Video of Lindsey Graham Booed for Telling Crowd to Get Vaccine Goes Viral

A video of Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) being booed after advising a Republican audience to consider getting the COVID-19 vaccine has gone viral, clocking up more than 200,000 views as of Wednesday morning.

Graham, 66, was speaking at a county Republican event in Summerville, South Carolina on October 2, when he announced he had received the vaccine and encouraged audience members to do so as well.

The video was first published by The Daily Beast but has since been shared across multiple platforms.

"If you haven't had the vaccine you ought to think about getting it because if you're my age—" the Republican lawmaker said, before he was interrupted by boos and shouts of "No!" from the audience.

"I didn't tell you to get it, you ought to think about it," Graham continued, despite the heckling.

Graham tried citing statistics showing that the vast majority of hospitalized COVID patients in South Carolina were unvaccinated.

But that attempt failed. "Well, I'm glad I got it," Graham said. "92 percent of people in hospitals in South Carolina are unvaccinated." The audience responded by shouting "False!" and "Not true!"

Graham added that he opposed vaccinate mandates for the military and healthcare workers, but that failed to placate the audience.

On October 4, South Carolina recorded 2,154 new cases of COVID-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The daily number for the state peaked on January 8, when the state recorded 7,692 new cases.

The White House has taken an aggressive stance towards the pandemic and said in early September that it expected the vaccine mandate to be finalized in the "coming weeks."

The new regulations—which will be implemented by the Labor Department's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)—will see workers at companies with 100 or more employees to get vaccinated or have to undergo regular testing. Implementing a vaccine mandate will be a large and tough task for a small government agency like OSHA.

The Republican Party has consistently railed against vaccine mandates.

In South Carolina on September 9, Gov. Henry McMaster pledged to fight President Joe Biden and Democrats "to the gates of hell" on coronavirus vaccine mandates.

On September 12, House minority leader Kevin McCarthy tweeted there should be no vaccine mandates.

At least two dozen Republican-controlled states are preparing legal challenges against Biden's new mask measures. The president is scheduled to travel to Chicago on Thursday, where he's expected to make remarks about the importance of vaccine mandates.