Supporters of President Trump approached Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina on Friday at Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington, angrily denouncing the Republican as “traitor” and “liar” for voting to formalize President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory.
“Traitor! Traitor!” a woman can be heard screaming in a couple of videos shared with The New York Times. “You said you were protecting him and not.”
“Get out of here,” shouted another woman to Graham, who was once considered Trump’s closest ally in the Senate. “You don’t represent America.”
The tense scene enlivened the continuing crisis unfolding in the Republican Party, as lawmakers, its voters and the nation were staggering from an insurrection by Trump’s supporters that took over the Capitol this week, while Congress was meeting to count the electoral votes.
Graham was not alone, as the elected Republicans who rejected Trump’s attempt to overturn the election faced intense reaction from their own voters, who were persuaded by the president’s false claims that he won. Senator Mitt Romney, a Republican from Utah, also had an unpleasant confrontation at the airport with Trump supporters, while other Republicans were approached outside the Capitol by voters from their states who traveled to Washington at the president’s insistence on protesting his election defeat.
After four years of standing with Trump, including some of his baseless allegations of electoral fraud, Graham escaped on Wednesday night after the crowd was expelled from the Capitol, saying “enough is enough”. He seemed to predict the coming crisis.
“I cannot convince people, certain groups, with my words, but I will speak for my actions,” he said in the Senate.
On Friday, Mr. Graham could be seen in another video, posted by Politico’s Daniel Lippman, being escorted out of the waiting area by uniformed police while several dozen people harassed him. (An earlier version of this post incorrectly featured Mr. Lippman’s last name.)
“One day they will no longer be able to walk down the street,” said a woman, wearing a T-shirt with the initial “Q”, a reference to QAnon, the pro-Trump conspiracy theory. “Is today.”
Mindy Robinson, a conservative activist and commentator who calls herself, posted another video where a woman, apparently she, called Mr. Graham a “rubbish human being”.
“It will be like this forever, wherever you go, for the rest of your life,” sneered the woman.