Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a close ally of US President Donald Trump, has died at the age of 71. He died on Saturday evening following a “brief and sudden illness”, according to his office.
Elected to the Senate in 2002, the South Carolina politician was one of Washington’s most influential voices on foreign policy, often pushing for US military intervention overseas.
Donald Trump said Graham was a “true American Patriot” who would be “greatly missed”.
Graham had just returned from Kyiv, where he met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday. There were no known health concerns ahead of his trip.
Graham was a staunch supporter of arming Kyiv and applying sanctions against Moscow. Zelensky said in a post on X, external that he was “deeply saddened” by his death.
“America and the world have lost a determined leader,” he added.
Graham’s relationship with the US president had evolved since Trump first ran for office.
In a CNN interview during his campaign for the presidency in 2015, Graham called Trump “a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot”. The next year, he said: “If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed… and we will deserve it.”
After the US Capitol riots in 2021, Graham gave a speech on the Senate floor in which he said: “Trump and I, we’ve had a hell of a journey. I hate it to end this way.
“All I can say is a count me out. Enough is enough.”
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