On ABC's This Week, host George Stephanopoulos played a clip of Sen. Lindsey Graham and his dire warning for Republicans if they fail to take care of those billionaire donors they're beholden to and get those tax cuts passed before the midterm elections:
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: Well, I think all of us realize that, if we fail on taxes, that's the end of the Republican Party's governing majority in 2018.
I can't imagine how he could be successful with Nancy Pelosi running the House. They would try to impeach him pretty quick.
And it would be just one constant investigation after another. So, it's important that we pass tax reform in a meaningful way. If we don't, that's probably the end of the Republican Party as we know it.
After former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Katie Walsh Shields attempted to take credit for that Obama economy her former boss has been benefiting from, News One Now host Roland Martin pushed back at the assertion that the Republican party is "imploding" as Graham was fearmongering over, and had a grim reminder for the audience about how much power the party still wields nationwide, and the battles for Democrats ahead if something isn't done about voter suppression and gerrymandering.
MARTIN: I'm waiting for that tweet: "Thank you, President Obama, few setting me up with a great economy."
You know what I'm saying? You can't deny it.
(CROSSTALK)
MARTIN: But here's the thing with what Graham said that people have to understand. And Democrats are running around saying, oh, my God, the possibility here.
The fact of the matter is, the Republican Party is not imploding. When you control 31 governor's mansions, when you control legislatures, House, Senate, and the White House, more importantly the judiciary, you're not imploding.
Yes, you have these internal fights, but this is about power. This is not about principles or character or moral and values. They want to maintain power.
Trump is the vessel that allows them to do so. And so they will fall in line.
Jeff Flake, that wasn't courageous, what he did.
STEPHANOPOULOS: He was going to lose.
MARTIN: Courageous is to still run. Courageous is to say, I'm going campaign around Arizona and speak the truth, and, if I lose, that's fine.
I'm not giving anybody props for giving a speech and cutting and running. No, you stand up and you stay in the office and you challenge them. That's how you do it.
But people have to stop thinking the Republican Party is dead. They're not. And when you see things happening in North Carolina, what is sadistic, what they're doing, what is undemocratic, in Wisconsin, those states, we ignore what is happening in these states. Texas, five times they have lost in the federal courts over voter I.D., costs $3 million.
It's real what they're doing in states.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And that corresponds to Congress as well.
