Lindsey Graham channels his inner comedian and Howard Beale with bonkers "SNL" bit: "How am I losing to these people?" Carson "tried to kill someone at 14," Donald Trump is "crazy as hell," and Graham can't understand how he's losing 
 
 South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham is not going to be the next president, but perhaps what he's really running for is a permanent seat on the "Morning Joe" panel. 
 
 In a frankly bonkers interview on MSNBC this morning -- filled with biting takedowns of the rest of the GOP field, especially Ben Carson, Donald Trump and Marco Rubio, but also what almost seemed like a stand-up routine complete with classic "Saturday Night Live" references -- Graham spoke with the kind of honesty you're only allowed when you're polling at 1 percent and on Monday morning basic cable. 
 
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 For his first joke, he busted out a Bernie Sanders Goes To Moscow routine. "Can I give you my take on this race?" he asked. "You have two front-runners on the Democratic side, right? The No. 2 went to the Soviet Union on his honeymoon -- and I don't think he ever came back. The leader felt that she was flat broke after her husband was president for eight years -- and that's maybe why they stole the China." 
 
 Then he turned to Donald Trump and Ben Carson, saying "on our side, you've got the No. 2 guy [saying he] tried to kill someone at 14 and the No. 1 is high energy and crazy as hell. How am I losing to these people?" 
 
 "How am I losing to these people?" alludes, of course, to the 1988 "SNL" debate parody in which a moderator turns to Michael Dukakis after a George Bush points-of-light word-collage and asks for his reaction. Dukakis is in disbelief: 
 
 Graham was also asked about abortion. "Is it possible for a Republican to get elected president if they have the position Marco Rubio has on abortion, which is to say no exceptions, even in the case of rape, incest and life of the mother?" wondered John Heilemann. 
 
 The senator replied that he is "pro-life," but that he "would never tell a woman who has been raped she's got to carry the child of the rapist. Eighty-three percent of the American people feel like that goes too far. So if you would veto a bill that had an exception for rape or incest -- you know, I appreciate your passion for the pro-life issue, but you're outside of the main stream and you cannot get elected. Anybody with that position will get creamed. I think you lose 350 electoral votes. 
 
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 South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham told NBC News Wednesday that GOP rival Donald Trump is "a guy melting down," saying that Trump's attention-grabbing move to read Graham's personal cell phone number aloud to a crowd "just shows you what he's like." 
 
 "Would you want to give him the nuclear codes?" Graham said of Trump, laughing. "If he had a bad day, maybe he'd put 'em on the internet!" 
 
 Asked if Donald Trump is thin-skinned, the 2016 hopeful replied, "I think what you're seeing is a guy melting down. That it's one thing to have a reality TV show but if you turn the presidential campaign into a reality show, you'll eventually lose because Republicans want to win." 
 
 "Hillary [Clinton] could walk all over him because he is so bombastic, so ill prepared to be commander in chief," he added. 
 
 Trump and Graham have been warring since the real estate mogul entered the race last month, though their barbs escalated over the weekend when Trump questioned the military service of Graham's close friend, Sen. John McCain of Arizona. 
 
 "How could anybody wanting to be commander in chief even suggest that John McCain and people like him are less than heroes?" Graham told NBC News. "He's a train wreck, he's a car wreck and I think he's shown yet again why he's not going to make it through this process." 
 
 Appearing in Graham's home state Tuesday, Trump suggested that Graham had once called him to ask for help securing bookings on FOX News Channel. He then read Graham's cell phone aloud to the crowd. 
 
 In response, Graham released a video on IJReview.com showing him destroying his famed old-fashioned flip phone with a blender, a golf club, lighter fluid, and various other instruments of wreckage. 
 
 He told NBC News that the cell phone debacle was "not the most pleasant thing that ever happened to me but by no means the worst thing." 
 
 And he joked that he'll finally be moving on to a more advanced means of communication. 
 
 "Donald Trump has been able to do something my staff could not do for years: get me a new phone," he said.
– Ben Carson has admitted he used to "go after people with rocks, and bricks, and baseball bats, and hammers" and that he almost stabbed someone when he was a teen. Donald Trump is … well, Donald Trump. And Lindsey Graham is completely baffled how he's not making inroads in the 2016 presidential race against these two. "On our side, you've got the No. 2 guy tried to kill someone at 14, and the No. 1 is high energy and crazy as hell. How am I losing to these people?" he asked Monday in what Salon calls a "frankly bonkers interview" on MSNBC's Morning Joe. Graham's bluntness—the type "you're only allowed when you’re polling at 1% and on Monday morning basic cable"—is an allusion, Salon notes, to a 1988 Saturday Night Live parody that featured a bewildered Michael Dukakis (played by Jon Lovitz) proclaiming, "I can't believe I'm losing to this guy" ("this guy" being George Bush, played by Dana Carvey). Graham also had something to say about the Democratic contenders, per Real Clear Politics: "You've got the two front-runners on the Democratic side, right? The No. 2 guy went to the Soviet Union on his honeymoon, and I don't think he ever came back. The leader thought that she was flat-broke after her husband was president for eight years. And that's maybe why they stole the china." (Graham's really got the hang of zingers.)