Why It’s Time for Truth Bombs About Lindsey Graham: Political Guru

Lindsey Graham’s legacy warrants a far harsher reckoning than the glowing tributes now pouring in, political analyst David Rothkopf says.

From Donald Trump to Joe Biden, Washington responded to the 71-year-old South Carolina senator’s sudden death on Saturday with a bipartisan chorus of praise. One article in The Atlantic called Graham the “consummate politician of our time.”

“Because what Lindsey Graham was, as some people have pointed out, was a kind of pilot fish who... attached himself to Trump’s butt and did whatever Trump wanted him to do and took positions that were hideous,” Rothkopf told host Joanna Coles.

The former editor-in-chief of Foreign Policy magazine argued, “We don’t write our eulogies for people after they die. The people write their eulogies while they are living. And the eulogy that Lindsey Graham wrote for himself is: he valued expedience and power over principle and the interests of the people of the United States.”

Graham’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Graham’s career was marked by political shapeshifting, nowhere more apparent than in his journey from Trump’s fiercest critic—having called him a “race-baiting, xenophobic religious bigot” during the 2016 presidential campaign—to one of his most steadfast defenders.

“Lindsey Graham turned himself into a Trumpian figure at the expense of the people of South Carolina, who are his constituents, at the expense of the Senate, at the expense of the United States,” Rothkopf said.

He noted that Graham enthusiastically backed Trump’s former personal lawyer, Todd Blanche, for attorney general, even after Blanche “turned the Justice Department into Trump’s personal revenge machine.” Rothkopf also pointed out Graham’s public support for the president’s cuts to USAID, which have reportedly led to hundreds of thousands of deaths, and his efforts to oppose LGBTQ+ rights.

“In the hustle and bustle of Washington over the course of decades and decades, when somebody dies, and you disagree with them on some political issues, you could set that aside. But this is not the time that we live in,” Rothkopf said.

“Donald Trump is not a mere political figure with points of view that are merely political,” he continued. “The Constitution is being undermined. There’s a major effort underway to undermine our elections. This stuff is not politics. This is evil. And if you don’t call it for what it is, and if you don’t call out its advocates for what they’re doing, then you normalize it and you say this is politics as usual.”

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Graham died on Saturday night after emergency personnel responded to a report of a cardiac arrest at Graham’s Capitol Hill home.

A preliminary examination conducted by the D.C. medical examiner found that Graham died from an “Aortic Dissection due to Arteriosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease,” according to his office. An aortic dissection is a rare condition in which a tear occurs in the inner layer of the aorta—the body’s main artery.