCain and Lindsey Graham. It was Lindsey Graham, this person felt, that understood power and how it worked the best. He understood which subcommittee you had to be on to really have any say over how foreign, you know, from the Senate of how American foreign policy worked. And he understood that, look, like he could go out and continue trashing Donald Trump, but he wouldn't have any sway then over how American foreign policy was done. And I think, you know, what, however you feel about his switch, I think that was right for him in the sense that he cozied up to Donald Trump. He was kind of a pilot fish and a flatterer. And he got Donald Trump to pivot ever so slightly on Ukraine, on Iran more than ever so slightly, on the Western Hemisphere, on Israel, on the Gulf. You know, he was in his ear being hawkish. And I think, you know, I think, to my friend Robert Draper's point, this idea of, you know, Donald Trump, when he ran saying, I'm not going to get into any new wars, he also talked about how militaristic he was, and how kind of his nature was to be aggressive, and to hit first, ask questions later. And I think Lindsey Graham understood that as well, and that he kind of knew which buttons to push. But I don't want to overstate it, right? Because Donald Trump does what Donald Trump does. And sometimes you kind of you, you know, you get him when the time is right and it's effective. But I think most of the time, nobody's that effective. He kind of just does whatever he wants to do.
Without him there, I think there's definitely a void. And I think it's not just Lindsey Graham. It's just, you know, you know the Hill much better than I do. But it wasn't just Lindsey Graham. There was this whole cohort of kind of Senate graybeards that are retiring soon.