Donald Trump has lost a go-to ally in the Senate after the death of Lindsey Graham, with senior White House aides and other Republicans — and even some Democrats — saying the late senator had become a crucial part of the president’s legislative efforts.
The 71-year-old Budget Committee chairman and national security hawk was a fierce Trump critic in 2015, as they both sought the GOP presidential nomination. But he quickly morphed into one of Trump’s closest congressional allies after the 45th president took office, with Trump on Sunday declaring in a television interview that he saw the South Carolina Republican, who Washington, D.C.’s medical examiner said preliminarily died of aortic dissection, “like a member of the family.”
“It’s very tough, actually. It’s amazing. … He was such an advocate,” Trump told NBC’s “Meet the Press” program on Sunday. “He had a unique ability. He was able to deal with Democrats and Repub[licans]. If I had a problem, a real problem, I wouldn’t often ask. But if I had a problem with a Democrat, he could work it out. He was … a great politician, actually.”
Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff for domestic policy, in a X post described the late senator as instrumental in securing the votes of some Senate GOP skeptics last year as Trump, administration officials and allies like Graham worked on what became the party’s sweeping tax and spending law.
“I’ll never forget the senate lunch, when a couple Senators were a tad off the program, and Lindsey — in his inimitable way — made sure everyone was onside by the time we left. It was a glorious thing to witness. He knew how to move a room,” Miller recalled. “Lindsey was a senator’s senator. The job was everything to him.
“There was never once a time he didn’t answer a phone call and lend whatever assistance was required. It was never a question with Lindsey,” added Miller, a former Senate GOP aide. “The fact that Lindsey started out as a political opponent only to become one the President’s most steadfast and faithful supporters underscores that Lindsey believed emphatically in the voice of the people.”
After Trump was sworn into office in January 2017, Graham maneuvered to gain his ear — and his trust. As his friend and fellow GOP Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who died in August 2018, looked on in disbelief, Graham spent much of that year explaining to reporters that he believed his job, by definition, was to try working with any president — particularly one from his own party — on the issues he cared most about.
Trump said the two started to get chummy during that 2015 campaign. Golf outings and meetings would follow. The former member of the moderate “Three Amigos,” along with McCain and the late independent Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, eventually became a member of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” inner circle.
“I sort of ran the table on everybody, and it was good. And he appreciated it. He respected it,” Trump told “Meet the Press” about the 2015 GOP primary, especially his big win in Graham’s Palmetto State. “And we sort of got a little bit friendly and it just, the friendship grew. It just grew. And he was an amazing advocate, he was. I don’t know how you find anybody like him.”
‘Indispensable player’
Graham’s death came at a crucial moment for the president and Senate GOP leaders, who have had a sometimes-tense relationship in recent months.
“I think the biggest loss will be to the Senate leadership having a reliable, private and clear backdoor link to the White House and Trump. My sense is that Lindsey was one the president listened to for advice on Senate procedures and policies,” G. William Hoagland, a former senior GOP Senate aide now with the Bipartisan Policy Center, said in a Monday email.
“After all, it was Lindsey that convinced the president, he could use the budget process to accomplish his [One Big Beautiful Bill Act] policies,” Hoagland added. “My guess is his loss to the Senate and the country means … efforts to pass a ‘reconciliation 3’ is now even less likely than it was before his loss.”
GOP strategist Ford O’Connell on Monday agreed the late Budget chairman’s sudden death from a cardiovascular incident will make another reconciliation bill a “steeper climb.” But he said Graham’s absence will be felt beyond the purview of the Budget Committee.
“From Never Trumper to Forever Trumper, Lindsey Graham became in many ways President Trump’s ‘Senate whisperer’ — a fierce ally and staunch defender of the military and capitalism,” O’Connell said. “Without Sen. Graham, Justice Brett Kavanaugh likely doesn’t get seated on the Supreme Court.”
That was a reference to Graham’s impassioned rant in September 2018 as the Judiciary Committee considered decades-old sexual assault allegations against the now-Supreme Court justice. Trump and top aides on Sunday complimented Graham for blasting Democrats for turning the confirmation sessions into an “unethical sham.”
“That’s one of the legacies. That’s a big legacy because Brett was being treated very unfairly. I don’t think he could’ve gotten through without Lindsey’s classic [comments]. I mean, if you go back into the top 10, I think it would be a top 10, a top 5, in the history of the Senate,” Trump told NBC. “The emotion, the anger, the love, the whole thing, everything was in that. It was, I called him up. I said, ‘That’s one of the great classics of all time.’”
That conversation was far from the once-unlikely allies’ last phone call. That came Saturday evening, with Trump saying his “friend” sounded “a little tired” after a European swing last week that culminated in a visit to war-torn Ukraine.
With Graham’s passing, Trump will have to find another senator to become his go-to call when in need of a fixer. The same goes for the number of Senate Democrats who issued statements Sunday noting Graham’s conservative bona fides, but also his willingness to, at times, work across the aisle.
“Lindsey was part of every important policy issue and an indispensable player in every Senate ‘gang’. He was a fierce Republican partisan one day and a key bipartisan ally the next,” Senate Judiciary ranking member Richard J. Durbin said in a statement posted on X. “When I was Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he was the Ranking Republican. His word was good — no cheap shots.”
