Tim Scott remembers Lindsey Graham as Iran cease-fire collapses

U.S. Central Command launched a new wave of strikes after Iran’s military attacked a container ship in the Strait of Hormuz, and Face the Nation opened with the death of Sen. Lindsey Graham at 71. President Trump had already declared the fragile cease-fire deal over.

Tim Scott’s tribute put Graham’s biography at the center of the hour. Scott said America had lost “a statesman” and he had lost a friend, then recounted the hardships that shaped Graham’s public life, including his mother’s death from cancer, his father’s massive heart attack, and Graham’s decision to adopt his 13-year-old sister when he was 19 and studying at the University of South Carolina. Scott said Graham spent 30 years in uniform and rose to colonel, and he remembered him as witty, funny and deeply committed to people who needed help to be seen. He also repeated Graham’s line about a South Carolina prayer breakfast, when Graham joked, “I’m not coming, even if Jesus comes before 10 a.m.,” then arrived at 8:31.

Retired Gen. Frank McKenzie said the United States has the capability to control the Strait of Hormuz if the president chooses that course. McKenzie said the administration was still looking for a diplomatic and political solution, but argued that Iran responds to military force and extreme pressure. He also raised the possibility of seizing Kharg Island as a negotiating factor. Brennan pressed him on the difference between those claims and the Pentagon’s posture of keeping sea lanes open, and McKenzie answered that the strait is not fully free-flowing now because the United States has not deployed all of its capabilities there.

Graham’s death also put the South Carolina Senate seat into motion. The governor will appoint an interim replacement for the Senate seat, and state law points toward an Aug. 11 special Republican primary, with the eventual appointee serving until a successor is sworn in early January. Trump called Graham “one of the greatest people and senators I have ever known.” Graham, first elected to the House in 1994 and to the Senate in 2003, had just returned from Kyiv, where he met Friday with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.