Lindsey Graham's last recorded words were a joke about his own to-do list, and honestly, the man could not have scripted a more fitting exit if he had hired a Hollywood writer.
"I can't die now. I still need to do the Russia sanctions, get Iran sorted out, and do Israeli-Saudi normalization," Graham said Saturday evening, according to USA Journal. He delivered it as a punchline. He died a few hours later. The man's final breath was basically a legislative briefing with comedic timing.
Graham had just returned from Ukraine, his tenth trip since the Russian invasion, when he started feeling unwell Saturday evening. An aide told him to get to a doctor immediately. Graham's response? He wanted to wait until after his Sunday morning Meet the Press appearance. Of course he did. The man's body was literally shutting down and he was worried about missing a cable news hit. That is a level of commitment to being on television that most people reserve for, well, nothing.
His final weeks were spent working on what he considered the big enchilada of Middle East diplomacy: a Saudi-Israeli normalization deal that he believed could reshape the entire region after the military campaign against Iran. The obstacles were enormous. Saudi Arabia still insists on an irreversible, time-bound path toward a Palestinian state, which runs headfirst into the political reality of Netanyahu's government like a truck into a brick wall. Graham's plan was to tell the Israelis, in plain terms, that Washington expected movement in that direction and that American support for the broader vision depended on it.
That is what diplomats call a "genuinely difficult lift." Graham was preparing to do it anyway, because apparently the word "impossible" just made him more interested.
On that final Saturday, he also briefed Trump on the Russia sanctions bill he wanted the Senate to vote on. Trump told him fresh strikes against Iran were coming after another attack on commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. Graham took it all in. A dying man, though he did not know it yet, running American foreign policy from his Capitol Hill residence on a Saturday night because nobody else was doing it quite the way he did.
The tributes from friends and adversaries keep circling back to the same point. Washington is full of people who work hard for themselves. Graham worked hard for the country. He did not accumulate power to pad his bank account or his ego. He accumulated influence so he could burn through it on the things he believed in: Israel's security, American military strength, Middle East peace, election integrity. He spent it all until there was nothing left.
The joke landed, because with Graham, the joke always landed. And then he was gone, leaving behind an unfinished sanctions bill, an unresolved Iranian situation, and a Saudi-Israeli deal stuck somewhere between ambition and reality. He would have absolutely hated leaving that kind of inbox behind.
Read more conservative news commentary at: USA Journal News
