Bill Maher went after Senator Lindsey’ Graham’s “hypocrisy on steroids” on Real Time Friday night with a list less about the Republican South Carolina senator’s heinous, turn-about political allegiance to Trump and more about the rumors of his sexuality, using gay-coded tropes and lazy, generally offensive stereotypes.
The politically-incorrect Maher only read a selection aloud from the full list, 24 Things You Don’t Know About Lindsey Graham, written on a card that led off the segment. How many gay-coded items can you count?
- My name is Lindsey and my pronouns are He and Y’all.
- My spirit animal is a jellyfish.
- I burn calories by skipping to work.
- I’m the only Senator whose office has a bidet and a fainting couch.
- For three weeks in 1992 I was married to Liza Minnelli.
- In a fire, the first things I’d save are my bridal magazines.
- When I was in school, the kids would tease me by calling me “Lindsey”.
- I was the first person to push a dog around in a stroller.
- The greatest advice my mother gave me was to stop waving my hands when I run.
- My quote in the high school yearbook was “a lady is allowed to changed her mind.”
- My greatest legislative accomplishment is naming a post office after Nathan Lane.
- If Trump and I were a celebrity couple, I’d want the tabloids to call us “Donsey.”
- I once kissed Trump’s ass so hard I could taste Hannity.
- John McCain’s last words to me were “Let go of my hand.”
- People who say I’m anti-immigrant haven’t heard me talk about Siegfried and Roy.
- When people call me a “hawk” I just want to bomb the sh*t out of them.
- My favorite James Bond movie is Octo-yucky.
- I’m one of only three people in Washington allowed to trim President Trump’s nose hairs.
- I employ over a dozen pool boys even though I don’t own a pool.
- Irony alert! Thanks to a food allergy, I avoid fruit.
- For Halloween, I went as the Lindsey Graham from the Clinton impeachment.
- If you saw just five seconds of the videotape Trump has of me, everything would suddenly make sense.
- My nickname in the Air Force was “JAG-off.”
- If it was socially acceptable, I would wear nothing but scarves.
Of course, Graham has been the subject of gay rumors for years. He commented on them most recently after National Coming Out Day in 2018, when Chelsea Handler tweeted, “If you’re wondering why Republicans took a sick day today, it’s probably because it’s #NationalComingOutDay. Looking at you @LindseyGrahamSC”
Graham responded: “It’s a free country, you can say what you want to say, I don’t care. I don’t think much about what she says at all. If she wants to live her life that way. It’s up to her. To the extent that it matters, I’m not gay….Belittling people is not as funny as it used to be, and that’s a good thing.”