Nobody ever accused Lindsey Graham of making a whole lot of sense, and he made less sense than that a week ago when he accompanied First Daughter Ivanka Trump on a mission to Cote d’Ivoire, the former French colony on the West African coast.
Ms. Trump traveled to the continent to promote women’s access to capital during a conference of the Women’s Entrepreneurship Finance Initiative, a program designed to boost female-owned businesses — something desperately needed in Africa, but so far ill-served by the Trump administration.
Graham spoke after a panel introduced the program’s mission, according to a recording from the Daily Beast, and as he spoke, he veered wildly from the topics of the day, choosing instead to focus on Islam in Africa and the dangers of extremism.
As the crowd shifted uncomfortably in their seats, the recording reveals confused conference-goers speaking in whispers to one another, asking each other what the hell Graham was talking about as he rambled. Describing a “radical ideology” that would create a “hell on earth for women,” Graham went on:
It’s the enemy of mankind, not just the United States. Some of our soldiers will be needed, but not a lot. Most of the fighting will be done by people in the region. I promise you the enemy will lose because very few mothers or fathers want to turn their daughters over to ISIS, Al Qaeda or any other group.”
Graham eventually made his way back to the subject at hand, but continued to relate it to both terrorism and ultimately the interests of America:
[I]f you really want to deal a blow to these evil people, build schools, create economic opportunity, allow a mother to have a say about the future of her children because she will inevitably say no to the terrorist.”
To Graham’s credit, we suppose, he spent no time talking about how much he supports Donald Trump’s bizarre and unwise decisions in the region, something he seems to have reserved his social media accounts exclusively for.
Featured image via screen capture
