Fox News host Chris Wallace on Sunday called out Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) for making misleading comments about a voting rights bill that he objects to.
During an interview on Fox News Sunday, Wallace asked Graham if he could support Sen. Joe Manchin's (D-WV) voting rights bill, which is a watered-down version of a measure being pushed by a majority of Democratic lawmakers.
"Sen. Manchin took out a lot of the basic Senate plans, S1, the For the People Act, like public financing of congressional elections," Wallace noted. "Can you go along with the Manchin stripped-down version? And if not, why not?"
"I like Joe Manchin a lot," Graham began. "But we had the largest turnout in the history of the United States [in 2020] and states are in charge of voting in America. So I don't like the idea of taking the power to redistrict away from state legislators."
"You're having people move from blue states to red states," he continued. "Under this proposal, you'd have some kind of commission redraw the new districts and I don't like that. I want states where people are moving to have control over how to allocate the new congressional seats."
Graham said that he plans to vote against Manchin's proposal.
"In my view, SR1 is the biggest power grab in this history of the country," he remarked. "It mandates ballot harvesting, no voter ID, it does away with the states being able to redistrict when you have population shifts. It's just a bad idea."
Wallace quickly pointed out that Graham was objecting to measures that Manchin has not proposed.
"Joe Manchin would say, 'A lot of the stuff that you just objected to is not in my bill,'" the Fox News host pushed back. "His is a stripped-down version and he doesn't talk about an independent commission."
"He just says ban partisan gerrymandering," Wallace said. "And as you know, the Constitution does provide federal oversight of state elections."
The host added: "If Republicans kill -- if you vote as it appears you're going to, to kill the Manchin version of voting rights, you've already, Republicans, voted to kill the bipartisan January 6th commission looking into the insurrection at the Capitol, do you run the risk that Manchin and a couple of other moderate senators will eventually say, 'Look, bipartisanship isn't working and you know what? We're not going to kill the filibuster but we're going to reduce the number of votes you need to stop a debate from 60 to 55?' Do you run that risk?"
"I hope not," Graham replied before insisting that there are other bipartisan issues that Republicans will support.
"When we had the Senate, the House, and the White House under President Trump, I had a bunch of Democrats wanting to sign a letter with me protecting the filibuster," Graham recalled. "So I was beat on every day. Why don't you give in and agree with President Trump to change the rules so we can get the Trump agenda through? I said, no, I don't think it would be good for the country."
"I'm not going to be extorted here," he concluded. "I'm asking no more of my Democrat [sic] colleagues than I ask of myself. It was very unpleasant to be beat on every day by the president of the United States, President Trump, and his allies to try to change the rules in the Senate to have their way."
