In 2015, Sen.Lindsey Graham called Donald Trump a "jackass" and warned Republicans that nominating him would be a disaster.
Trump responded by reading Graham's personal cellphone number aloud during a campaign rally, encouraging supporters to call the South Carolina senator.Few political rivalries seemed less likely to evolve into one of Washington's most consequential foreign policy partnerships.Trump rose to power promising to end America's "endless wars" and challenging decades of Republican foreign policy orthodoxy.Graham, by contrast, remained throughout his three decades in public service an unabashed advocate of projecting American power abroad.FROM 'DISGRACE' TO 'FAMILY': TRUMP'S REMARKABLE JOURNEY WITH LINDSEY GRAHAMYet over the next decade, Graham became one of the few lawmakers with regular access to President Trump on questions of national security, emerging as one of the Republican Party's most influential voices on Iran, Ukraine, Israel and NATO.Sen.
Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, speaks with reporters aboard Air Force One with President Donald Trump and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on the way back to Washington, D.C., on Jan.4, 2026.
(Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)He had built his Senate career around foreign policy.While many lawmakers spent weekends back home, Graham was often overseas meeting presidents, visiting war zones and trying to broker agreements between allies and the White House. By the end of his career, his office had become an unofficial waypoint for foreign leaders trying to understand — or influence — the Trump administration.In interviews following the senator's sudden death Saturday, Trump described Graham as "like a member of the family" and said he was among the final people to speak with the South Carolina Republican after he returned from Ukraine just hours before his death.As Trump reshaped Republican foreign policy around an "America First" agenda, Graham became one of the few congressional v...