From vocal critic to fierce ally: Graham’s long, strange, and consequential friendship with Trump

WASHINGTON (AP) — After the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, Sen. Lindsey Graham said he finally had enough of the man defended by the mob that stormed the pillar of American democracy: President Donald Trump.

“Trump and I have had a hell of a ride,” Graham said emotionally. “I hate for it to end this way. God, I hate it. From my perspective, he was an important president.” “All I can say is exclude me. That’s enough.”

This was not the case, of course.

Graham, the South Carolina Republican who died unexpectedly Saturday night at age 71, realized his party’s future was inextricably tied to Trump and quickly returned to being a staunch advocate. The shift in what previously seemed like a final rupture has turned into just another development in the volatile relationship between the powerful senator and the president who has come to dominate their party.

Read more: Sen. Lindsey Graham died after a “brief and sudden illness,” his office says.

“Can we move forward without President Trump? The answer is no,” Graham said in May 2021, just four months after the Jan. 6 attack. “I decided we couldn’t grow without him.”

Trump, who called Graham a “true American patriot” in a social media post on Sunday, appeared shocked by the lawmaker’s sudden death.

“I can’t believe it,” the president told NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “He was like a family member.”

Graham has often advised Trump on foreign affairs, especially on matters related to Israel, Ukraine and Iran. He was a frequent visitor to the White House.

“At the end of a particularly exciting and exciting meeting in the Oval Office, Lindsey Graham turned to the room and said, ‘I’ve never had so much fun in my life,'” Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller wrote on X.com. Such gatherings, he said, “were full of camaraderie, kinship, and uproarious laughter.”

Trump noted that during his last conversation with Graham, he told his friend: “We will see you soon, come anytime you want.”

Graham once said Trump’s nomination was a ‘shoot in the head’

The senator and Trump first clashed while competing for the 2016 presidential nomination.

Graham called Trump “unfit for office” and became angry when Trump denigrated the military service of Graham’s close friend, Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona. “I like people who haven’t been captured,” Trump suggested when talking about McCain’s years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.

Trump got angry enough with Graham to reveal the senator’s personal cell phone number. This led to a video in which the senator dramatically destroyed a series of cell phones to go viral. He smashed one with a meat cleaver and another with a golf club, then used lighter fluid, a blender and a toaster oven to crush the others before throwing one off the roof.

Watch: Senator Graham says the president’s actions were the problem

In the end, Graham likened Trump’s nomination to “shooting himself in the head” and said he refused to vote for Trump in November of that year. But the pair later bonded over golf and what Graham described as a mutual, irreverent sense of humor.

Trump and Graham began linking together so frequently that the senator began to view it as something to build his career, leaning heavily toward the kind of extravagant flattery that Trump relishes. In 2017, Graham joked that Trump beat him “like a drum” in the training session — worse than in the presidential primaries.

“Their true friendship can only be seen behind the curtain,” Sen. Tim Scott, R-Texas, told ABC’s “This Week.” Scott said that relationship was formed over political rivals but was also strengthened by spending more than 100 hours playing golf together.

During Trump’s first term, Graham helped advance Trump’s Supreme Court nominees, lent credibility to the White House’s legislative agenda, and at times even became part of the president’s inner circle. He repeatedly said that Trump is maturing in politics and growing in office.

The political rift between Graham and McCain, who died in 2018, was never more evident than in 2017, when McCain voted against a Trump-backed plan to repeal Democratic President Barack Obama’s landmark health care law. Graham co-sponsored the effort.

The division, which did not last long, renewed the alliance

In his speech after the Capitol attack, Graham said: “Never before has he been so humiliated and embarrassed for the country.” But the break with Trump ended quickly.

Weeks later, Trump invited Graham to play golf and have dinner at the president’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, rekindling their alliance. During Trump’s 2024 campaign, Graham was a frequent surrogate for Trump on television, touting American military strength that he said would advance “America First” policies.

WATCH: Sen. Graham says Trump’s impeachment ‘won’t matter much’ by Election Day

Graham never abandoned his traditional GOP foreign policy views, including explicit support for Ukraine during the Russian invasion. He was also a leading voice pushing the White House to fully embrace Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and take a harder line against Iran.

After the United States and Israel attacked Iran in February, Graham remained hawkish, vigorously defending the action and working to counter many in Trump’s “Make America Great Again” base who thought “America First” meant avoiding such military conflicts.

“To those who say Iran is stronger now than before, this is an insult to the US military and is delusional thinking because the Iranian economy is a mess,” Graham said on social media on June 19.

But Graham’s admiration for Trump goes beyond Iran. When Graham won the Republican primary in South Carolina last month, he signaled that the president is not just a god.

“I want to start with a bunch of thanks,” Graham laughed. “I want to thank the big man, God. Trump is coming later.” “Mr. President, you are not far from God, but we will start with Him.”