{"id":795243,"date":"2026-07-12T09:45:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T09:45:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/795243\/"},"modified":"2026-07-12T09:45:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T09:45:11","slug":"lindsey-graham-pivotal-us-republican-senator-dies-suddenly-at-71","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/795243\/","title":{"rendered":"Lindsey Graham, pivotal US Republican senator, dies suddenly at 71"},"content":{"rendered":"

US senator Lindsey Graham, a key Republican who went from a vocal critic of Donald Trump to one of his most loyal allies after Mr Trump became president, has died at age 71.<\/p>\n

The South Carolina lawmaker passed away after a “brief and sudden illness,” his office posted on X early on Sunday.<\/p>\n

NBC News said emergency personnel had responded to a call about a cardiac arrest at his Capitol Hill home on Saturday night.<\/p>\n

Shortly after his death was announced, Mr Trump called Graham “one of the greatest people and senators I have known” and a hard-working patriot.<\/p>\n

During the 2016 campaign, during which Graham was among many Republicans who lost the presidential nomination to Mr Trump, he posted on social media: “If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed \u2026 and we will deserve it.”<\/p>\n

\"Lindsey<\/p>\n

Lindsey Graham went from a vocal critic of Donald Trump to a staunch supporter. (AP:\u00a0Alex Brandon)<\/p>\n

Later, after becoming a staunch supporter, Graham publicly disagreed with Mr Trump’s early 2025 decision to pardon about 1,500 of the president’s supporters who attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, saying it could lead to more violence.<\/p>\n

US court rules Lindsey Graham must testify in Georgia election probe<\/a><\/p>\n

US Senator\u00a0Lindsey Graham must testify before a special grand jury investigating whether then-President Donald Trump and others illegally tried to influence the 2020 election in Georgia.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A defence hawk, Graham “consistently pushed for outcomes in the War on Terror that protect our long-term national security interests,” his website said.<\/p>\n

He was a prominent supporter of Israel and Ukraine and opponent of Iran.<\/p>\n

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz posted on X that he was deeply saddened by the death of Graham, “who stood with Israel at its most difficult moments”.<\/p>\n

On Friday, Graham said China could play a decisive role in pressuring Russia towards peace talks, helping end its war in \u200cUkraine.<\/p>\n

Graham, a frequent visitor to Ukraine, met President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv. They discussed Ukraine’s air defence needs and a Russian sanctions bill, Mr Zelenskyy said.<\/p>\n

Graham said bolstering Ukraine’s military capabilities and aligning sanctions with a diplomatic push could force Moscow into talks.<\/p>\n

“The road to ending this \u2060war, the road to peace, passes through Beijing more than it does [through] Washington, Kyiv, or Moscow,” Graham told reporters at Kyiv’s Mykhailivska Square.<\/p>\n

“China has an oversized influence. I’d like them to use their influence for the good of the world.<\/p>\n

“I don’t believe [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is there yet, but it wouldn’t take much to get him there.”<\/p>\n

Graham recently served as chairman of the Senate Budget Committee and was a member of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, Senate Judiciary Committee and Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.<\/p>\n

Graham, a former Air Force lawyer and member of the South Carolina Air National Guard, was elected to the US Senate in 2002.<\/p>\n

Before that, he was elected to the US House of Representatives in 1994 for South Carolina’s 3rd congressional district, according to his website.<\/p>\n

He was not married and lived in Seneca, South Carolina.<\/p>\n

Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US senator Lindsey Graham, a key Republican who went from a vocal critic of Donald Trump to one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":795244,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1300,2490,43,373961,44,71551,11298,8447,336129,41,39,42,40,2489,20291],"class_list":["post-795243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-death","tag-donald-trump","tag-headlines","tag-lindsey-graham","tag-news","tag-senator","tag-south-america","tag-south-carolina","tag-sudden-illness","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-us","tag-us-president"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=795243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/795244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=795243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=795243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=795243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}