Senator Lindsey Graham has spoken out about the bubble wand he was seen walking around Disney World with as a partial government shutdown dragged on.
When asked where the bubble wand is now that Graham is back on Capitol Hill, the South Carolina Republican said he didn’t know.
“I didn’t buy it for me,” Graham told TMZ in a video shared Wednesday, adding that he purchased the bubble wand “for a friend’s girl.”
Graham was ridiculed for taking a personal trip to Disney World late last month as lawmakers were at an impasse over funding the Department of Homeland Security. The partial government shutdown has still not been resolved.
The senator was seen in photos published by TMZ dining at Chef Mickey’s, standing in line for Space Mountain and carrying the infamous bubble wand through the theme park’s Magic Kingdom.
The Republican lawmaker told TMZ at the time that he went to South Florida for a meeting with Trump administration officials and then went to Orlando afterwards to catch up with some friends.
“I voted seven times to fully fund the government. Call a Democrat,” he said.
Funding for DHS lapsed on February 14 but Democratic lawmakers have refused to pass a spending bill that funds the whole agency until reforms to its immigration arm are met.
The demands for changes to operations of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection came after two U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, were gunned down in the streets of Minneapolis by federal immigration agents in January.
Graham’s trip to the so-called most magical place on Earth took place during a two-week recess. He wasn’t the only lawmaker pictured enjoying some R&R as federal workers went without pay. Representative Robert Garcia, a California Democrat, was seen in photos released by TMZ hanging out at the Fontainebleau Las Vegas casino.
“Actually I don’t mind what tmz is doing here,” Garcia said in an X post at the time. “Like the story says my dad has lived in Vegas for 15 years and I had just finished lunch with him. I try to see him whenever I can. And like I said a few days ago, Speaker Mike Johnson should have never sent us all home.”
Congress will go on another break next week. Graham told TMZ in Wednesday’s video that he’ll spend it campaigning in South Carolina.
When asked if he had any plans to go to Disney World on his upcoming vacation, Graham said, “I’m not gonna go to Disney World this time. I’m gonna go campaign at home.”
It has been more than 70 days since the DHS shutdown and Republicans and Democrats are still in a gridlock over the funding dispute.
President Donald Trump issued a presidential memorandum earlier this month directing Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to pay every agency employee using “funds that have a reasonable and logical nexus to the functions of DHS.”
But the Office of Management and Budget warned lawmakers in a new memo that DHS will soon run out of funds to pay employees.
“If this funding is exhausted, the administration will be unable to pay all DHS personnel beginning in May, which will once again unleash havoc on air travel, leave critical law enforcement officers—including our brave Secret Service agents—and the Coast Guard without paychecks, and jeopardize national security,” the letter obtained by The Hill read.
Congress has struggled with its approval rating, with just 10 percent of Americans pleased with the job lawmakers on Capitol Hill are doing, according to a recent Gallup poll.
