Former vice president Joe Biden thinks President Trump is using Senator Lindsey Graham like a puppet, “holding power” over him and other Republicans to dig into Biden and his son’s shady business deals in Ukraine.

And he seems to be issuing a backhanded threat to his old pal in the Senate.

In an interview with Don Lemon, the CNN host pointed out that Graham has said positive things about Biden as a person in the past, but he’s now requesting documents from the State Department about the millions Hunter Biden collected from a Ukrainian gas company during his father’s eight years in the White House.

“What do you say to Lindsay Graham and folks like him?” Lemon asked Biden.

After a long and awkward pause, Biden alleged “they have him under their thumb right now,” referring to Graham.

“They know that he knows if he comes out against Trump he’s got a real tough road for re-election, number one,” Biden said. “I am disappointed and quite frankly I am angered by the fact, he knows me. He knows my son. He knows there’s nothing to this.”

Biden went on to imply his former colleague is weak, compared to the Ukrainians who refused to investigate Burisma Holdings, the company that sent his son at least five figures per month for years.

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“Trump is now essentially holding power over him that even the Ukrainians wouldn’t yield to. The Ukrainians would not yield to ‘investigate Biden.’ There’s nothing to investigate about Biden or his son,” said Biden.

The 77-year-old leading Democrat in the 2020 presidential race contends that Graham’s decision to look into his son’s sketchy arrangement will somehow lead to Graham’s undoing. That deal, of course, is central to Democrats’ efforts to impeach the president, which Graham will be expected to review if it’s successful.

Last year, Biden bragged at a public forum about threatening to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid from Ukraine while vice president to force government officials there to fire a top prosecutor. That prosecutor was investigating Burisma Holdings for corruption.

President Trump repeatedly requested that Ukrainian officials investigate the mess, as well as widespread reports of Ukraine’s involvement in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. A politically connected whistleblower in the intelligence community filed a complaint about President Trump’s conversation with the Ukrainian president over the summer and Democrats are now pursuing impeachment with claims Trump attempted to withhold U.S. aid to compel Ukrainian officials to investigate.

Republicans, meanwhile, are pointing out that no aid was withheld from Ukraine, and officials there did not investigate Biden or the 2016 election interference.

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Regardless, Biden told Lemon that Graham, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Community, shouldn’t bother to look into Hunter Biden’s sweetheart deals in Ukraine and elsewhere, then issued what could easily be construed as a veiled threat to the senator from South Carolina.

“Lindsay is about to go down in a way that I think he’s going to regret his whole life,” Biden said.

“What do you say to him?” Lemon goaded.

“I say, ‘Lindsay, I, I, I, just, I, I, I’m just embarrassed by what you’re doing, for you,” Biden said.

Graham responded on Twitter, and he did not seem the least bit embarrassed.

“I love Joe Biden as a person but we are not going to give him a pass to what is obviously a conflict of interest,” Graham said. “I believe Hunter Biden’s association on the Burisma board doesn’t pass the smell test. If a Republican was in the same position, they’d certainly be investigated.”