President Donald Trump said doctors briefed him that a part of Lindsey Graham’s body had “literally blew up,” as questions continued to mount following the senator’s sudden death over the weekend.
“Well, I think we do,” Trump said during a phone interview with Newsmax on Monday when asked whether the public had been given the full account. “We’ve had great doctors, and they talked about, you know, a certain part of his body literally blew up.”
Speaking at the White House on Tuesday, however, Trump took a firmer tone, rejecting speculation about foul play. He said he had heard “all sorts of conspiracy theories” and argued that the “FBI is wasting their time” by looking into the matter.
Authorities have issued a preliminary cause of death for the 71-year-old South Carolina Republican, though some experts have called for additional scrutiny.
One of those urging caution is Texas Senator John Cornyn, a former Senate colleague of Graham’s, who said Monday that toxicology findings should be reviewed before questions are put to rest.
“Given where he was and the sorts of things he was advocating for, I think we just ought to resolve all those questions by seeing what the toxicology reports show,” Cornyn told NBC News.
A spokesperson for Graham said the death certificate “will be pending until all the toxicological and microscopic testing are finalized,” after which it will be amended to include the official cause and manner of death.
FBI Director Kash Patel said Sunday that the bureau had moved to “assist” local authorities in Washington, D.C. The Daily Mail reported Monday that it spoke with Graham’s neighbors, who said they were interviewed after roughly 20 agents arrived at his home.
Lindsey Graham and President Donald Trump enjoyed a close friendship during his final years
US Senator John Cornyn speaks to reporters during a Senate vote at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, USA, June 23, 2026
Cornyn is not the only Republican who has concerns over the circumstances surrounding Graham’s death, given that he had just returned from Ukraine and was in the process of announcing a bipartisan bill to sanction Russia.
In an interview with News Nation host Katie Pavlich, retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg said that foul play in Graham’s death, particularly by Russia, should not be ruled out.
‘I’m not a conspiracy nut, but I think a full autopsy and toxicology report needs to be done just to quell the waters, and make sure everything quiets down about it.’
‘I mean it’s unfortunate that’s what’s happened, but as you said, I don’t trust the Russians at all, that they would do something like this, I wouldn’t be surprised by it,’ Kellogg added.
Kellogg has served in Special Presidential Envoy for Ukraine and Russia, and National Security Advisor to the Vice President, holding jobs in both Trump administrations.
Kellogg’s daughter, Megan Mobbs, a former Army officer and West Point graduate who serves as the Director of the Center for American Safety and Security at the Independent Women’s Forum, has also called for further investigations into Graham’s death.
In an interview with the Daily Mail, Mobbs revealed why she thinks a toxicological report is so critical, given the circumstances surrounding Graham’s final days.
‘What I’m really hoping for is that it’s a toxicological examination that is informed by everything: the foreign threat environment, international travel, symptoms, timeline, medications, meals, contacts, potential exposure,’ Mobbs noted to the Daily Mail.
Retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg a former Trump adviser, speaks to the media in the lobby at Trump Tower, November 15, 2016 in New York City
Meaghan Mobbs, Director of the Center for American Safety and Security at the Independent Women’s Forum, a conservative think tank
Mobbs told the Daily Mail that a sophisticated operation would be built precisely to look natural.
‘A sophisticated assassination operation would exploit natural vulnerability – that’s what our adversaries are very good at – and purposefully obscure attribution so that it could produce a medically plausible death,’ she said.
She noted that with older patients, medical examiners do not always look for secondary factors, and warned that a lack of transparency hands adversaries fresh openings.
‘I just want as many questions answered as possible, so the unanswered ones don’t dominate the conversation,’ she added.
Her father, Trump’s Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg, has long believed the Russians tried to kill him in 2000, when he was an officer at the Pentagon. He has recounted feeling a sharp pain in his right elbow as he left an event at the Russian Embassy.
By the next day he was in the hospital, where doctors nearly amputated his arm to stop a spreading staph infection that Mobbs recalled was ‘significantly treatment-resistant’ and took months to heal.
Mobbs also renewed her criticism of Representative Anna Paulina Luna, who she said ‘is willing to give every conspiracy under the sun a thorough investigation and vetting’ yet has asked no questions about Graham’s death. Luna’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Asked about Trump calling the FBI investigation a waste of time, Mobbs urged giving the president ‘a lot of grace’ as he grieves ‘a dear, dear friend.’
His dismissal, she suggested, may reflect ‘some level of psychological processing,’ a reluctance to accept that ‘an adversary could actually get to one of us,’ given threats on his own life, some potentially tied to foreign actors.
