Lindsey Graham, Longtime South Carolina Senator, Dead at 71

Lindsey Graham, the longtime Republican senator from South Carolina, has died at the age of 71.

Graham’s office announced in a statement, “On the evening of Saturday, July 11, U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham passed away from a brief and sudden illness. Senator Graham’s family appreciates prayers at this time and asks for privacy during this incredibly difficult period.”

According to the Washington Post, emergency services responded to a call from a Capitol Hill home owned by Graham by a person who was suffering from chest pain. About 25 minutes later, emergency personnel said they were administering CPR on the person.

“Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the greatest people and Senators I have ever known, is dead!,” President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social soon after. “Lindsey will be greatly missed!!! DETAILS AND ARRANGEMENTS TO FOLLOW. So sad!”

First elected to the Senate in 2003, Graham’s political career followed the same path as his party. A one-time ally of the moderate Sen. John McCain, Graham has spent the last decade tethered to Donald Trump and the MAGA movement.

Born and raised in South Carolina, Graham was the first of his family to go to college. He served in the Air Force and the reserves for more than three decades. A lawyer, he was elected to House of Representatives in 1995 serving in his seat until running to replace the retiring Sen. Strom Thurmond in 2003.

Early in his career he was known for his hawkishness on foreign policy and a willingness to buck his party. A former senior staffer for a Democratic senator who has worked alongside Graham on bipartisan legislation told Rolling Stone in 2020, “Like John McCain, he was a conservative Republican, but it was always worth asking where he was going to be on a particular issue, because he wasn’t completely beholden to party orthodoxy. He’d often be way out ahead of his staff, negotiating on the Senate floor unbeknownst to them, and they would be playing catch-up.”

The ascendancy of Trump changed that approach. Graham ran against Trump in the 2016 primary and was one of his fiercest critics, calling his rival, among other things, “a race-baiting xenophobic bigot.” But like the rest of his party, Graham rallied around the president and became one of his staunchest allies.

A staunch hawk, there was some daylight between Graham and Trump on the support of Ukraine against Russia. Volodymyr Zalensky reacted to the Senator’s death with a statement, calling Graham “a true defender of freedom and of the values that make our world safer.”

Graham was also remembered by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “Israel has lost one of its greatest friends. America has lost a great patriot. I have lost a beloved friend.”

Known as one of the funniest people on Capitol Hill, Graham joked with NBC about how he was able to keep his unlikely friendship with the president, despite their occasional differences. “Well, one, be mildly entertaining. Play golf. And understand he’s been a great president.” Then Graham added, “You know what we have in common? I like him and he likes him.”

This story is developing.