ANALYSIS — A harried Sen. Lindsey Graham waved off reporters last week as he sped through a Capitol hallway heading to a key meeting with Vice President JD Vance and his Senate Republican colleagues.
“Not now,” he said, further increasing his gait. Asked if he would take a question about anything but budget reconciliation, the usually chatty South Carolina Republican responded with a grin: “Not anything, not right now.”
Graham was on his way to try forging something of a strategic compromise with Vance over the process Republicans are using to enact President Donald Trump’s agenda. The Senate ultimately adopted on a mostly party-line vote a blueprint from the Budget Committee, which Graham chairs, despite Trump endorsing a more expansive version that the House narrowly pushed through Tuesday evening.
