United States Senator Lindsey Graham, a longtime Republican from South Carolina and ally of President Donald Trump, has died “from a brief and sudden illness”, a spokesperson for his office told CNN. He was 71.
First elected to the US Senate in 2002, Graham came to embody the evolution of the Republican Party as a critic to Trump who turned fiercely loyal, eventually growing to be one of the president’s closest advisers on Capitol Hill.
But even as his fealty to Trump was unquestioned, the senior senator continued to be a vocal spokesperson for US intervention and leadership across the globe – often breaking with the more isolationist bent of Trump’s supporters.
Graham made a name for himself as a foreign policy hawk who ardently advocated for military intervention in Iran and Iraq and was a leading voice for the unwavering US support for Israel and Ukraine. His political career was intrinsically connected to his close relationship to two giants in the Republican Party: first with the late Senator John McCain of Arizona and then with Trump.
Graham died on Saturday, according to his X account, shortly after returning from a visit to Ukraine – one of many he made after the Russia’s 2022 invasion. Emergency responders were dispatched to a DC address for Graham around 8:30 p.m. ET for a report of someone suffering from chest pains, according to audio of the dispatch on Broadcastify. The audio indicates someone called in from Baltimore and was heading to the home.
A spokesperson for Graham did not disclose further details about the senator’s illness.
“Senator Graham’s family appreciates prayers at this time and asks for privacy during this incredibly difficult period,” the spokesperson said.
Trump told CNN’s Jake Tapper that he had spoken with Graham just hours earlier, when the senator had returned from Ukraine. The president said they discussed his voter ID legislation – the “SAVE America Act” – and Graham’s recent travels.
“He said, ‘I’m tired because it’s a long trip’, but other than that, he was he was fine,” Trump recalled.
“What a terrible loss it is,” the president added. “He’s a great politician. He was a natural. Very few of them. He was a natural politician. Got along with everybody.”
Graham began his political career in the early ’90s after serving as a city and county attorney in South Carolina. He was elected to the House in 1994. He also served in the US Air Force as a prosecutor and defence attorney.
His early life was marked by the deaths of his mother and father within 15 months of each other when he was an undergraduate; his father died of a heart attack, his mother from cancer. Graham helped raise his then 13-year-old sister, Darline, and later adopted her.
He never married nor had children.
First elected to the US Senate in 2002, Graham was running for a fifth term in this fall’s midterm elections, and his death will have implications for legislative business in the Senate – where Republicans slim margin is already under stress with the absence of Senator Mitch McConnell. (CNN)
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