Graham in NH: Trump Comments Will ‘Dig a Hole' for GOP

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina toured Insight Technologies in New Hampshire Friday without an entourage or a crowd of die-hard supporters. Still, the Republican presidential candidate is upbeat about his chances of winning the primary.

So why, in spite of poll numbers, is he so optimistic?

"My name's Lindsey Graham," he said. "I've got to get better known, and I've got to get in front of enough New Hampshire voters to tell them why I want to be president. Three challenges - too many terrorists, too much debt, too few jobs — and I'll talk about how to solve those three problems."

While he is in favor of immigration reform, Graham says fellow Republican candidate Donald Trump's inflammatory comments about Mexican immigrants.

"He's saying some pretty outrageous things," said Graham. "It's not about Donald Trump. It's about the process. Donald Trump has done a lot of good things in his life, but his statements about 'all illegal immigrants except some are rapists and drug dealers' is going to dig a hole for my party — which I love a lot — and make it impossible for us to win in 2016."

The senator says national security is his top concern.

"I've never seen more threats to our homeland than I do today. Our policies are failing, and I think I'm the best person in the field, including Hillary Clinton, to reset world order," said Graham. "What President Obama has done is changed world order. We're no longer the leader of the free world, we're just one of many nations."

Also on Friday, Graham applauded his state's decision to remove the Confederate flag that flew in front of the capitol.

"To the families of the victims of the church — the AME church in Charleston — you did a better job of representing my state than I could ever have hoped to have done. This flag coming down is an act of reconciliation. It's all of us saying to people in that church, 'We understand how you feel and we're going to respond to your feelings,'" said Graham. "It is a giant step forward for the state of South Carolina. I've been very proud of my state handling a horrible thing, I'd say pretty damn well."

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