{"id":395458,"date":"2026-07-12T07:27:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T07:27:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/395458\/"},"modified":"2026-07-12T07:27:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T07:27:11","slug":"us-senator-lindsey-graham-has-died-after-a-brief-and-unexpected-illness-his-office-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/395458\/","title":{"rendered":"US Senator Lindsey Graham has died after a brief and unexpected illness, his office says"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON\u00a0\u2014\u00a0U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham<\/a>, one of President Donald Trump\u2019s closest allies in Congress and a longtime advocate of direct confrontation with Iran, died Saturday evening after a \u201cbrief and sudden illness,\u201d his office said in statement posted on social media.<\/p>\n

The office did not provide any additional details about the South Carolina Republican, who was 71 years old.<\/p>\n

\u201cSenator Graham\u2019s family appreciates prayers at this time and asks for privacy during this incredibly difficult period,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n

Graham was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2002 and was running for a fifth term. He briefly ran for president in 2016 and clashed with Trump, criticizing him as \u201cunfit for office.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, he later emerged as one of Trump\u2019s top allies, speaking with him frequently and becoming a regular presence on the golf course alongside the president.<\/p>\n

Graham especially advised the president on foreign policy matters such as Iran<\/a> and Russia, and had just announced an agreement on Friday with the Trump administration to move forward on a package of Russia sanctions<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Graham had been in Ukraine to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who acknowledged the senator\u2019s 10th visit to the country and thanked him for \u201crecognizing our warriors.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a member of the U.S. House in the 1990s, Graham backed policies aimed at isolating Iran and limiting its missile and nuclear programs.<\/p>\n

He also cheered on Trump\u2019s decision to strike nuclear sites last year and had been a supporter of the latest conflict that started a few months ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON\u00a0\u2014\u00a0U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of President Donald Trump\u2019s closest allies in Congress and a longtime advocate of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":395459,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[72120,19378,48,52,51,158988,47,50,49,63,38957,346,2803,6214,595,4412,18891,3025,6888,158987,158986],"class_list":["post-395458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-additional-detail","tag-iran","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-longtime-hawk","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-missile","tag-office","tag-president-donald-trump","tag-republican","tag-saturday","tag-social-medium","tag-south-carolina","tag-statement","tag-u-s-senate","tag-unexpected-illness","tag-us-senator-lindsey-graham"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=395458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/395459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}