WASHINGTON: Sen. Lindsey Graham, the son of pool hall owners who rose to become one of his generation\u2019s more influential US politicians at home and abroad, is being eulogized Tuesday as \u201ca true American original\u201d during memorial services in Washington.<\/p>\n
Graham\u2019s flag-draped casket arrived for a tribute at the US Capitol, where the Republican served for more than 30 years as an indefatigable dealmaker who talked and laughed and badgered his colleagues into action. Later, President Donald Trump joined foreign leaders at Washington National Cathedral, a testament to Graham\u2019s stature on the global stage.<\/p>\n
Trump called Graham \u201ca giant of the United States Senate, a true American original who left us much too soon.\u201d<\/p>\n
In mostly prepared remarks, the president described his onetime presidential rival turned ally as \u201cthe first person to make you laugh and one of the last people that you\u2019ve really ever wanted to fight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump told the story of how he had publicly disclosed Graham\u2019s cell phone number on the campaign trail, reciting the number in the cathedral, but said the senator had the last laugh because \u201cLindsey did not stop calling me for the next 10 years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Among those gathered were Israel\u2019s Benjamin Netanyahu and Ukraine\u2019s Volodymyr Zelensky, leaders of two countries fighting separate wars, a nod to Graham\u2019s role as a foremost believer in the power of the US and its military to intervene in the world\u2019s problems. Fox News\u2019 Sean Hannity, in his remarks, said Graham would have been moved that they both made the long journeys to attend.<\/p>\n
Trump Cabinet officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and current and former senators and lawmakers joined in the pews, as did Graham\u2019s sister, now- Sen. Darline Graham, who was appointed by the state\u2019s governor to fill the remainder of her brother\u2019s term.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the start of two days of services, with burial Wednesday in Graham\u2019s home state of South Carolina. Joint Base Charleston will be renamed in his honor, the White House said. Graham died suddenly on July 11 at his home in Washington of a likely aortic tear, according to preliminary findings. He had just returned from a whirlwind trip to a NATO summit in Turkiye, where he celebrated his birthday, and a visit to Ukraine. He was 71.<\/p>\n
A place of honor for a \u2018swashbuckling\u2019 senator<\/p>\n
During the morning service in the Capitol Rotunda, Vice President JD Vance described Graham as a man of \u201cswashbuckling\u201d stature \u2014 \u201cwho swashbuckled into the Senate\u201d with his suit jacket open \u2014 and was impossible not to like.<\/p>\n
\u201cLindsey was a towering figure,\u201d Senate Majority Leader John Thune said, choking back tears during his remarks.<\/p>\n
First elected to Congress in the 1994 Republican revolt that swept the GOP to power, Graham was part of a new era of conservatives to take their seats in the House \u2014 and among the first Republicans from his Southern state since Reconstruction.<\/p>\n
He quickly rose to prominence as a manager in Democrat Bill Clinton\u2019s presidential impeachment, and he was elected to the Senate in the 2002 election. There, he formed an alliance with Sen. John McCain, a Republican from Arizona, and Sen. Joe Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, in what would become the \u201cthree amigos,\u201d globe-trotting the world focused on national security issues.<\/p>\n
Vance recalled how he argued with Graham over the senator\u2019s staunch support for aid to Ukraine, which has divided the GOP, but praised his legacy saying Kavanaugh \u201cwould not be on the Supreme Court\u201d were it not for Graham\u2019s \u201cfierce advocacy\u201d during the confirmation hearing.<\/p>\n
For decades, Graham had been at the center of the action \u2014 a member of virtually every bipartisan gang in Congress \u2014 with a relentless ability to adapt to political realities, particularly when it came to Trump.<\/p>\n
One by one, many of Graham\u2019s colleagues said their goodbyes in the Rotunda. Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala, placed both hands on his casket and then placed her hand on her heart. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Illinois, saluted from her wheelchair. Former Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., bowed and delivered a brief kiss and Sen. John Kennedy, R-Louisiana, gave a fist bump.<\/p>\n
The \u2018Trump whisperer\u2019 had one last mission: Russia sanctions<\/p>\n
Perhaps nowhere was Graham\u2019s political dexterity on display more as when he navigated his on-again, off-again relationship with Trump.<\/p>\n
Graham had denounced Trump as a \u201cunfit for office\u201d during the 2016 presidential campaign, but over time he had become what senators called the \u201cTrump whisperer,\u201d someone even world leaders relied on to understand the president.<\/p>\n
Days before his death, Graham had won Trump\u2019s support for a long-fought bipartisan proposal to impose sanctions on Russia over the war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Senators were scheduled later Tuesday to take a first procedural vote on the sanctions package, in Graham\u2019s honor. Zelensky is expected to be on hand and meeting with senators in the evening.<\/p>\n
Graham\u2019s champions and potential successors<\/p>\n
At the Washington cathedral, a roster of socially conservative and anti-abortion leaders gave readings, including Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, Marjorie Jones Dannenfelser of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and the Reverend William Franklin Graham III.<\/p>\n
When Hannity said how important Darline Graham and her family had been to the senator, she put her hand over her heart in response.<\/p>\n
Lindsey Graham never married, but he helped support his younger sister after both of his parents died while he was at college and then starting law school. He became the guardian for Darline, who was then 13, and he later in life often extolled the benefits of Social Security that helped keep them financially afloat.<\/p>\n
Darline Graham is now running in a potentially crowded primary field for the fall election. The filing period for the special primary election closes Tuesday, with voting set for Aug. 11.<\/p>\n
Graham went on to serve as a judge advocate general in the Air Force, and remained a reserve or National Guard member for decades. In the Senate, he briefly switched back to active status to help advise the Air Force during the Iraq War and was awarded the Bronze Star medal for service in 2014 before formally retiring as a colonel in 2015.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON: Sen. Lindsey Graham, the son of pool hall owners who rose to become one of his generation\u2019s more influential US politicians at home and abroad, is being eulogized Tuesday as \u201ca true American original\u201d during memorial services in Washington. Graham\u2019s flag-draped casket arrived for a tribute at the US Capitol, where the Republican served …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":100953,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-100940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100940"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100940\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":100955,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100940\/revisions\/100955"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}