Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) died suddenly on Saturday night at age 71, his office said, prompting tributes from President Donald Trump and lawmakers from both parties who recalled his record as a foreign policy hawk and deep friendships he forged during his three decades in Congress.
In a statement, Graham’s office said preliminary findings from the D.C. medical examiner’s office found that Graham suffered an aortic dissection, in which a tear occurs in the inner layer of the main artery. This was caused by arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease, the statement said. These tears usually occur when there is high blood pressure.
A death certificate remains pending until all toxicological and microscopic tests are finalized, according to Graham’s office. “At that point the death certificate will be updated to reflect the cause of death and appropriately classify the manner of death,” the statement said.
Graham’s death narrows Republicans’ majority in the Senate, where they had held a 53-47 edge. He had been running for reelection this year.
Emergency medical responders worked to stabilize a man at Graham’s home on Saturday night and transport him to a hospital, according to witnesses and police scanner audio obtained by The Washington Post.
Graham, a staunch supporter of Ukraine, died hours after returning from a trip to Kyiv, where he met with President Volodymyr Zelensky.
State law allows South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, a Republican, to make an immediate appointment to fill Graham’s seat for the remainder of his term, which expires in January.
Trump praised Graham in a social media post as a “true American Patriot” and said details on the funeral would follow. The White House flag was lowered to half-staff.
The president, appearing on several Sunday news programs, said that he spoke with Graham on Saturday evening — shortly before emergency personnel were called — and that the senator told him he was “tired.”
“But other than that, he was fine,” Trump recounted to CNN’s Jake Tapper, adding that he was devastated by the news of the death.
The president told NBC that his conversation with Graham “could’ve been his last call.”
“I got a message about 1 o’clock in the morning from one of the people in his office that he had passed away,” Trump told “Meet the Press” anchor Kristen Welker. “I just can’t believe it. He was like a member of the family to me.”
Trump also reflected on Graham’s apparent sudden medical emergency. “Maybe that’s not the worst way to go,” he said on NBC.
While a close Trump ally on most matters, Graham broke with the president on some issues, such as calling for a more hawkish foreign policy, including more U.S. support for Ukraine in the war with Russia.
Graham, whose 71st birthday was Thursday, had met with Zelensky and other leaders in Ukraine last week. He told reporters in Kyiv on Friday that a bipartisan group of senators had reached an agreement with the White House to impose fresh sanctions on Russia.
Graham delivered the announcement under the blazing sun, but he appeared unbothered by the heat and sounded clear and concise. The senator spoke at length about his admiration for the Ukrainian people.
Several Ukrainian leaders on Sunday expressed condolences, with Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko saying on X that Graham “stood with Ukraine and in defense of democratic values.”
Emergency medical services received a call around 8:30 p.m. Saturday for a person with chest pains at a Capitol Hill home owned by Graham, according to the audio. About 25 minutes later, emergency personnel said that CPR was in progress and that a man at the house was suffering from cardiac arrest.
A person who lives on Graham’s street shared photos of a man being taken from Graham’s home on a wheeled stretcher and loaded into an ambulance around 9:30 p.m. The man was then taken to George Washington University Hospital.
Even before Graham’s death, Republicans in the Senate were facing the expected absence of one member. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), 84, has been in the hospital since last month.
On Sunday, McConnell’s office released a photograph of the senator alongside his wife at the hospital, and a statement saying he “took a fall” in June that landed him in the hospital where he contracted pneumonia. The photo and an accompanying statement were the first extensive details McConnell’s office has shared about his condition since his hospitalization.
McConnell said he has been moved to a rehabilitation center, and that while he won’t be able to return to the Senate yet, he is working from the hospital.
Graham won South Carolina’s GOP Senate primary last month, meaning that the state will hold a special GOP primary in the next few weeks to pick a new nominee. Given the quick turnaround, candidates could include some of the same people who were on the primary ballot.
South Carolina businessman Mark Lynch was runner-up to Graham in the primary, with the incumbent receiving about 57 percent of the vote and Lynch about 29 percent. Other GOP candidates for the seat included Paul Dans, who served in the first Trump administration and helped devise the Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025″ agenda, which has influenced the president’s second term. And Rep. Nancy Mace (R) is eyeing a bid for Graham’s seat.
Democrats have nominated Annie Andrews, a pediatrician, for the seat.
Elected to the U.S. House in 1994 and the U.S. Senate in 2002, Graham had been a prominent figure in national politics for decades, particularly on foreign policy matters, and he traveled frequently to conflict zones, including Iraq and Ukraine. He competed unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination in the 2016 presidential election.
Whoever replaces Graham will be only the third person to hold the seat since 1956, when Strom Thurmond — one of the longest-serving senators in U.S. history — was elected to the post.
Graham replaced Thurmond in 2003 and soon emerged as one of the nation’s most prominent Republican lawmakers, serving as a key negotiator on foreign policy, defense, immigration and health care bills. At the time of his death, he led the Senate’s Budget Committee and the appropriations subcommittee that oversees foreign policy spending. He also served as a key member of the Foreign Relations Committee.
Graham was chairman of the Judiciary Committee during Trump’s first administration and played a key role in confirming conservative judges and remaking the federal courts. He presided over the controversial October 2020 confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, which came three weeks before that year’s presidential election.
Graham launched his presidential campaign in June 2015 but failed to gain support in polls, facing scrutiny over his conservative bona fides and his personal life. At the time, the never-married Graham promised a “rotating first lady” if elected president.
He ended that campaign in December 2015, before any votes were cast. Graham subsequently endorsed former Florida governor Jeb Bush and later Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), saying he thought Trump was unfit to serve as president.
After Trump won the GOP nomination, Graham said he chose to vote for third-party candidate Evan McMullin.
But Graham emerged as a key Senate supporter of Trump during his first administration, defending the president’s conduct and policies. He also argued that Trump should not be impeached after he was accused of inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
McMaster said in a statement that Graham was “the fiercest of fighters for South Carolina and America — and a loyal and steadfast friend.”
Sen. Tim Scott (R), the junior senator from South Carolina, told CNN on Sunday that the U.S. had “lost a true statesman” and that he “lost a friend.”
Scott said Graham made a “strong” case for his presidential bid a decade ago and was “aggressive” against Trump. But, over time, “Graham’s clarity and transparency caught the attention of President Trump.”
“They did not always agree, but they always agreed to disagree without being disagreeable,” Scott said. “They figured out how to have a friendship. … And their relationship over the next 10 years, so to speak, from the time they were running against each other, became something that Lindsey could count on and President Trump could count on, too.”
Several Democrats spoke of the warm relationships Graham had built across the aisle.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut), who said he’d spoken with Graham on Saturday before he died, described him as a “strong-minded” lawmaker who “marched to his own drummer.”
“I was always impressed with his kindness to people we met along the way,” Blumenthal said in a statement. “We often differed, but he listened to me and others who might have opposing views and sought to bridge our differences.”
Former Minnesota senator Al Franken (D) remembered Graham as the funniest senator.
“One Christmas break I told him my family was going to Puerto Rico,” Franken recalled in an X post. “He said, ‘Do two fundraisers. One for those who are pro-statehood and one for those who are against it. They never talk to each other.’”
Trump, for his part, had turned to Graham as a frequent confidant and golf partner, seeking his counsel on political matters. The two men had extensive conversations about Trump’s foreign policy, with Graham often encouraging Trump to be more aggressive in confronting countries such as Iran and Russia.
“He’s outstanding. He’s been at my side for a long time,” Trump said in a tele-rally for Graham last month, acknowledging that the two men had dueled for the 2016 Republican nomination. “After that fight was over, we were best of friends, and he’s helped me as much as anybody in the Senate.”
Graham is survived by his sister, Darline Graham Nordone. Graham became her legal guardian when he was 21, after their parents passed away, and eventually adopted her. The two siblings were very close, with Nordone saying in a 2014 ad for Graham that her brother “never let me down.”
“I don’t see how he did it, to take on the responsibility of raising a little sister,” she said.
Anna Liss-Roy, Anastacia Galouchka, Liz Goodwin and Alexei Koseff contributed to this report.
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