“There are differences between Chicago and South Carolina, but you know there are some similarities, too. He’s pretty good at throwing elbows,” Graham said of Emanuel. “I think he’s smart. … Everything he’s ever told me about what the administration would do, they did. When he tells me something about where the president stands, I’ve found it to be solid and accurate.”
“I just like Lindsey. I just like him, but it doesn’t blind me to our differences,” Emanuel said in an interview with POLITICO. “What I knew about him and read about him is only half the story. He’s just a very honorable person to work with. He’s easygoing, but clear-eyed about his objectives. Even when you disagree, he doesn’t make it personal.”
Emanuel says the cultural chasm between the two men isn’t much of an obstacle, though he sometimes needles Graham about it, saying, “Senator, a doughnut is not a bagel, even though they both look the same.”
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