Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the Senate's most prominent supporters of Israel and a leading voice pushing for a hardline approach toward Iran, died Saturday evening at the age of 71. His office said in a statement that Graham "passed away from a brief and sudden illness" on the evening of July 11, and asked for privacy for his family during what it called an incredibly difficult period. No further details on the cause of death were released.
Israel's Man in the Senate
BREAKING: Senator Lindsey Graham has Died
Sen. Lindsey Graham, a leading Senate voice on Iran and one of Israel's closest allies in Washington, died Saturday at 71.
Graham, a South Carolina Republican, had served in the Senate since 2003 after a prior decade in the House of Representatives, representing the state's 3rd congressional district. He chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee from 2019 to 2021 and most recently led the Senate Budget Committee, and had been seeking a fifth six-year term in November. He was fresh off a trip to Kyiv, Ukraine, where he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday, and had been scheduled to appear on NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday.
A war hawk throughout his career, Graham was among the most consistent advocates in Congress for an interventionist American foreign policy, including military action against Iran, and was widely regarded as one of Israel's closest allies on Capitol Hill. Earlier this year, as the current war between the United States, Israel and Iran unfolded, Graham was reported to have advised Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on how to persuade President Trump to move forward with striking Iran. After the ceasefire was extended, Graham praised the decision to maintain the naval blockade on Iran, arguing it would keep pressure on the regime, and set out strict conditions for what he would consider an acceptable agreement with Tehran.
Graham began his career as a lawyer before serving in the South Carolina House of Representatives and then the US House. He was a member of the Air Force Judge Advocate General's Corps, working as a defense attorney and chief prosecutor in Europe, and later served in the Air Force Reserve while in Congress, holding the rank of colonel and receiving a Bronze Star Medal for meritorious service in 2014. He ran unsuccessfully for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, and was an outspoken critic of Trump's candidacy that year before becoming one of his most reliable allies in the Senate following a 2017 meeting between the two.
News of Graham's death comes amid concern over the health of fellow Republican Senator Mitch McConnell, who remains hospitalized after paramedics responded to a medical emergency at his residence last month. A spokesperson for McConnell has said he continues to recover, though further details on his condition have not been released.
Funeral arrangements have not yet been announced. Tributes are expected from across the political spectrum given Graham's decades in the Senate and his central role in shaping recent American policy on Israel and Iran.
