Lindsey Graham receives Beaufort County award for courage named after heroic freed slave

While a crowd of sign-holding protesters chanted outside of Bluffton’s Hampton Hall neighborhood Friday evening, Sen. Lindsey Graham accepted this year’s Robert Smalls Leadership award from the Beaufort County Republican Party.

Graham was chosen for the award named after the freed slave from Beaufort who fought for the Union Army and eventually became a congressman because he has shown “courage and leadership” in the last year, Barbara Nielsen, communications coordinator of the event, said.

Outside the gated community where the event was held, the 40 protesters holding signs with phrases such as “Trump’s Lapdog” and “Have you no shame, Lindsey” said otherwise.

“The (Beaufort County) Republican party created a bogus, fictitious award that wasn’t sanctioned by the Smalls family. They’re giving a leadership award to someone who does not exemplify Civil Rights. Robert Smalls was a Civil Rights leader. He never would have (supported) what the Republican party is doing today,” said Mitch Siegel, a member of the Bluffton-Hillton Head political group Lowcountry Indivisible.

Graham did not mention Small’s legacy during his acceptance speech in front of a crowd of more than 200 Republican supporters.

“I don’t deserve (the award), but I don’t deserve half of the crap I get, so it all works out in the end,” Graham joked. “To repay you for this award, I’m going to fight to my last breath so we don’t have to give this country up to a bunch of Socialists.”

The crowd roared with cheers.

Graham kept the crowd laughing and cheering throughout his 15-minute speech.

“President Trump and I got off to a rocky start, do you remember?” Graham said of the 2015 Sun City Hilton Head campaign event when then presidential hopeful Donald Trump gave a crowd Graham’s phone number, a day after the senator called Trump a “jackass.”

“After the election, (Trump) called me over to the White House and said ‘I want to work with you. I need you’ and I said ‘Mr. President, I’m all in, I want you to do great,’” Graham said.

“(Trump) says, ‘I don’t have your phone number, and I said, uh, there’s a reason for that.’”

Graham said Trump apologized and they shared a laugh.

“If you don’t remember me running for president, it’s not your fault,” Graham joked.

In the years since the incident, Graham has made a puzzling pivot from being one of Trump’s loudest critics in the Republican party to becoming one of his most loyal supporters on the Hill.

This week, Graham stayed true to his alliance when he defended Trump amid his first official impeachment inquiry, saying that it’d be “insane” to impeach a president over the July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the State newspaper reported.

“This is a bunch of garbage,” Graham told reporters at the Friday night event when asked about his thoughts on the impeachment inquiry. “This to me is wholly inappropriate.”

Asked about his interpretation on the the phone call at the center of the impeachment inquiry, Graham said “It was a phone call between two presidents, and it was fine with me.”

Graham has served as a Republican senator representing South Carolina since 2003. Last month, in nearby Sun City Hilton Head, residents held a town hall with a fake cardboard cutout of Graham to “hold him accountable” for his absence in the Lowcountry. Before Friday’s award dinner, Graham hasn’t been in Beaufort County since Oct. 2018 when he spoke to Hilton Head Realtors.

Graham said he’s a “pretty available guy” when asked about not attending the town hall.

“They represent a point of view, the question is, it a majority point of view/ a mainstream point of view? I don’t think so, but God bless their right on coming out on a hot day,” Graham said of the protesters.

Graham said he visited the military community earlier Friday to talk about the budget while he was in Beaufort County Friday.

“It’s a great budget for Beaufort County and a great budget for the military,” Graham said. “I really appreciate President Trump rebuilding the military and we’re on the receiving end of those dollars.”

Graham did not mention the $11 million dollars Trump recently redirected from a Laurel Bay Fire Station to the border wall project.

The dinner celebrating Graham’s award sold 210 tickets at $100 per person, $175 per couple. The money raised will go to the Beaufort County Republican Party to pay for headquarters and county satellite offices, Nielsen said.

Sen. Tim Scott was the first recipient of the Robert Smalls award last year. Smalls founded the Beaufort County Republican Party, Nielsen said.

“You don’t have to be a senator to win the award, they just so happen to be the first two recipients,” Nielsen said.

This story was originally published September 27, 2019 at 8:19 PM.