Mark Halperin Reflects on Lindsey Graham’s Career and Private Life Amid Washington Rumors

F. Scott Fitzgerald never crossed paths with Lindsey Graham.

Yet the vivid South Carolina senator, whose sudden death Saturday night has prompted even typically restrained political observers to trade in speculation, seemed to disprove Fitzgerald’s oft-quoted claim that “there are no second acts in American lives.”

By my reckoning, over just the final 25 years of his life, Graham moved through at least four distinct public chapters — each one attracting its own share of attention, praise and criticism.

So although much of my Sunday morning was spent answering uneasy questions from senior politicians, business figures, journalists and even a family member or two about the timing and circumstances of Graham’s death at 71, my thoughts kept returning to the remarkable career I first began covering in the late 1990s.

Graham’s rise began about as far from the corridors of power as one could imagine for someone who would eventually chair the Senate Judiciary Committee. He was raised in a small South Carolina town, where his parents operated a restaurant, bar, pool hall and liquor store.

His mother died when he was only 21, and his father followed just 15 months later. Graham became the legal guardian of his 13-year-old sister, Darline, and remained a defining presence in her life. He was the first in his family to go to college, later becoming a lawyer and serving for decades in the Air Force, the Air Force Reserve and the South Carolina Air National Guard.

Graham first drew sustained national attention as a House member during Bill Clinton’s 1999 impeachment proceedings, before winning the Senate seat held by Strom Thurmond four years later — a handoff that, in South Carolina political terms, felt something like replacing the Washington Monument with a Waffle House.

His first major national role came as the junior member of the so-called Three Amigos, alongside fellow Republican John McCain and Joe Lieberman, then a Democrat. Through the first decade of the 21st century, the trio traveled widely, visiting war zones and appearing on television to champion an interventionist, internationalist and hawkish vision of American power.

Graham’s role was part policy advocate, part loyal lieutenant and part comic relief. 

McCain was the hero, Lieberman the conscience and Graham the man most likely to have a punch line ready before the motorcade reached the inevitable airport press conference.

Then, to the surprise and joking of even many who knew him well, Graham became a presidential candidate in the 2016 cycle. His campaign never threatened to catch fire, but it did produce one of the era’s great political feuds.

After Graham called Donald Trump a ‘jack***’ for attacking McCain’s war record in July 2015, Trump publicly read out Graham’s private mobile number. Graham responded with a comic video in which he destroyed his phone by cleaver, golf club, blender, fire and gravity. It was perhaps the most effective moment of his candidacy, although not traditionally the sort of thing that gets a man into the Oval Office.

Graham called Trump a ‘race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot,’ told him to ‘go to hell’ and issued a prediction that would follow him forever: ‘If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed…and we will deserve it.’

Graham ended his campaign in December 2015 and, when Election Day finally arrived the following November, he voted for independent conservative Evan McMullin.

Then, just like that, came Act Three.

After Trump took office, Graham began what was perhaps the most famous and notable phase of his career: ultimate Trump loyalist, frequent golf partner, adviser and advocate for the Maven of Mar-a-Lago, both on television and in the Senate.

The transformation was so total that Washington spent years debating its cause. Had Graham decided Trump was indispensable to conservative policy? Was he seeking influence over national security? Was he afraid of a primary challenge for his Senate seat? Did he simply enjoy being near the sun, looking for a father figure of sorts?

The answer was probably some combination of all four. 

Graham helped Trump move judicial nominees through the Senate, defended him during two impeachment trials and became one of his most indefatigable television surrogates. 

Even after the January 6 attack, when Graham declared, ‘Count me out. Enough is enough,’ he eventually counted himself back in.

Finally, through the end of his life, Graham was the ultimate neocon warrior, pressing Trump and Congress to remain supportive of Ukraine against Russia and of Israel against its enemies. Graham was particularly hawkish when it came to Iran, strongly advocating for American intervention and, ultimately, regime change in Tehran.

In both Ukraine and the Middle East, Graham went against the energy, passion and anger of a substantial part of the MAGA base, and sometimes against Trump himself.

Just before his death, Graham had returned from another visit to Ukraine and announced progress on a sanctions package aimed at Russia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, NATO leaders and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were among those who immediately praised him as an unusually steadfast friend.

Woven through every Graham phase were themes and memes as persistent as they were contradictory.

Nearly everyone who knew him personally thought he was a nice guy, while much of the left viewed him as a Trump lapdog owing to that often confounding loyalty to the president.

Graham was viewed by some as wickedly smart and by others as unsophisticated and dopey. His personal life (he never married) was usually kept private despite the speculation about his sexuality, which was deployed publicly and crudely by his critics, and marveled at by some of his admirers, including the president himself.

Graham played a major role in both American politics and culture for a quarter-century, but he never quite became the larger-than-life figure represented by his two friends (who were enemies with each other) John McCain and Donald Trump.

Still, it is no surprise that his death brought immediate accolades from American and world leaders. From humble origins, the genial Graham made himself a force on the international stage, both displaying and surviving ideological pirouettes that would have toppled a lesser politician. 

Through it all, he remained unmistakably Lindsey.

With the FBI now investigating Graham’s death, conspiracy theorists are likely to continue their field day long after a definitive cause of death is announced. 

Meanwhile, Graham’s admirers and detractors will conduct their final arguments, while his funeral is sure to contain tears, laughter, political incongruities and at least one story that cannot safely be repeated in polite company.

It will be a hoot, like the man himself.

RIP, Lindsey Graham.

Mark Halperin is the editor-in-chief and host of the interactive live video platform 2WAY and the host of the video podcast ‘Next Up’ on the Megyn Kelly Network.