Sen. Lindsey Graham is receiving pushback from recent comments he made about assassinating Vladimir Putin—including from the Navy Seal who fatally shot Osama bin Laden.
TMZ reports that the Seal, Robert O’Neill thinks the South Carolina Republican shouldn’t have made those remarks on TV.
“How does this end? Somebody in Russia has to step up to the plate,” Graham said on Fox News on Thursday night, alongside footage of Russian forces taking out a nuclear power plant in Ukraine. “The only way this ends my friend is for somebody in Russia to take this guy out. You would be doing your country a great service and the world a great service.”
O’Neill also says that because Graham is on the Senate Armed Services Committee, he should take an off-the-record approach to Russia, adding that politicians shouldn’t be concerned about their ratings. However, O’Neill doesn’t disagree with Graham. He thinks “someone on the inside should put a hit on Putin if the madness doesn’t end soon,” TMZ writes.
Graham doubled down on his comments via Twitter, writing, “The only people who can fix this are the Russian people. Easy to say, hard to do. Unless you want to live in darkness for the rest of your life, be isolated from the rest of the world in abject poverty, and live in darkness you need to step up to the plate.”
But Graham saw blowback from his own party, with Sen. Ted Cruz responding, “This is an exceptionally bad idea.” He continued, “Use massive economic sanctions; BOYCOTT Russian oil & gas; and provide military aid so the Ukrainians can defend themselves. But we should not be calling for the assassination of heads of state.”