Lindsey Graham’s Last Laugh

Lindsey Graham always had a deep appreciation for earpieces, motorcades, and heavily secured environments. He recognized heady Washington status symbols when he saw them—including posthumous ones, such as big memorial services held in big important rooms, containing big important entourages.

These were Graham’s kind of sanctums. And today was his kind of sendoff.

The South Carolina Republican, who died earlier this month at 71, was celebrated in back-to-back departure rites—a morning ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda, followed by a funeral at the National Cathedral. Both gatherings were invitation-only, and heavily guarded. Graham would have liked that too; it underscored the potent line-up of dignitaries who’d come to pay respects to a senator who craved few things more than being part of top-level delegations, high-wire negotiations, and inner-circle golf foursomes. Power mourners included Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Vice President J. D. Vance, a good portion of the Trump cabinet, and a bipartisan assemblage of the U.S. Senate.

President Trump, whom Graham once despised—until Trump was elected and Graham managed to contort himself into an Oval Office confidant—served as the senator’s marquee eulogist. “A true American original,” Trump called Graham, which is one of those catch-all descriptors for odd-duck characters who defy easy classification. Trump acknowledged that he and Graham “did not exactly get off to the best of starts.” Eventually, though, they would forge an important if volatile partnership. The president recounted an especially rough patch during the 2016 presidential campaign when Graham called Trump a “jackass” and Trump responded by sharing Graham’s private cell phone number at a rally in South Carolina.

[Anne Applebaum: The quintessential politician of this era]

For old time’s sake, Trump recited the number in his speech today: “202-228-0292, if anybody wants to give it a shot.” He added that Graham had the last laugh, “because while I blew up his phone for one day, we became great friends, and Lindsey did not stop calling me for the next 10 years.”

Trump’s line drew laughs, but it also contained the key to Graham’s political durability: his ability to disarm opponents and to be dexterous in his alliances. “He understood that if people like you, then they’re more likely to work with you,” Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina told me shortly after the Rotunda service had broken up. “He could endear himself to you,” Tillis said of Graham. “That’s who he was. But it was also smart politics.”

Graham could sometimes come off as a disheveled mess of a man. “A small earthquake,” as his Senate colleague John Kennedy of Louisiana put it to me. He could be persistent, exhausting, and unrelenting. And he was not always in perfect harmony with Trump.

[Mark Leibovich: What Lindsey Graham wanted]

Graham was a devoted advocate of Ukraine, and a close ally of Zelensky’s. “He never saw a war that he didn’t like,” Trump said in his eulogy. He seemed to mean this as a slight exaggeration. Or maybe not. But Graham learned to modulate his hawkishness toward Russia for the sake of keeping peace with Trump—and also keeping his audience with him.

In this way, Graham made himself an essential player in the life of Trump-era Washington. It took some doing. And no doubt compromising, frustration, and countless blows to his dignity. But Graham succeeded in making himself a center of influence and important “voice in the room.”

“I have never been called this much by a president in my life,” Graham told me late in Trump’s first term. He found this exhilarating and was always gravely serious about his role.

Trump was followed to the podium by none other than Sean Hannity of Fox News. This felt quite fitting as Graham had been a regular guest on Hannity’s nightly show, just as Trump was a regular viewer.

Graham “probably has a heavenly version of Mar-a-Lago,” Hannity said. “It may even be a little bigger.” He envisioned a massive ballroom and an arch somewhere on the property: a big, important room for Lindsey Graham, for all eternity.