The senator died of aortic dissection due to arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease, according to the medical examiner’s preliminary findings.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) died from a “brief and sudden illness” Saturday evening, his office said in a statement.
Preliminary findings by the medical examiner, which were released by his team, suggest the longtime senator died from an aortic dissection due to arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease, which is considered an aorta rupture stemming from hardening of Graham’s arteries.
He was 71 years old.
“Senator Graham’s family appreciates prayers at the time and asks for privacy during this incredibly difficult period,” reads the statement shared on X.
Prior to the medical examiner’s preliminary findings, Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) said in an interview on CBS’s “Face The Nation” that Graham may have died from a heart attack.
“I don’t know the details any more than his staff has released,” Scott said. “My hunch was it was a heart attack. I hate to just give you my opinion on what I’ve heard from people that are close in circle. … But it appears to have been a heart attack.”
Graham was elected to the Senate in 2002. During President Donald Trump’s second term, Graham was a close ally, supporting the president’s military actions against the Iranian regime.
A longtime hawk on Iran, Graham leaves a legacy of backing policies aimed at isolating the country and limiting its missile and nuclear programs, among his many other achievements.
An outpouring of condolences for the senator was quick to follow the news, from colleagues in the U.S. Congress to leaders around the world.
The president called Graham “one of the greatest people and Senators I have ever known” in a post on Truth Social.
“He was always working, was a true American Patriot,” Trump said. “Lindsey will be greatly missed!! So sad!”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said in a statement that his heart was heavy.
“Lindsey’s long and dedicated service in the Air Force and in Congress carried him to far-flung regions of the world,” he said. “He was a strong advocate for the United States and a strong ally to freedom-loving countries across the globe. He believed in the might of America to achieve good in the world and dedicated his life to advancing that cause.”
South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster called Graham “irreplaceable” and the “fiercest of fighters for South Carolina and America—and a loyal and steadfast friend.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed his condolences to Graham’s family.
“Israel has lost one of its greatest friends,” he said. “America has lost a great patriot. I have lost a beloved friend. May his values and initiatives continue to guide us toward victory and peace, and may his memory forever be a blessing.”
Graham was not married and lived in Seneca, South Carolina. He was first elected into public office in the 1990s as a member of the South Carolina House of Representatives and then a member of the U.S. House.
He recently served as chair of the Senate Budget Committee. He also served as a member of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.
He had planned on seeking reelection for his fifth term in the Senate in the November elections.
Graham had just returned from a trip to Kyiv, Ukraine, where he announced on July 10 new bipartisan legislation called the Sanctioning Russia Act, which had been under negotiation for months with the White House and Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), and Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
“We are proud to announce that we have reached an agreement with the Trump Administration to move our updated Russia sanctions legislation forward,” the senators said in a joint statement. “We are very pleased with this significant progress and expect to roll out the legislation very soon.”
The legislation will allow the United States to sanction parties buying Russian oil and natural gas, “fueling the Putin war machine,” they added, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Graham gained national prominence in the 1990s during the impeachment of President Bill Clinton.
While serving in the U.S. House of Representatives during the House Judiciary Committee’s consideration of Clinton’s impeachment, Graham broke with fellow Republicans by voting against the proposed article alleging perjury in the Paula Jones civil lawsuit. He supported the other three articles. He was later appointed as one of the House managers responsible for presenting the impeachment case before the Senate in 1999. The high-profile role thrust the South Carolina Republican onto the national stage.
During more than three decades in Washington, Graham established himself as one of the Republican Party’s most outspoken voices on national security, the judiciary, and foreign policy. His Senate biography describes him as “one of the strongest proponents of a robust national defense.”
Following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Graham supported legislation allowing the CIA to continue using classified aggressive interrogation techniques on high-value terrorism suspects.
After the Senate approved the Military Commissions Act in 2006, Graham said the measure protected the CIA’s High-Value Target program by permitting “aggressive interrogation techniques” that had produced intelligence helping protect the country from terrorist attacks. He also said the legislation provided legal clarity for intelligence officers carrying out those operations.
Graham started out as one of Trump’s sharpest Republican critics during the 2016 presidential campaign.
In December 2015, Graham said on CNN: “You know how you make America great again? Tell Donald Trump to go to [expletive].”
Over time, Graham became one of Trump’s bigger supporters.
In 2020, Graham praised Trump for getting 200 judges confirmed in the president’s first term.
“We were only able to reach this historic achievement because of President Trump’s commitment to selecting strong, qualified, conservative judicial nominees,” Graham said at the time.
In a Feb. 28 post on X, Graham called Trump’s address on Iran a potentially historic turning point, saying the eight-minute speech “will go down in history as the catalyst for the most historic change in the Middle East in a thousand years.”
As chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee from 2019 to 2021, he oversaw contentious confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who generally aligns with the court’s conservative block, and defended the confirmations of conservative judicial nominees that reshaped the federal courts.
“He was absolutely fearless,” Netanyahu said on July 12 in an interview on NBC News. “He went with his convictions.”
Graham was also known for occasionally breaking with his party in pursuit of bipartisan compromise. In 2013, Graham was one of eight senators who crafted a broad immigration reform bill combining stronger border security with a pathway to legal status for many illegal immigrants. Although the legislation passed the Senate, it failed to advance in the House.
Graham was equally known for his friendship with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who died in 2018. Along with former Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.), who died in 2024, the trio traveled together on congressional delegations and became known as the “Three Amigos,” connected by their pro-military foreign policy views.
Jacki Thrapp contributed to this report.
By Melanie Sun
