Graham ‘called the White House on January 6 and said he would use the 25th Amendment to remove Trump and says Biden was the right person to win the election’

• The 25th Amendment gives the VP and Cabinet power to remove the president
• Graham also reportedly hoped the Capitol riot would be a turning point in Trump’s grasp over the GOP, with Republicans thinking: ‘We’re better than this’
• The South Carolina lawmaker said of the current president, ‘I mean, how mad can you get at Joe Biden?’ although he called for his impeachment later that year
• Since condemning Trump for the insurrection, Graham has since returned to praising the Republican’s administration and even golfing with him 

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) threatened White House officials that he would call for Donald Trump‘s removal from office if he did not condemn his supporters storming the U.S. Capitol on January 6, a new book excerpt revealed on Wednesday.

Graham, among the ex-president’s staunchest supporters in Congress, reportedly even hoped the insurrection would be a catalyst for the GOP breaking free of Trump.

He expressed that then-President-elect Joe Biden was the right person to lead the country amid the political tumult following the 2020 presidential election, according to the forthcoming book This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden and the Battle for America’s Future, by New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns.

If Trump did not condemn the Capitol rioters on stronger terms, an ‘enraged’ Graham told White House counsel Pat Cipollone on January 6, then ‘we’ll be asking you for the 25th Amendment,’ reports from the book obtained by Axios read.

The 25th Amendment, which outlines presidential succession, gives the vice president and Cabinet the power to remove the commander-in-chief from office via majority vote. It has never been invoked in U.S. history.

Graham told the book’s authors he hoped the riot would force Republicans to abandon Trump.

‘People will say, “I don’t want to be associated with that”,’ Graham said after evacuating the Senate. ‘There will be a rallying effect for a while, the country says: We’re better than this.’

He said of the current president, whom he now frequently criticizes: ‘I mean, how mad can you get at Joe Biden?’

Graham had given an impassioned speech on the floor when Congress resumed after the riot, telling his colleagues to ‘count me out’ of Trump world and sharply criticizing the ex-president for his role in the day’s events.

Since then however, he’s returned to praising Trump for what he did during his administration and has even been spotted golfing with the ex-president at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

Meanwhile he’s kept up a steady stream of criticism against Biden, whom he was famously close with when both served in the Senate.

He even called for the Democrat to be impeached over the U.S. military’s Afghanistan withdrawal in August 2021.