Hundreds of mourners have paid their respects to the late Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.
The Republican lawmaker and key ally of President Donald Trump unexpectedly died on July 11.
Graham was elected to the US Senate in 2002 and was re-elected in 2008, 2014 and 2020. In 1994, he was elected to the US House of Representatives, the lower house of the US Congress, for South Carolina’s third congressional district. He recently served as chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. Graham also served as a member of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.
He was a strong supporter of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq and had long pushed for military action against Iran.
Graham was a longtime backer of Israel and supported Trump’s ongoing war on Iran. In a planned documentary, Graham told the filmmakers he “almost cried” after the US and Israel began strikes on Iran in February.
He also vocally supported Ukraine after Russia invaded the country in 2022.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and several other world leaders attended Graham’s funeral service on Tuesday afternoon at the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, DC.
Trump gave remarks, calling Graham a force in the world and US politics. He called Graham “a beloved friend” and said that he “died doing the work he was born to do”.
“For more than 30 years, nothing of consequence happened in this capital without Lindsey Graham knowing about it. Nothing of significance happened anywhere in the world without Lindsey Graham having a view on it,” Trump said. “And no bill became law in the most exceptional republic in human history without Lindsey Graham having a say in it.”
He added: “He was a man who gave America the full measure of his good and mighty heart until that heart itself just gave out.”
