South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham told a Code Pink activist Wednesday her group represents "radical Islam's best hope."
The activist, Medea Benjamin, confronted Graham while he was speaking with CNN's Jake Tapper during an Atlantic Council event. She told Graham she is "horrified" by his foreign policy "because it's a prescription for endless war. And of course that's why you feel you need this huge military because you want to keep us in these wars."
Benjamin went on for a minute before Tapper said, "Is there a question?" She continued on, talking about beheadings in Saudi Arabia and asking whether or not Israel has nuclear weapons. Media members in attendance booed her two minutes after she took the floor.
Aides eventually took the mic from her two and a half minutes after she began speaking.
"I'm going to put her down as undecided," said Graham, a Republican running for president. "This is your country as much as mine, you've got a right to every opinion you can express, right? I couldn't disagree with you more. I think people like you make the world incredibly dangerous. I think people like you are radical Islam's best hope."
Graham then talked about the war on radical Islam.
"This is religious war, and if you don't understand that, you shouldn't be president of the United States," he said. "They have a religious agenda dictated by their view of God to kill every Christian they can find. To destroy the state of Israel and capture us, and take every Muslim and bend them to their will or cut their heads off. This happened long before Iraq. That's not why we're in trouble. It has nothing to do with us fighting back. It has everything with us not understanding what it takes to win.
"At the end of the day, we're in a religious war. I didn't start this war, but somebody's got to end it."
The exchange begins 1:10:30 in the video below.
Story continues below video.
Benjamin Tweeted about the confrontation afterward:
Code Pink is an all-female organization that advocates ending wars and helps promote human rights issues.
Graham announced his candidacy for president June 1 and is one of 14 candidates vying for the Republican nomination in next year's election.
Last weekend,
Graham said his two priorities if he becomes president would be to put a stop to terrorism and take care of the nation's debt.
"If I get to be president, I'm going to focus on putting radical Islam back in a box and nailing it shut," Graham said. "I've never been more worried about an attack on our homeland than I am right now. Radical Islam is running wild in the Mideast. [President Barack] Obama doesn't know what he's doing."
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