TRUMP’S LINDSEY LEVERAGE

This Is the Dark Reason Trump Terrified Graham

Michael Wolff alleges that Lindsey Graham was known in MAGA circles as the president’s ultimate suck-up—but was one for good reason.

President Donald Trump’s volatility long spooked one of his closest Republican allies, his longtime biographer has claimed.

Author Michael Wolff says that Lindsey Graham, who died suddenly on Saturday night at age 71, always felt Trump was holding something over his head.

“I felt that [Graham] understood that he was playing with fire,” Wolff told Inside Trump’s Head co-host Joanna Coles. “He understood that Donald Trump was a very volatile presence. Who could—if he was unhappy with you, he would take it out on you.”

He continued, “Behind this, there was this thing. So Lindsey Graham was—I don’t think that there’s anybody in Washington at any informed level who was not aware that Lindsey Graham was gay, but Lindsey Graham was also in the closet. This was also a discussion within the Trump circle. So this was very known. And what did that mean to Donald Trump? You know, I’m not sure that it meant anything more to Donald Trump than [that] he had something on Lindsey.”

The two Republicans had a complicated relationship, and Graham went from harshly criticizing Trump to regularly golfing with him.

Graham never married and had no children. His unexpected death was attributed to “Aortic Dissection due to Arteriosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease,” according to a preliminary examination cited by his office.

An aortic dissection is a rare condition in which a tear occurs in the body’s main artery. The Mayo Clinic says it “isn’t very common” and “usually happens in men in their 60s and 70s.”

Arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease, meanwhile, is a condition where arteries become stiff and damaged, making it harder for blood to flow properly.

“Lindsey Graham never said, ‘I’m gay, and if I don’t suck up to Donald Trump, I’m screwed.’ Never. Of course, never anything like that,” Wolff said. “But again, that sense of Donald Trump as this unknown, a constant variable, ‘What is he going to do?’”

Wolff added, “Even now, I mean, 71 years old, and you haven’t fessed up to this. I think Lindsey Graham obviously also knew the game. This is politics. This is power at a very high level. People will do anything to you. Nothing is off limits in this context.”

The White House and Graham’s staff did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump, 80, appeared emotional about Graham’s death, telling NBC’s Meet the Press, “He was like a member of the family to me. It’s very tough, actually.”

“Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the greatest people and Senators I have ever known, is dead!” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Sunday. “He was always working and was a true American Patriot. Lindsey will be greatly missed!!!”

However, Trump was not always such a good friend of Graham. In 2015, Graham did not mince words about his fellow candidate in the Republican presidential primary.

“He’s a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot,” Graham said of Trump. “He doesn’t represent my party. He doesn’t represent the values that the men and women who wear the uniform are fighting for.”

But over the years, their relationship evolved into a friendship rooted in part in their shared love of golf—though Wolff alleges that Graham was as much a suck-up as a true Trump pal, hoping to gain from his proximity to power.

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“Lindsey Graham was an absolute suck-up,” Wolff said. “I mean, embarrassing suck-up. And people within the Trump circle would joke about this, you know, if you needed somebody to reassure the president, you call Lindsey, Lindsey calls and tells the president, you know, ‘Sir, you’re fantastic.’”

He added, “Sucking up was not just the basic price of admission. It was the entire thing. That was what you had to do in order to get more access, in order to sustain access, in order for your access to be greater than anyone else’s. It was just a question of how much sucking you were willing to do.”

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