'A very shrewd politician:' The Senate after Lindsey Graham

**Christy Strawser** (0:01)
This is On Deadline, where the biggest stories, the smartest journalists, and the conversations that matter come together from Audacy news stations across the country.
When news breaks, the story doesn't stop there. I'm Christy Strawser. Let's get started. Senator Lindsey Graham died suddenly Saturday evening. Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, and a one-time opponent turned stalwart ally of President Trump, was a forceful advocate for an interventionist US foreign policy.

**Steve Roberts** (0:32)
ABC News political analyst Steve Roberts, who joins us from Washington. Steve, good morning. It's good to talk with you. I know you knew Lindsey Graham for many years.
He seems to be a guy who was pretty good at reaching across the aisle. In fact, a lot of people seem to like him no matter which party they're in.

**SPEAKER_3** (0:47)
He was very likable, and he was very visible, and he was very charming. It's one of the reasons why he probably is the best known US senator to ordinary Americans. He was supposed to be on Meet the Press yesterday. It would have been his 64th appearance, Steve, on that prestigious NBC program. He was on Face the Nation, CBS, almost 100 times. He was so well known that Saturday Night Live lampooned him at least twice, which is, you do not get to be made fun of on Saturday Night Live if you're anonymous.
That was really a sign of how he had stood out from the faceless crowd in the US Senate. I venture to say there are very, very few senators whose death we would be talking about this morning.
It's partly because of his visibility on TV and partly because he made a decision in his career to go from being a foe of Donald Trump's to being a friend. He was highly critical of Trump early in Trump's career. He called him a xenophobic racist bigot during the campaign of 2016 But once Trump won, Graham is a very shrewd politician, and he was pretty open about it. He said, look, I want to be relevant, a word he used. I want to be influential, another word he used. He wanted to be visible. He figured I can only do that by being a friend of Donald Trump. Trump was dominating the Republican Party. Look what's happened to people in the Republican Party who opposed Donald Trump. Senator Cassidy of Louisiana and Senator Cornyn of Texas were defeated in primaries by challengers who were supported by Trump. Graham took exactly the opposite route, and he became one of Trump's closest friends and closest allies. And yet, he managed to maintain friendships and strategic alliances across the aisle. One Democrat, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, said this morning, you know, I disagreed with Lindsey on a lot of things, but he always listened to me, and he respected me, and that quality of actually listening to someone across the aisle, I got to tell you, Steve, it's very rare in today's Washington, and Lindsey Graham was one of the few who was able to maintain those kinds of relationships.

**Steve Roberts** (3:06)
You mentioned his ability to reach across the aisle, and you mentioned Senator Dick Blumenthal of Connecticut. I mean, the two had traveled to Ukraine together, working on that. So, you know, with all the things that are partisan in Washington, Lindsey Graham seemed to find a way to work on bipartisan projects.

**SPEAKER_3** (3:25)
Fewer than he used to, you know, because Washington had changed around. When he first came to Washington, he was central to a whole series of bipartisan efforts to pass judgeship nominations, to work on immigration, to work on...
He was so willing to work with Democrats that he was criticized by people like Rush Limbaugh on the conservative right as being too receptive to Democrats. But, you know, Graham, and he did become, as a friend of Trump's, in order to maintain a pipeline of Trump.
One of the last conversations Lindsey Graham ever had, just hours, maybe even minutes before he died, was with Donald Trump on Saturday night. And he had a very close friendship with Trump. Trump described him as like a member of his family. But, so, the Graham today had gotten more partisan than the Graham of 10, 15 years ago, but he still had the ability and the instinct to maintain relationships with Democrats, particularly on foreign policy. And particularly when it came to projecting America's power around the world and maintaining alliances with friendships. And this is an area where he often disagreed with Trump. He was deeply devoted to the cause of Ukraine when Trump wavered repeatedly on Ukraine. Graham was deeply devoted to maintaining the NATO alliance when Trump often was at odds with NATO allies. And the last thing Graham ever did was work on this bill with Blumenthal and Shaheen, two Democrats, and he announced it just hours before his death, a bill that would toughen the sanctions against Putin and Russia. Now this is not necessarily something that Donald Trump isn't in favor of. Trump has often been far softer and far more accommodating and far weaker in opposing Putin than Lindsey Graham, who maintained a very vigorous support of Ukraine and a very vigorous opposition to Putin right down to the hours before his death.