This past week, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham and Gov. Nikki Haley endorsed Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in the ongoing Republican presidential primary.
Well, sort of.
On Thursday, Graham announced he will host a fundraiser for Cruz. "I think he's the best alternative to Donald Trump," Graham said.
Asked why he is supporting Cruz, Graham took the opportunity to attack Trump. "I think Mr. Trump is not a Republican," he said. "I don't think he's a conservative. I think his campaign is built on xenophobia, race baiting and religious bigotry. I think he would be a disaster for our party."
Though Graham's criticism of Trump is nothing new, his support for Cruz was met with raised eyebrows all over Washington. "I'm actually waiting for pigs to start flying down the street," said Dana Bash, CNN's Chief Political Correspondent.
"Senator Cruz would not be my first choice," Graham acknowledged. But he sees Cruz as the best option going forward. "I think he is a Republican conservative who I could support," he said.
Saying Cruz is not Graham's first choice is a bit of an understatement. Back in January, Graham presented a choice between Trump and Cruz in the Republican primary as a lose-lose proposition.
"Whether it’s death by being shot or poisoning, does it really matter?" he said at a press conference.
Then there was his now-infamous joke in February at the Washington Press Club Foundation dinner. “If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody could convict you,” Graham said.
Graham's "endorsement" of Cruz is yet another step in the slow-motion unraveling of the Republican Party that has happened in the last year. As Graham himself said at that same event, "my party has gone batsh*t crazy."
It comes as the party establishment is slowly deciding that embracing Cruz is the best option for the #neverTrump campaign. This past week also saw Mitt Romney acknowledge he will vote Cruz in the upcoming Utah primary.
On Wednesday, Nikki Haley also offered a tepid endorsement of Ted Cruz and said she hopes he wins the nomination.
"That's who I privately am fighting for," she said. "If anybody asks me, that's what I want to happen."
Haley's move towards Cruz comes after she attacked Trump during her State of the Union response in January and endorsed Marco Rubio the week before the South Carolina Republican primary.
Haley hedged her bets when asked whether she would support Trump for president if he were the Republican nominee. "Ask me when the time comes again," she said. "As of now, I strongly believe I'll support the Republican nominee."
Graham and Haley's statements this past week show just how feckless the Republican Party establishment has been during this presidential primary.
Many Republican politicians, including Graham, ran for president themselves despite having little chance of winning — here's looking at you, Jim Gilmore. This led to a field of 17 major candidates, making for an unwieldy campaign.
Last summer the establishment dismissed Trump's candidacy while shoveling money towards one of the weakest candidates in the field, Jeb Bush.
Then they dismissed Trump's momentum and squabbled among themselves over who to support.
Now it seems they will support a man they joke about murdering and who is the least-liked man in Washington D.C. rather than fall in line behind the clear front-runner for their party's nomination.
It's time politicians like Graham and Haley wake up to a pig-flying reality: Donald Trump appears poised to be the Republican nominee for president.