Tim Scott, others honor Lindsey Graham after sudden death

Tim Scott and other Republicans and Democrats used Sunday’s Face the Nation to turn Lindsey Graham’s sudden death into a measure of the senator’s reach, from South Carolina politics to Kyiv and the Middle East. Graham died Saturday evening at 71 after a brief and sudden illness, and the program brought together Scott, Israeli Ambassador Michael Leiter, Rep. Mike Turner and Rahm Emanuel.

Scott framed Graham first as a personal loss and then as a political one. On the program, he said America had lost “a statesman” and he had lost a friend. His office later said, “South Carolina lost a statesman and I’ve lost a friend. My prayers are with his sister and the rest of his family.” Scott also leaned on the story Graham often told about his own beginnings: his mother died of cancer, his father died of a massive heart attack, and Graham adopted his 13-year-old sister when he was 19 and a student at the University of South Carolina. Scott said Graham served in uniform for 30 years and rose to colonel, a life arc that helped make him a dominant figure in South Carolina and national politics.

Leiter emphasized a different part of Graham’s record: his work on Israel and the region’s future. He said Graham was a “dear friend” and recalled that his first call after arriving in Washington on January 27, 2025, came from Graham. The two had been talking about normalization in the Middle East, including relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, for the past year and a half. Leiter also said Graham had been a fierce advocate for defeating the Iranian regime and for what would come next, including a broader peace framework in the region.

Graham had spent part of his final week in Ukraine. Margaret Brennan said she spoke with him twice by phone on Friday while he was in Kyiv, his tenth trip to the war zone. She said Graham told her the Trump White House had finally given Congress the green light to move his long-sought sanctions bill targeting buyers of Russian oil. He had returned only recently from Ukraine and was scheduled to appear on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday.

His death leaves Republicans without one of their most reliable foreign-policy messengers and one of Donald Trump’s most dependable Senate votes in a closely divided chamber. It will not alter the broader fight for Senate control, since South Carolina is firmly Republican, but it does open a succession fight under state law. Gov. Henry McMaster can appoint a temporary replacement, and an expedited primary would follow before the November election. The Senate was expected to face memorial observances and succession questions when it returned Monday.