Sen. Lindsey Graham slammed for ‘game on' tweet after Israel bombs Iran
South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham is facing widespread criticism for a tweet he posted following the Israeli strikes on Iran.
'Game on. Pray for Israel,' he wrote on Thursday night.
Israel struck bases and nuclear sites in an attack more severe than previous attacks on Iran, with President Donald Trump pushing the country to agree to fresh restrictions on its nuclear program as additional strikes could be 'more brutal.'
'Game? Your soul is lost,' said broadcaster Keith Olbermann in response.
'I have no doubt that you are incredibly turned on right now, Senator. Iranians, who are caught in this mess, deserve your prayers too but I know we are just an afterthought. You're a disgrace,' said journalist Yashar Ali.
'Game? You're disgusting,' Owen Shroyer added.
Israel killed a number of Iran's security chiefs, dealing a severe blow to the country's chain of command. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has described the attack as a way to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, which is seen as an existential threat by the Israelis.
'A game? You piece of s***,' wrestling reporter Sean Ross Sapp wrote to Graham.
Meghan McCain, the daughter of the late Arizona Senator John McCain, whom Graham admired, added to the criticism, writing, 'It's not a f****** game Lindsey.'
'It isn't a game, Senator. You confirmed a talkshow host SecDef who texts strike plans on unsecured apps,' said Heath Mayo, the founder of the conservative group Principles First. 'You supported a President who thinks Ukraine caused Putin's invasion. You should pray for all of us. We're going to need all the help we can get with amateurs in charge.'
'It's not a game, dip****,' attorney Ron Filipkowski added.
Meanwhile, Pennsylvania Democratic Senator John Fetterman called for Israel to continue 'wiping out Iranian leadership.'
'Our commitment to Israel must be absolute and I fully support this attack,' he wrote on X late on Thursday. 'Keep wiping out Iranian leadership and the nuclear personnel. We must provide whatever is necessary—military, intelligence, weaponry—to fully back Israel in striking Iran.'
While writer Tim Shorrock called Fetterman 'The drooling War Maniac from Pennsylvania,' singer/songwriter John Ondrasik called the senator 'a Lion in a sea of Lemmings' and former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said Fetterman 'is amazing.'
'His support of Israel used to be standard for almost every D in Washington. Now he's a lonely voice, but he remains an amazingly powerful and inspiring voice,' he added.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Sky News
43 minutes ago
- Sky News
Israel-Iran live: Dozens injured after Tehran retaliates with waves of missiles
Sirens sound across Israel as Iranian drones launched - IDF The Israeli military has just said alerts have been activated in several parts of the country, warning of an incoming wave of Iranian drones. The IDF said the air force is "working to intercept and attack wherever necessary to eliminate the threat". Jordan reopens airspace to commercial flights Jordan, which borders Israel to the east, has reopened its airspace to civilian aircraft this morning. State-run Petra news agency said skies were cleared for take-off in the past hour, signalling the country believes there is no immediate danger of further attacks. Jordan's airspace had seen Iranian drones and missiles cross through, with Israeli fighter jets likely engaging targets there. The crossfire disrupted east-west travel through the Middle East, a key global aviation route. Dozens injured as Israel and Iran exchange attacks Israel launched aerial attacks across Iran yesterday, with Tehran responding last night and into the early hours today. The Iranian ambassador to the UN, Amir Saeid Iravani, said 78 people have been killed and more than 320 injured Among those killed were three of Iran's top military leaders: General Mohammad Bagheri, who oversaw the entire armed forces; General Hossein Salami, who led the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard; And General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the head of the ballistic missile programme. Iravani said most of the injured are civilians. Israel's ambulance service reported 34 people were injured on Friday night in Tel Aviv, most with minor injuries. Police later said one person died. Hours later, an Iranian missile reportedly hit homes in the central Israeli city of Rishon Lezion, killing two people and injuring 19. All of these figures are based on tallies from authorities and have not been independently verified. Two killed in Iranian missile attack Israel's paramedic service Magen David Adom says two people have been killed in central Israel. Israel does not disclose the location of missile strikes, but it's believed this attack was in Rishon Lezion, as we reported in the posts below. At least another 19 are injured, while the country's fire and rescue service said four homes have been badly damaged. In pictures: Aftermath of Iranian missile strike in central Israel We reported a short time ago a rocket is said to have landed near homes in Rishon Lezion, just south of Tel Aviv - see our 4.32 post. These are the latest images from the coastal town, where at least 21 people have been injured. Rocket casualty figure rises to 21 In an update to the previous post, paramedics now say 21 people are being treated and evacuated after a rocket strike in Israel's coastal plain. We're also looking into reports that two people have been killed. Thirteen hurt in rocket strike, say paramedics Israel's emergency medical service, Magen David Adom, says 13 people have been hurt in a rocket attack - including a 30-year-old man who's in a critical condition. The rocket is said to have landed near homes in Rishon Lezion, just to the south of Tel Aviv, but the MDA didn't specify the location in its post. Eli Bin, director of the service, told Israel's Channel 12 that several people were still trapped. Israel says new wave of missiles fired from Iran Israel's military says more missiles have been launched from Iran and that it is working to intercept them. It says air raid sirens have sounded in several areas of the country as dawn breaks (it's two hours ahead of the UK). Pictures from Tel Aviv appear to show streaks in the sky of missiles being intercepted. Explosions and air raid sirens were also heard in Jerusalem, a witness tells Reuters news agency. How Iran's retaliatory attack unfolded The sky lit up over Israel's biggest city, Tel Aviv, on Friday evening and the sound of Iranian missiles being intercepted boomed out. Air raid sirens went off across the country, including in Jerusalem, and people were told to seek shelter. Authorities said 34 people were injured in Tel Aviv's metropolitan area. Here's how the situation played out. Latest images show aftermath of Iran missile strike New pictures are coming in showing damage caused by Iranian missile strikes in Ramat Gan, near Tel Aviv, where several cars and buildings were destroyed. However, many of the missiles launched at Israel were shot down by its sophisticated Iron Dome defence system.
Times
an hour ago
- Times
Israel's strikes on Iran's nuclear sites are long overdue
Israel is only slightly larger in area than Wales, with a population more than three times as big. It would, therefore, take only a handful of relatively crude atom bombs, in the 50 kiloton range say, to destroy it as a functioning state. Given this degree of vulnerability, a surprise attack by Israel on Iran's nuclear sites was always a distinct possibility. For the United States and its European allies a nuclear-armed theocracy in Tehran would be a deeply damaging development; for Israel it would present an existential threat. Since the revolution of 1979 that brought it into being, the Islamic regime has consistently called for the destruction of the 'Zionist entity'. While Israel has reached some form of accommodation with most of its former enemies in the Arab world, Iran has remained its implacable foe, creating a web of terrorist proxies and hovering menacingly on the nuclear brink. Now, after years of warnings and actual, though limited, operations, the government of Binyamin Netanyahu has waded into the Rubicon. Israel's airstrikes on Iran were unprecedented in scale and scope, the initial wave involving two-thirds of its air force launching some 300 weapons against some 100 targets. How the Islamic regime reacts to this calculated affront to its authority could determine its fate. • How Israel attacked Iran: from masked men in the desert to devastation Israel's practical goals in launching the attacks are open to interpretation but the rightness of its cause is not. In their insatiable hunger for the destruction of the Jewish state, and by their unceasing efforts to attain the means for that destruction, the mullahs in Tehran and their henchmen in the notorious Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps have brought destruction upon themselves. No country can be expected to stand idly by while an avowed enemy works steadily, decade after decade, in secret to create the ultimate weapon. Israel's initial attacks have been too big to be symbolic, but on their own they may not be powerful enough to put to an end Iran's nuclear ambitions entirely. Israel's fighter fleet cannot carry the most effective deep-penetration munitions made by the Americans, and a shortage of tankers makes sustained long-range operations difficult. Mr Netanyahu may be hoping for any one of a number of outcomes. He may indeed be intent on destroying the bulk of Iran's nuclear weapons infrastructure, or he may regard the air campaign as an arm twister intended to force Tehran to once and for all renounce nuclear weapons at the negotiating table. Or he could hope to deal a potentially fatal blow to the Iranian leadership's prestige, further exposing its weakness following the hobbling by Israel of its warrior proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah, and the fall of its principal Arab ally, the Assad regime in Syria. These latter developments have seriously weakened Iran's ability to strike at Israel and have provided Israel's prime minister and his hawkish administration with a window of opportunity in which to act. A showdown with Iran might also help unify a country increasingly divided by Mr Netanyahu's prosecution of the war in Gaza. Whatever the end state desired by Mr Netanyahu, and he cannot himself be sure, the argument for this action is beyond dispute. If Israel cripples Tehran's nuclear programme it will have performed a service for all law-abiding nations, just as it did when it attacked the nuclear facilities of Iraq and Syria. Before the attack, Iran announced that it would begin work on an additional uranium enrichment site not previously disclosed to UN inspectors seeking to enforce the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. A report just released by the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency shows how for decades Iran lied and deceived its way towards an atomic bomb. That this state sponsor of terrorism, with the blood of countless innocents on its hands, should become a nuclear power is as terrifying as it is abhorrent. In protecting itself Israel is protecting the world.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Trump is deeply obsessed with US history – but he has learned all the wrong lessons from it
Today the US army will parade in style along the National Mall in Washington DC to celebrate its 250th anniversary. This also just happens to be the 79th birthday of President Donald J Trump. As commander-in-chief, he will take the salute from a viewing platform on Constitution Avenue. But this is not a mere vanity project, as some critics have claimed. History really matters to the US's 47th president. One of Trump's last acts before reluctantly leaving the White House in January 2021 was to publish a report by his '1776 Commission', created to 'restore understanding of the greatness of the American Founding'. Deliberately, the commissioners included few university historians because universities were described as often being 'hotbeds of anti-Americanism, libel, and censorship that combine to generate in students and in the broader culture at the very least disdain and at worst outright hatred for this country'. The 1776 Commission demanded a return to truly 'patriotic education', declaring: 'We must resolve to teach future generations of Americans an accurate history of our country so that we all learn and cherish our founding principles once again. We must renew the pride and gratitude we have for this incredible nation that we are blessed to call home.' In this spirit, on 2 May this year, the president posted that he was renaming 8 May and 11 November respectively as 'Victory Day for World War II and Victory Day for World War I' because 'we won both Wars, nobody was close to us in terms of strength, bravery, or military brilliance', and it was time for the US to 'start celebrating our victories again!' The parade on 14 June is also intended to raise the curtain on a spectacular nationwide celebration of the 250th anniversary of US independence, extending right across the country and culminating on 4 July 2026. According to the White House website, one feature will be a video history series that 'tells the remarkable story of American Independence. It will highlight the stories of the crucial characters and events that resulted in a small rag-tag army defeating the mightiest empire in the world and establishing the greatest republic ever to exist.' History on parade, indeed. As is often the case, Trump does start with a valid point. After he witnessed the extravaganza of Bastille Day in 2017, where French and American troops marched down the Champs-Élysées to celebrate the centenary of the US's entry into the first world war, he was determined to stage a parade of his own. So what's wrong with that? Shouldn't countries be proud of their past? OK (if you don't mind the cost). But pride should be rooted in honesty, especially when Nato in Europe is engaged in a proxy war in Ukraine against Vladimir Putin, a systematic falsifier of history. And if we're trying to be honest, world wars aren't like the World Series with one country trumping all the others and winning almost single-handedly. Take the second world war. On 3 May this year, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev dismissed Trump's claims as 'pretentious nonsense', asserting that 'Victory Day is ours and it is 9 May. So it was, so it is, so it will always be!' Medvedev is now an obedient Putinist, but he and other Russians rightly point to their huge losses in 1941-45 – roughly 27 million people. Stated differently, in the three years from June 1941 to June 1944, between Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union and the D-day landings in Normandy, more than 90% of the German army's battle casualties (killed, wounded, missing and prisoners) were inflicted by the Red Army. That puts Alamein and Tunis, Anzio and the liberation of Rome into a different perspective. Yet Americans can rightly say that they were in a league of their own as a 'superpower' – a word coined in 1944 to signify 'great power and great mobility of power'. Their huge C-47 transport planes and the B-17 and B-24 bombers allowed the US to wage war right across the world. Their modern fleets of aircraft carriers, built to avenge Pearl Harbor, island-hopped across the Pacific to Japan itself. The Pacific war ended with the firebombing of Tokyo and the nuclear obliteration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Or consider the speed of the remarkable breakout from Normandy that enabled allied armies to liberate Brussels on 3 September 1944, occupying positions they had not expected to reach until May 1945. When an astonished Winston Churchill asked how the GIs were being fed and supplied, US general Omar Bradley said he was running trucks up to the front 'bumper to bumper, 24 hours a day'. Ford delivered the goods. But Britain also played a crucial part in victory. Had our embattled island gone the same way as Scandinavia, France and the Low Countries in the summer of 1940, Hitler would have thrown all his resources against the Soviet Union, while Roosevelt's US would probably have turned in on itself and concentrated on defending the western hemisphere. Instead, a combination of Churchillian leadership, modern fighters linked to the new Chain Home system of radar and the courage of the RAF pilots managed to keep Hitler at bay. Eventually, Britain became the essential supply base and launchpad for the liberation of Hitler's Fortress Europe. And so in 1944-45, the allied armies converged on Germany from east, west and south. Of course, it was an unholy alliance, animated by divergent aims and values. But the extermination of nazism was a goal all the allies shared. With this in mind, let's glance back to the US's most important victory: independence. Yes, this was in large measure a David v Goliath story of 'a small rag-tag army defeating the mightiest empire in the world'. The US's independence was indeed testimony to George Washington's leadership and his troops' courage and resilience (reinforced by his insistence on inoculation against the smallpox epidemic). But this was also a world war as the British empire battled against its global foes. Crucially, by the 1780s Britain lost naval supremacy because (unusually) three rival seapowers had combined against it: France, Spain and the Dutch. It was blockade by the French fleet that forced Lord Cornwallis's historic surrender at Yorktown in 1781 and British acceptance of American independence. The purpose of historical research is to set events in context, not to boost national pride. The story of the US's founding, like that of Hitler's defeat, reminds us that allies matter – in the past, the present and the future. That should not be forgotten when history goes on parade. David Reynolds's most recent book is Mirrors of Greatness: Churchill and the leaders who shaped him. He co-hosts the Creating History podcast
