WASHINGTON — In the aftermath of the Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021, Senator Lindsey Graham declared he had reached his limit with the leader idolized by the rioters: President Donald Trump.
“Trump and I have been on an incredible journey. It’s heartbreaking for it to conclude like this. Honestly, it devastates me,” a visibly moved Graham expressed when the Senate resumed following the clearing of the rioters. “From my perspective, he’s been an impactful president. But, I have to say, I’m done. There comes a point where enough is enough.”
Yet, that was far from the end.
Senator Graham, who was a significant figure within the Republican party from South Carolina, unexpectedly passed away at age 71 on a Saturday night. He soon acknowledged that his political party’s fate was tightly interwoven with Trump and swiftly returned to defending him. This reconversion showed that what appeared to be an irreversible break was merely another chapter in the complex and turbulent saga of their political alignment.
“Can we advance without President Trump? The answer is no,” Graham conceded in May 2021, barely four months following the violent breach. “I’ve realized that our growth is impossible without his involvement.”
Trump, who called Graham a “true American Patriot” in a social media post Sunday, appeared shocked by the lawmaker’s sudden passing.
SEE ALSO | Lindsey Graham’s death prompts process to fill his Senate seat
“I just can’t believe it,” the president told NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “He was like a member of the family.”
Graham often advised Trump on foreign affairs, particularly on matters pertaining to Israel, Ukraine and Iran. He was a frequent visitor at the White House.
“At the end of a particularly thrilling and rollicking meeting in the Oval Office, Lindsey Graham turned to the room and said: ‘I’ve never had this much fun in my life,'” deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller wrote on X. He said such gatherings “were filled with camaraderie, kinship and uproarious laughter.”
Trump recalled that during his last conversation with Graham, he told his friend, “We’ll see you soon, come over anytime you want.”
Graham once said Trump’s candidacy was like ‘being shot in the head’
The senator and Trump first clashed while competing for the 2016 presidential nomination.
Graham described Trump as “unfit for office,” and was angered when Trump denigrated the military service of Graham’s close friend, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. Trump suggested, “I like people that weren’t captured” when talking about McCain’s years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.
Trump got mad enough at Graham to release the senator’s personal cellphone number. That prompted a viral video in which the senator dramatically destroyed a series of flip phones. He smashed one with a meat cleaver and another with a golf club, then used lighter fluid, a blender and toaster oven to pulverize others before tossing one off the roof.
Graham eventually likened Trump’s winning the nomination to “being shot in the head” and said he refused to vote for Trump that November. But the pair later bonded over golf and what Graham described as a mutual and irreverent sense of humor.
READ MORE | Lindsey Graham draws tributes for his support of Ukraine, trans-Atlantic ties and Israel
Trump and Graham began so frequently hitting the links together that the senator started seeing it as something of a career builder, leaning heavily into the kind of over-the-top flattery Trump relishes. In 2017, Graham joked that Trump had beaten him “like a drum” on the course – even worse than in the presidential primary.
“Their true friendship could only be seen behind the curtain,” Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., told ABC’s “This Week.” Scott said that relationship was forged as political adversaries but also strengthened by spending 100-plus hours golfing together.
During Trump’s first term, Graham helped advance Trump’s nominees to the Supreme Court, lent credibility to the White House’s legislative agenda and even at times became part of the president’s inner circle. He frequently said Trump was maturing in politics and growing on the job.
Graham’s political divergence with McCain, who died in 2018, was never more clear than in 2017, when McCain voted against a Trump-backed plan to overturn Democratic President Barack Obama’s signature health care law. The effort had been co-sponsored by Graham.
A split that was short-lived, an alliance reignited
In his floor speech after the Capitol attack, Graham said “he’d never been so humiliated and embarrassed for the country.” But the break with Trump ended quickly.
Weeks later, Trump invited Graham for golf and dinner at the president’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, reigniting their alliance. During Trump’s 2024 campaign, Graham was a frequent Trump surrogate on television, promoting U.S. military strength that he said would advance “America First” policies.
Graham never shed his more traditional Republican foreign policy views, including outspoken support for Ukraine during the Russian invasion. He was also a leading voice pushing the White House to more fully embrace Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and take a harder line against Iran.
After the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran in February, Graham remained hawkish, staunchly defending the action and working to counter many in Trump’s “Make America Great Again” base who thought “America First” meant avoiding such military conflicts.
“To those who say Iran is stronger now than before, that is an insult to the American military and it is delusional thinking because the Iranian economy is in shambles,” Graham posted on social media June 19.
But Graham’s admiration for Trump went far beyond Iran. When Graham clinched the South Carolina Republican primary last month, he suggested the president was just short of a deity.
“I want to start with a bunch of thank yous. I want to thank the big guy, God. Trump comes later,” Graham laughed. “Mr. President, you’re not far behind God, but we’re gonna start with him.”
Copyright © 2026 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.