World leaders and senior political figures convened in Washington for the memorial of the long-serving US senator Lindsey Graham, remembering the “swashbuckling” South Carolina Republican “a true American original” whose embrace of “America First” never softened his advocacy for a staunch interventionist US foreign policy.
Prominent Republicans paid tribute to Graham, a polarizing figure and onetime rival turned stalwart ally of Donald Trump who championed the US-Israel war on Iran. He was a prominent voice in the anti-abortion movement and a unwavering supporter of Israel, serving as one of Capitol Hill’s most outspoken foreign policy hawks.
Speaking during a ceremony inside the Capitol Rotunda, the US Senate majority leader, John Thune, hailed Graham as a “fierce defender of Ukraine”, following its full-scale invasion by Russia in 2022, and a “powerful voice for the [anti-abortion] movement”.
Among those in the audience was Graham’s sister, Darline, who was sworn in earlier this month to serve the remainder of his fourth term, which ends in January. She is running in the Republican primary to permanently succeed him.
Graham died suddenly earlier this month, aged 71, shortly after returning to Washington from a trip to Kyiv. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, are due to attend an afternoon service for Graham at Washington National Cathedral.
JD Vance, the US vice-president, credited Graham with the successful confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the US supreme court in 2018, which helped conservatives secure a supermajority on the bench two years. Vance paid tribute on Tuesday morning to Graham as someone “who could disagree with you without being disagreeable”.
A former air force lawyer who served in the air force reserve while in Congress, Graham was elected to the House of Representatives in 1994 and served as a manager during Bill Clinton’s 1999 impeachment trial before winning a Senate seat in 2002. Weeks before his death, Graham defeated a field of challengers to win the Republican nomination in his bid for a fifth term.
Trump – who Graham once called a “jackass” and a “race-baiting bigot” before switching to support him – is due to address the the service at Washington National Cathedral.
On Wednesday, in Graham’s home state, ceremonies will begin with services and an F-16 flyover at the South Carolina state house in Columbia, followed by a procession to First Baptist Church for a public service. A private family burial will take place in Pickens county, home to Central, the small town where Graham and his younger sister and Senate successor, Darline, were born.
