Sen. Lindsey Graham, 71, Passes After ‘Brief and Sudden Illness’

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) passed away Saturday night, July 11. News broke in the early hours of Sunday, but Graham’s office reportedly confirmed he died “from a brief and sudden illness.” The Palmetto State Republican had served more than three decades in Congress, between his four terms in the Senate and four in the House before that, and he worked almost up until the day he died. Sen. Graham passed on Saturday, and on Friday, he returned home from a working trip to Ukraine.

The Life of Lindsey Graham

Graham was born in Central, a small mill town in Pickens County, South Carolina, maybe a 20-minute drive from his present residence in Seneca. Growing up, young Lindsey lived with his family in the back room of the Sanitary Café, a modest family-owned bar, pool hall, and liquor store on Main Street in Central. When Graham was 21 and a student at the University of South Carolina, his mother died of Hodgkin’s lymphoma – and his father passed 15 months later of a heart attack.

Graham went on to earn a Bachelor of Arts in psychology in 1977 and his Juris Doctor in 1981. He was then commissioned as an officer in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps (JAG Corps) in the US Air Force in 1982. He served a total of 33 years across the US Air Force, South Carolina Air National Guard, and finally the US Air Force Reserve, and he retired a colonel in 2015.

Like many other military members of Congress, Graham served in both simultaneously. His political career began back in 1992 when he was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives, serving one term before launching directly into Congress in 1994. He served four consecutive terms in the House of Representatives and won his first Senate election in 2002.

Riding the Trump Train

When Donald Trump first ran for president, Lindsey Graham was well established in both the Senate and the military – and he also wanted his shot at that big brass ring. His platform was national security and a hawkish foreign policy. During the 2016 primary, Graham was one of Trump’s most aggressive critics, and the two frequently traded insults. Graham famously warned at one point via tweet: “If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed. and we will deserve it.”

But the animosity didn’t last much longer than his campaign. Graham dropped out, and so ended his first and last attempt at the White House. Trump, of course, went on to become president. Shortly after, Lindsey Graham became an ally and eventually a friend of Donald Trump. Graham was one of the president’s fiercest defenders through the Mueller investigation and the first impeachment trial, and though he initially cut ties with Trump after January 6, 2021, he quickly repaired the relationship and voted to acquit after the second impeachment.

And it didn’t take long after declaring his intent to run for a fifth term this year for Trump to get behind him. Graham won his primary with 56.8% of the vote and looked likely to win again in the general, as he pulled more total votes than his challenger from the Democratic Party, Annie Andrews. Now, of course, it falls to South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster (R) to appoint a replacement to fill the vacancy in the Senate, pending the general election in November.

Working Until the End

Sen. Graham had flown to Ukraine to tour a drone factory and met with President Volodymyr Zelensky just this week, flying home on Friday, July 10. The same day, he announced he had reached an agreement with the White House on a Russia sanctions bill.

Emergency services reportedly responded to a call for cardiac arrest at Graham’s home in DC on Saturday night, according to police scanner audio obtained by NBC News. “Senator Graham’s family appreciates prayers at this time and asks for privacy during this incredibly difficult period,” his office said in its official statement.