Lindsey Graham, Republican senator and staunch Trump ally, dies

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Capitol Hill in Washington, March 11, 2026. Graham, a South Carolina Republican who served in the State Legislature and the House of Representatives before being elected to the Senate four times, has died, his office announced early Sunday, July 12. He was 71. (Kenny Holston/The New York Times)

By ROBERT JIMISON, ZACHARY WOOLFE and AMELIA NIERENBERG

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican and a onetime opponent turned stalwart ally of President Donald Trump who was a forceful advocate for an interventionist U.S. foreign policy, died Saturday evening. He was 71.

He died from “a brief and sudden illness,” his office said in a statement early Sunday. No further details were provided. After recently returning from a trip to Ukraine, Graham had been scheduled to appear on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday morning.

A former Air Force lawyer who served in the Air Force Reserve while in Congress and was briefly deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan as a senator, Graham was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1994, before winning his Senate seat in 2002. Last month, he fended off five challengers to win the Republican primary in his bid for a fifth term.

Trump offered his condolences on social media early Sunday, calling Graham “one of the greatest people and Senators I have ever known.”

“He was always working, and was a true American Patriot,” Trump added. “Lindsey will be greatly missed!!!”

Gov. Henry McMaster of South Carolina, a Republican, can immediately appoint a temporary replacement to fill Graham’s seat. Graham was set to face Annie Andrews, a Democrat and a pediatrician, in the general election in November.

Graham’s death comes as another influential Republican senator, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, has spent several weeks in the hospital for undisclosed reasons. It leaves Senate Republicans without a senior lawmaker and reliable vote as they face pressure from Trump to continue advancing his legislative agenda.

Graham, who made a long-shot bid for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination that went to Trump, consistently argued for the use of U.S. military power overseas. He was a fierce supporter of Israel and Ukraine, making multiple trips to both countries, and he recently supported aggressive military action against Iran. He was a familiar face for many world diplomats and leaders, several of whom paid tribute to him on Sunday.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel called Graham a “beloved friend” in a social media post.

“Lindsey understood that the security of Israel and America are inseparable,” Netanyahu wrote, adding, “Israel has lost one of its greatest friends.”

Graham helped navigate Ukraine’s often strained relations with the Trump administration after Russia’s invasion in 2022 and had often visited Kyiv, the capital, despite regular Russian bombardment of the city. On his recent trip to Ukraine, his final visit overseas, Graham visited a drone factory and met with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Zelenskyy wrote on social media on Sunday that he was “deeply saddened” by Graham’s death.

“Lindsey was a true defender of freedom and the values that make our world safer,” Zelenskyy added.

Graham was one of many powerful Republicans who changed their public position on Trump. As Trump was rising in his first presidential campaign, Graham lambasted him as a “demagogue” and a “race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot.”

“You know how you make America great again?” Graham said in a CNN interview in 2015. “Tell Donald Trump to go to hell.”

He said he had voted in the 2016 election for Evan McMullin, an independent candidate, rather than for Trump or Hillary Clinton, the Democrat.

A decade later, though, he was regularly and effusively lauding Trump. In a speech celebrating his South Carolina primary victory last month, Graham joked, “Mr. President, you’re not far behind God.”

Over his Senate career, Graham rose to lead two influential committees, Judiciary (from 2019 to 2021) and Budget (starting in January 2025).

As chair of the Judiciary Committee, he oversaw the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court after the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 2020. Before he was chair, he played a key role on the committee during the 2016 fight over President Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the court, aiding in Republicans’ success in blocking the pick. In 2018, he vehemently defended Brett Kavanaugh, one of Trump’s Supreme Court nominees, when sexual assault allegations threatened to derail Kavanaugh’s confirmation.

More broadly, Graham was instrumental in advancing Trump’s effort to reshape the federal judiciary. During his tenure at the helm of the Judiciary Committee, the Senate, with McConnell as majority leader, confirmed more than 200 federal judges, cementing one of the defining conservative legacies of the Trump era.

As chair of the Budget Committee, Graham played a central role in translating Trump’s domestic agenda into legislation. He oversaw the budget resolution that, through a procedure known as reconciliation, allowed Republicans to advance much of the president’s sweeping tax, immigration and spending package without support from Senate Democrats. The effort required months of negotiations among warring factions within his party before the tax package became law last year.

It was a defining accomplishment of Trump’s return to Washington with a Republican-controlled Congress, and highlighted not only the growing influence of Graham within his party but also his transformation from Trump critic into a steadfast and outspoken ally.

After Graham’s volleys of criticism during Trump’s first presidential run, the two men became close associates, bonding over regular golf outings. While Graham occasionally voiced disagreements with Trump, they largely remained in lockstep on most policy issues.

“If you want somebody who can go to Washington to help him, I’m your best choice,” Graham said of Trump during his recent campaign.

Lindsey Olin Graham was born in Central, South Carolina, a town in the western part of the state, on July 9, 1955, the elder of two children of Florence James Graham, known as F.J., and Millie (Walters) Graham.

His parents operated a restaurant and bar, then known as the Sanitary Cafe, that Lindsey and his sister, Darline, worked in as they grew up. The family at first lived in a room behind the establishment, eventually moving into a trailer and then into a house next door.

“My home was a bar,” he recalled in his 2015 memoir, “My Story,” adding that he “was loved inside those walls, as much as any child could be loved, by two devoted parents.”

He graduated from high school and went on to become the first member of his family to attend college. In 1976, when he was 20 and his sister was 11, his mother died of Hodgkin lymphoma; 15 months later, his father died of a heart attack.

After their deaths, Graham became his sister’s legal guardian, later adopting her so she could receive his military benefits.

“Lindsey was always my parent,” she told The New York Times in 2015. “There was no doubt in my mind or anyone else’s mind that Lindsey was my guardian.”

Graham never married or had children. His sister, Darline Graham Nordone, is his only immediate survivor.

In 2019, asked by the Times if he ever worried about being seen as a toady to Trump, Graham said: “No, here’s what I worry about. That we’re going to get it wrong in Syria and Afghanistan. I worry more about the policy stuff. And I have more influence than I’ve ever had.”

Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., the majority leader, wrote in a social media post on Sunday morning that Graham “was a strong advocate for the United States and a strong ally to freedom-loving countries across the globe. He believed in the might of America to achieve good in the world.”