Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, called for the assassination of Russian President Vladimir Putin on Fox News and Twitter Thursday night.
“How does this end?” Graham asked during an appearance on Sean Hannity’s cable news show before alluding to an assassin from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and a German soldier who plotted to kill Adolf Hitler.
“Somebody in Russia has to step up to the plate. Is there Brutus in Russia? Is there a more successful Colonel Stauffenberg in the Russian military? The only way this ends, my friend, is for somebody in Russia to take this guy out. You’d be doing your country a great service and the world a great service.”
Graham repeated those remarks almost verbatim on Twitter and added, “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.”
A Graham spokesman told The Washington Post that the senator is also “okay with a coup to remove Putin.”
“Basic point, Putin has to go,” the spokesman said. “He also noted it will be — has to be — the Russian people who do it.”
Graham’s comments were widely condemned. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a fellow Republican, tweeted “This is an exceptionally bad idea. 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.”
Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Democrat from Minnesota, tweeted “I really wish our members of Congress would cool it and regulate their remarks as the administration works to avoid WWlll.”
The Washington Post reports:
Norman Eisen, who served as U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic during the Obama administration, said such comments would only raise tensions.
“Now Putin can say ‘one of the most senior U.S. Senators has called for my assassination,’ ” Eisen, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said. “Why would you want to help him?”
Business Insider adds:
Some Russians, too, have advocated for a regime change in their homeland. Businessman and US-based crypto investor Alex Konanykhin put a $1 million bounty on Putin’s head this week, calling for military officers to arrest him as a war criminal.
