The Daily Show offered its condolences to Trump for the death of his best friend, Senator Lindsey Graham, at the hands of his other “best friend.”
“Trump might be a little down. He’s had a sad weekend,” anchor Michael Kosta said.
“His best friend was poisoned by his other best friend,” he joked, displaying side-by-side images of Graham and Vladimir Putin.
“No, no, no. Putin did not kill Lindsey Graham while he was in Ukraine,” continued the host facetiously. “It’s just a suspicious coincidence that makes a lot of sense when you think about it.”
A day before his death, Graham, 71, was in Ukraine, where he met President Volodymyr Zelensky to work toward tougher sanctions against Russia. He returned to America on Saturday. By nightfall, he was dead.
Graham’s unexpected death sparked a wave of wild conspiracy theories, with many claiming foul play.
Graham, a longtime Ukraine supporter and Russia critic, was mourned by Zelensky, who called the South Carolina lawmaker “a true defender of freedom.”
Allies of Russian President Vladimir Putin have celebrated Graham’s death. Sergei Markov, a former Putin adviser, accused the senator of “Russophobia,” calling him a “Russophobic zealot who did everything to ensure the war in Ukraine would not end.”
Lawmaker Alexei Chepa called Graham “one of the most rabid Russophobes,” and also slammed theories of Russian involvement as “complete nonsense.”
Graham died of aortic dissection, the Washington, D.C., Medical Examiner’s office found.
President Trump, 80, weighed in on the theories coming from the MAGA world, saying on Newsmax’s Greg Kelly Reports, “We’ve had great doctors and they talked about… a certain part of his body literally blew up and that’s a condition I believe his father had also.”
When asked whether he believes the conspiracy theories, the president said he’d “love to say yes” but seemed to rule it out. Trump noted that Graham’s father, F.J. Graham, died at age 69 of a heart attack.
U.S. senators are pushing for swift passage of the Russia sanctions bill, urging Congress to act quickly in Graham’s honor. Trump has supported the passage of the sanctions package.
