RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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President Donald Trump speaks during the funeral service of late Republican Senator Lindsey Graham at the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., on July 28, 2026. —Alex Brandon—AP Photo/Bloomberg/Getty Images
A somber President Donald Trump paid tribute on Tuesday to his rival-turned-honest broker Lindsey Graham, a longtime fixture of Washington whose three decades in political office steadied the United States’ hawkish posture and reflected the increasingly combative nature of the modern conservative movement.
“Our nation needs more men and women like that great person sitting, laying wherever he may be,” Trump said during a funeral service for Graham at the Washington National Cathedral packed with domestic dignitaries, foreign leaders, and military leaders who jostled with the late Senator over his long career in politics. Among their number were Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who both stepped away from their countries’ respective wars to attend the ceremony in honor of one of their best advocates in Washington.
“He died doing the work he was born to do. He was truly a great politician,” Trump said in a 14-minute eulogy.
Graham, who died unexpectedly on July 11 at age 71, was equally irascible and incorrigible. Always ready with a quick rejoinder for foes and a kind word for colleagues, he at times could be the walking manifestation of the contradictions of Washington. His transition from Washington maverick to the Senate’s unofficial envoy to the Trump White House was at once stunning and complete. But whenever American resolve threatened to wobble—be it on supporting Israel or combating Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—Graham was ready to preach U.S. might. An unwilling audience often got a fiery correction.
Trump began one section of his remarks by saying that “virtually everyone, Republican or Democrat, liked Lindsey.” He then stopped, correcting himself. “Not everybody. But it sounds good,” Trump said. “Not everybody. He was a tough cookie.”
As Fox News host Sean Hannity reflected on that tension during his own tribute at the cathedral: “Lindsey and I did not always agree. Not on everything. But we could disagree and we could remain friends, and we remained friends for decades.”
And as Graham’s South Carolina pastor, the Rev. Tim Tate, said of the late Senator’s temperament in his eulogy: “You may not have liked him and he may not have liked you, but he would work with you for the common good of this country.”
Three of the best-known players in the conservative movement—Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, Marjorie Dannenfelser of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and the Rev. Franklin Graham—also spoke at the service, a reflection of the deep respect Graham garnered from across the modern GOP.
“Sen. Graham was very Washington, if you know what I mean,” Tate said. “But he was also very small-town.”
Graham was elected to the U.S. House during the 1994 Republican Revolution that elevated Newt Gingrich to the Speaker role, as the country’s politics were growing increasingly toxic. Graham quickly emerged as an unmovable conservative advocate for American military strength. He moved to the Senate after the 2002 elections, at the height of the post-9/11 trauma and shortly before the United States expanded its war on terror from Afghanistan to Iraq.
“He never saw a war that he didn’t like… He felt in his bones that our destiny is to win and that his job was to do everything he could to ensure that our enemies would lose,” Trump said.
That hawkishness would at times leave Graham a bit adrift from the movement Trump was forming. In fact, in the early days of Trumpism’s rise the South Carolina Senator attempted to block it from taking hold of a party that, just eight years earlier, had once been helmed by Graham’s best friend and fellow Senate troublemaker John McCain.
“Running against each other, back in 2016, Lindsey said something rather nasty,” Trump recalled of that time. “So naturally I did something that I shouldn’t have done. I shared his personal cell phone number with the millions of people that happened to be watching that particular day.”
In Trump’s recollection, “that was the beginning of a friendship in a way.”
From then on, he said, “Lindsey did not stop calling me for the next 10 years.”
Graham’s defenders say his evolution could be explained by his sincere hope that he could curb some of Trump’s isolationist impulses and fill in some blind spots with U.S. foes like Russia. Part of it was also likely just his actual friendship with Trump, another outspoken antagonist with an irreverent sense of humor. And part of it appeared to be aimed at keeping the traditional conservative agenda moving forward, such as Supreme Court nominations that have now given the court its 6-3 tilt.
“Justice Kavanaugh, in an unfortunate way, you brought out the very best in Lindsey for the entire country to see. Now, he saw what was happening to you and your family as a grave injustice and the world got to witness my friend, the person that I knew, in action. And they got to see him at his absolute best,” Hannity said, speaking to Justice Brett Kavanaugh, whose Supreme Court nomination was arguably salvaged by Graham amid allegations of sexual misconduct.
Even as he became a close ally to the President in Congress, Graham’s temper at times could turn on Trump. As Graham said in the hours after a mob descended on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021: “Count me out. Enough is enough.”
Trump, for his part, seemed to understand the scope of Graham’s influence, both at home and abroad, and his personality tics.
“For more than 30 years, nothing of consequence happened in this capital without Lindsey Graham knowing about it,” Trump said. “Nothing of significance happened anywhere in the world without Lindsey Graham having a view on it. And no bill became law in the most exceptional republic in human history without Lindse...
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