U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham dead at 71
U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham has died at the age of 71, according to his office.
The South Carolina senator was one of the most influential of his generation, having sway over global issues and hitching his star to President Donald Trump.
His office said in a news release posted around 2 a.m. Sunday that Graham had “passed away from a brief and sudden illness.”
In a post to his Truth Social platform, Trump called Graham “one of the greatest Senators and people I’ve ever known.”
Graham was raised in small town Seneca, South Carolina, where he spent much of his youth in his family’s Central pool hall that also doubled as a bar and liquor store. He spoke often of his rural upbringing in local stops prior to becoming close to Trump. Graham was often criticized in his home district in the rural Upstate, the most consistently conservative area of South Carolina, from both right and left sides but he easily won his re-election campaigns.
Graham was first elected to the Senate in 2002, where the military veteran and lawyer became known as a military supporter and after clashing with Trump in 2016, has become one of the senators closest to Trump.
