Lindsey Graham dies after Kyiv visit backing Ukraine

Sen. Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican who became one of Congress’s most forceful advocates for Ukraine and a central figure in decades of Senate battles over war, courts and presidential power, has died suddenly at 71 after returning from Kyiv.

Graham had just completed his 10th visit to Ukraine since Russia’s 2022 invasion and met with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Zelenskyy called him a “true defender of freedom,” The Guardian reported. Graham used the trip to press one of his top priorities: legislation that would impose major financial penalties on Russia by targeting countries that buy Russian oil.

CBS News’ Margaret Brennan reported that she spoke twice by phone with Graham on Friday while he was in Kyiv. Graham told her the Trump White House had given him the green light for Congress to move ahead with the long-sought bill, which he had pursued with Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut. Graham said Russian President Vladimir Putin’s continued attacks showed he was “saying one thing and doing another.” He also said he believed President Trump saw Zelenskyy as “more of a winner now.”

The proposal was aimed at creating leverage over China and India, the two biggest purchasers of Russian fuel, CBS reported. Graham believed it would draw overwhelming Republican support and said earlier versions had attracted 85 signatories. He also urged Brennan to credit Blumenthal, telling her twice to call the Connecticut Democrat.

Blumenthal told CBS on Friday that he and Graham would get the votes to pass the measure. After Graham’s death, the decision on whether to bring it forward falls to Republican leaders in the Senate and House.

Graham and Blumenthal had promoted the sanctions effort in a July 13, 2025, appearance on “Face the Nation,” with Graham saying he wanted to hand Trump “a sledgehammer to go after Putin’s economy, and all those countries who prop up the Putin war machine.” The two senators had traveled through Europe together to urge governments to cut off Russian fuel purchases and support similar sanctions.

Graham’s backing for Ukraine reflected a broader foreign policy worldview. “Putin will not stop in Ukraine,” he said, according to The Guardian. “To be weak in Ukraine means you lose in Taiwan.” He was also working on another unfinished priority: using the aftermath of the Iran war to pursue normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel, an effort he had previously pursued with then-President Joe Biden before the Oct. 7, 2023, attack stalled that work, CBS reported.

Graham served four terms, or 24 years, in the Senate, and had recently won a six-candidate primary to run for a fifth term, The Guardian reported. He became influential on the foreign relations, judiciary and budget committees, chairing judiciary from 2019 to 2021 and budget from 2025.

Known as a hawkish Republican and a Senate dealmaker, Graham was closely aligned for years with Republican Sen. John McCain and independent Sen. Joe Lieberman, a trio nicknamed the “Three Amigos.” He also worked at times with Democrats including Biden, John Kerry, Chuck Schumer and Blumenthal, while holding firmly conservative positions on guns, health care, gay marriage and reproductive rights.

His relationship with Trump became one of the defining turns of his career. During the 2016 campaign, Graham called Trump a “jackass,” a “race-baiting xenophobic religious bigot,” a “kook” and “unfit for office.” Trump attacked him in return and disclosed Graham’s private phone number. After Trump took office, Graham became an ally, saying after a 2017 lunch that Trump was “committed to rebuilding our military.” In 2023, he told the BBC, “There is a dark side to Trump … but I am sticking with him.”

Graham also played major roles in Supreme Court confirmation fights, helping block consideration of Merrick Garland in 2016 and later, as Judiciary Committee chair, moving Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination shortly before the 2020 election.

Born in Central, South Carolina, Graham was the first in his family to attend college, earned law and psychology degrees from the University of South Carolina and served in the Air Force’s Judge Advocate General’s Corps. He entered the U.S. House in 1994 and the Senate in 2002. He is survived by his sister, Darline.