Lindsey Graham dies at 71 after ‘brief and sudden illness,’ his office says
The senator had been a fixture in Republican politics both in South Carolina and in Washington.
07/12/2026 03:01 AM EDT|Updated: 07/12/2026 10:35 AM EDT
Lindsey Graham, the four-term Republican U.S. senator from South Carolina, died on Saturday after a “brief and sudden illness,” his office said in a statement.
“On the evening of Saturday, July 11, U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham passed away from a brief and sudden illness,” the statement said. “Senator Graham’s family appreciates prayers at this time and asks for privacy during this incredibly difficult period.”
Emergency Medical Services responded to Graham’s Capitol Hill address at 8:27 p.m. Saturday for someone with “chest pains,” according to audio of the call.
He was 71.
Senator Lindsey Graham through the years. | David Hume Kennerly/Getty Images and Francis Chung/POLITICO
Graham, who was first elected to the House in 1994 and to the Senate in 2002, had been a fixture in Republican politics both in South Carolina and in Washington. A staunch ally of President Donald Trump, he was on his way to clinching his fifth term in office this year, after winning his state’s June primary election.
“Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the greatest people and Senators I have ever known, is dead!” Trump wrote on social media early Sunday. “He was always working, and was a true American Patriot. Lindsey will be greatly missed!!!”
Despite his increasing fealty to Trump — forged over many rounds of golf — Graham began as one of his most fervent critics, running against him briefly in the 2016 GOP primary and aligning with longtime ally John McCain to warn against the potential impact of a Trump presidency. Graham also occasionally broke with Trump in key moments — including his vote to certify the results of the 2020 election and his condemnation of Trump’s pardon of violent Jan. 6 rioters.
Graham had been visiting Kyiv on Friday, where he told reporters that a bipartisan group of senators had reached an agreement with the Trump administration to move forward with an effort to sanction buyers of Russian oil. He was scheduled to appear on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.
“Until his final days, he was pressing the case for stronger sanctions against Russia,” Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio), another defense hawk, said in a statement posted on X. “There is no better way to honor his final mission than for the Senate and the White House to swiftly send his bipartisan Russia sanctions legislation to the President’s desk.”
The chair of the Senate Budget Committee, Graham played a key role securing an extra $150 billion for the Pentagon last year through the complex budget reconciliation process. Since that milestone, Graham supported Trump’s proposal for another record-breaking defense budget of $1.5 trillion, of which $350 billion would come through another Republican-only reconciliation package. His sudden death compounds an already tenuous path to passing another such package, with Congress short on time to do so ahead of the hotly contested midterms.
Bob Heckman, who was a senior adviser to Graham’s 2016 presidential campaign and was close to him, said Sunday that he spoke to Graham shortly after he returned from Ukraine and that the senator seemed tired.
“I was unaware of any lingering health problems,” Heckman said. “So I’m stunned.”
Like most lawmakers who are not in select top leadership posts, Graham did not have a Capitol Police security detail. His office in the past asked for a detail but did not meet the threshold for credible threats to be assigned one, said a person with knowledge of the arrangement who was granted anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly. There’s no evidence that Graham’s death is the result of foul play.
South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster in a statement called Graham “the fiercest of fighters for South Carolina and America — and a loyal and steadfast friend.”
Under South Carolina law, the Republican governor can appoint a successor to fill the seat through January.
Graham’s vocal support for Trump’s war in Iran — and calls for military action against the Iranian regime for years before then — drew fierce criticism from anti-interventionist Republicans, including from within the MAGA base.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a statement hours after Graham’s death. “Israel has lost one of its greatest friends. America has lost a great patriot. I have lost a beloved friend,” Netanyahu wrote, adding that he recently met with the senator and told him: “We have no better friend than Lindsey.”
During Graham’s primary campaign, former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), supporting Graham’s opponent Mark Lynch in the race, blasted Graham as an “America Last warmonger.”
But Graham had the support of Trump, including in a tele-rally on the eve of the election.
“He’s outstanding. He’s been at my side for a long time. We fought each other initially a long time ago,” Trump said at the time. “But after that fight was over, we were best of friends, and he’s helped me as much as anybody in the Senate.”
Graham, who ran for president in 2016, was one of Trump’s harshest critics in that year’s Republican presidential primary, arguing Republicans should have expelled him from the party. He voted that November for independent Evan McMullin instead of Trump, before becoming one of his fiercest defenders.
Graham chaired the Judiciary Committee during the final two years of Trump’s first term, a crucial stretch that included the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court — as well as advancing a flood of district and appellate court nominations that helped Trump reshape the courts. The effects have been palpable in Trump’s second term, as many of his aggressive assertions of executive power have landed in the courtrooms of judges Graham helped shepherd through the confirmation process.
Graham became a critical ally of Trump during his failed effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election, calling Georgia officials amid Trump’s pressure campaign to reverse his defeat there and finding himself the subject of an ill-fated criminal investigation by Fulton County prosecutors. Graham was forced to testify in that probe after a legal battle that reached the Supreme Court.
He later voted to certify the results of the 2020 election and called former President Joe Biden the legitimate winner. Last year, he criticized Trump’s decision to issue a blanket pardon to rioters that assaulted police on Jan. 6, 2021, while Congress was working to certify the election results.
Still, Graham was one of Trump’s fiercest defenders against the mounting investigations and prosecutions he faced after his first term ended. He voted to acquit Trump at his impeachment trial over the Jan. 6 attack and repeatedly accused the Biden administration and local prosecutors of “weaponization.”
Graham’s political legacy came up in an interview with POLITICO on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference in February. Prompted that he had a long career in politics, Graham responded, “Not long enough.”
Then, asked what he wanted his legacy to be, especially on foreign policy and national security, Graham said, “That I spoke up, shared my thoughts, creatively put together coalitions that moved the ball.”
Graham had in the past quipped about his “genetic term limit,” a South Carolina official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter, said, adding that the senator’s father died of a heart attack.
In a statement, Senate Majority Leader John Thune called Graham “a trusted adviser and colleague to me and many others, and numerous presidents and heads of state have relied on his counsel. His influence on the federal judiciary, our national defense, and his beloved South Carolina will be felt for generations.”
Cheyanne Daniels, Kyle Cheney and Connor O’Briencontributed to this report.
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