Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) watered down his previous call for an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin to assassinate him amid his invasion of Ukraine.

“How does this end? Somebody in Russia has to step up to the plate. Is there a Brutus in Russia? Is there more successful Col. Stauffenberg in the Russian military?” Graham asked Sean Hannity while appearing on Fox News Thursday night. “The only way this ends, my friend, is for somebody in Russia to take this guy out. You would be doing your country a great service and the world a great service.”

Graham later changed his tune while joining the hosts of Fox & Friends on Friday morning, the day after he told Hannity that someone close to Putin needs to kill him.

“He needs to go to jail,” Graham said of Putin while responding to a statement from Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov. 

Reacting to Graham’s initial calls to assassinate Putin, Antonov called the senator’s remarks “unacceptable and outrageous,” calling for “strong condemnation” of Graham’s “criminal statements.”

“It is impossible to believe the senator of a country that promotes its moral values as a guiding star for all mankind, can afford to call for terrorism as a way to achieve Washington’s goals of the international arena,” Antonov added.

Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade asked for the senator’s response on Friday, leading to Graham’s change of tune.

“Mister Ambassador, you are supporting a war criminal in Putin. Your country is engaged in war crimes in front of the entire world. You are bombing innocent civilians, using banned munitions,” Graham said, speaking directly to Antonov. “You have a record — your country does — of dropping barrel bombs on people in Syria. You destroyed Chechnya by massive war crimes. You’re committing war crimes in the Ukraine.”

You need to apologize to the world for how Putin has stolen your country blind, how they are dismembering a neighboring democracy called the Ukraine,” he continued. “How they are killing innocent men, women, and children — indiscriminate use of force and violation of the Geneva convention. You, my friend, are the one who needs to apologize, and when it comes to Putin — he needs to go to jail.”

Watch above, via Fox News.

The post Lindsey Graham Changes Tune on Assassinating Putin: ‘He Needs To Go To Jail’ first appeared on Mediaite.

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