July 13, 2026 • 45 mins
Lindsey Graham
Lindsey Olin Graham (July 9, 1955 – July 11, 2026) was an American politician, attorney, and Air Force officer who represented South Carolina in the U.S. Senate from 2003 until his death in 2026. He was one of the most influential Republican senators of his era, particularly on national security, judicial nominations, and foreign policy.
Early Life
Graham was born in Central, South Carolina, where his parents owned a restaurant, pool hall, and liquor store. He became the first member of his family to attend college, earning both a bachelor's degree and a law degree from the University of South Carolina. While in school, he suffered the loss of both parents within about 15 months and took responsibility for helping raise his younger sister.
Military Service
After law school, Graham joined the U.S. Air Force Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps, serving as a military lawyer. He served on active duty from 1982 to 1989, including assignments in Germany, and later continued in the South Carolina Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve. During his military career he reached the rank of Colonel and retired in 2015 after 33 years of service.
Entry into Politics
Graham began his political career in the South Carolina House of Representatives, serving from 1993 to 1995. In 1994, he won election to the U.S. House of Representatives from South Carolina's 3rd Congressional District, becoming the first Republican elected from that district since Reconstruction.
During his time in the House, he gained national attention as one of the House managers who prosecuted the impeachment case against President Bill Clinton in 1999.
U.S. Senate Career
Graham was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2002 and took office in January 2003. He won reelection in 2008, 2014, and 2020. Throughout his Senate career he served on several powerful committees, including Judiciary, Appropriations, Budget, and Environment and Public Works. He also chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee and later the Senate Budget Committee.
Key Political Positions
Graham became known for:
- Strong support for a robust U.S. military and interventionist foreign policy.
- Advocacy for American support of allies such as Ukraine and Israel.
- Leadership on judicial confirmations, including helping advance the confirmations of Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett.
Relationship with Donald Trump
One of the most notable aspects of Graham's career was his evolving relationship with Donald Trump. During the 2016 Republican presidential primary, Graham strongly criticized Trump, but after Trump's election, however, Graham became one of his closest allies in Congress and frequently advised him on foreign-policy and judicial matters.
Legacy
His supporters remember him as a skilled legislator, military veteran, and influential voice on national security. Critics often challenged his changing political alliances and hawkish foreign-policy positions. Nevertheless, he remained one of the most recognizable and consequential Republican senators of the early 21st century
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
It is the Ben Ferguson Show, and it's good to
have you with us. We are talking about the sad
and shocking news about the passing of Lindsey Graham, a
man that is larger in life, a man that served
his country, a man that served in the military longer
than he served in the Senate or in public office.
That is one of the things a lot of people
(00:22):
don't know about Lindsey Graham. I'm going to walk you
through his life, his legacy, what happened, what the President
is saying, what Benjamin Nette Yahoo's saying, and what others
are saying as well. And before I get to that,
I'm also going to have a conversation that we just
did with Senator Ted Cruz talking about his dear friend
that he has lost.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Before we get to all that.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
As America celebrates its two hundred and fiftyth anniversary, this
milestone is also time to reflect on the enduring relationship
between the US and Israel, our greatest ally. President John F.
Kennedy once said Israel was not created in order to disappear.
Israel will endure and flourish. Now those words capture the
spirit of a young democracy determined to survive two nations
(01:06):
thousands of miles apart, yet united by shared values of democracy, faith, freedom,
and resilience. As America celebrates two hundred fifty years of independence,
the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews turns to God
in prayer, asking not only for his wisdom, but his
guidance for elected officials and to lead America and Israel
(01:28):
to moral clarity and national unity.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
I want to give you something.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
That I get to wear proudly on TV every day,
a free US Israel flagpen. All you have to do
to get this is go online to flag PENFCJ dot org.
That's flagpen IFCJ dot org to get your free US
Israel flagpen and stand with both nations flagpen if CJ
(01:55):
dot org. Now I want you to hear about the
life and legacy of Lindsay. I am what he meant
to those around him, including Senator Ted Cruz, as we
talk about some amazing stories about what they did together
in the Senate. Welcome it is verdict with Centator Ted Cruz,
Ben Ferguson with you, and this is going to be
one of those shows that is it's a hard one. Senator,
(02:16):
one of your best friends in the Senate, a dear
friend of yours, someone that I've gotten to know over
the last several gosh twenty plus years. You woke up
to the same shocking news that I did, that Lindsey
Graham had passed away suddenly. And this is someone that
you worked with and knew so well.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Look, this was a hard day. This was a shocking day.
I woke up, as so many people did across America,
with the news that Lindsay had passed away of what
has been reported to be a massive heart attack at
his home Saturday night. I was stunned. I had five
or six texts in my phone as I woke up,
(02:56):
and I just stared at them in disbelief. It did
not seem real. Uh. Lindsay was a good friend of mine.
Lindsay was He was one of a kind. He was
someone He and I did not always see eye to eye.
In fact, we battled on a lot of issues. But
but we also agreed on a whole bunch of issues.
And we were close allies fighting for years UH to
(03:21):
confirm conservative judges and conservative conservative justices. We were close
allies fighting to defend the Second Amendment. We were close
allies fighting to support the men and women of the military.
We were close allies fighting to to defend our national security,
to to stand with our allies, to stand with Israel,
(03:42):
and we were close allies standing up to America's enemies,
that especially Iran and and and Lindsay was someone he
was a force of nature. But his personality. I gotta say,
if you spent time with Lindsay, I think it was
impossible to discy like Lindsay. He was charming, he was
(04:03):
funny as hell, like just witty. For years I used
to say to Lindsay and John Kennedy, I'd ask each
of them, I don't know which one of you is funnier,
and they'd kind of both sort of bow up their
chests and get mad at eye. And I actually, I
do have a theory. I think John Kennedy is the
better stand up comedian. Like like if John Kennedy and
(04:26):
John prepares a fair amount of his material, but when
he's delivering it, he could be a professional comedian. Yes,
But Lindsey was wittier just sitting there. He would fire
zingers that you're like it was, and many of them
were self deprecating. He did not take himself too seriously.
He would make fun of himself like crazy he did.
(04:50):
And it was you know, I've traveled abroad with Lindsay
multiple times. He loved our country absolutely with a passion. Look,
Lindsey wasn't married, he didn't have kids. Every ounce of
his life was the Senate. He would travel all over
(05:11):
the world. I mean, it's just what he did. He
was out, you know, I think it was beautiful in
some ways fitting. So he had just come back from Ukraine.
He'd been meeting with President Zelensky. He came back to
the United States Saturday night. He was on the phone
with President Trump. And by the way, he was one
of President Trump's closest friends. And I say that without
(05:32):
exaggeration because Lindsay and Trump disagreed on a lot of issues.
But Trump loved the guy, and it was was hard.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
If you saw him talking about him on Meet the Press,
He's like he kind of had like unfeathered access to
the White House. He goes, he really did a lot
of people, but he was like Lindsay just came over
all the time.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
Loo.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
Look, Lindsay was like the Trump whisper. He would call Trump.
He talked to him early in the morning, he talked
to him late at night. He talked to them day
after day after day, and Trump would Trump didn't always
agree with him, but he would listen to him and Lindsey.
When Trump was really mad about at something, Lindsey could
kind of walk him back off that cliff a little bit.
Lindsey was like, and I've spent a lot of time
(06:15):
with Lindsay and Trump together, and the bond they had
was really special, and it was in some ways almost
a perfect distillation of his life. That he is in Ukraine,
he flies back to the United States, He's on the
phone with President Trump, and Sunday morning he was scheduled
to be on Meet the Press. It would have been
(06:35):
his sixty fourth appearance on Meet the Press.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
And that's a lot in politics.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
By the way, Meet the Press is kind of like
Saturday Night Live. If you're like a celebrity being on
Meet the Press. That's a number that I would love
to know what that is ranking compared to other Republicans.
You've done it a lot, but it's not sixty something times.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Now. I've done it a lot, but it's nowhere close
to that. And I try to be pretty deliberate I
do Sunday shows when I've got a particular message that
I'm trying to drive, Like, when there's a reason, I
try to be quite deliberate about doing it. Lindsey. Look, look,
I have two teenage daughters, I've got a wife, I've
got a family. I want to be back in Texas,
you know, with my family, and so a Sunday show
(07:19):
there had to be a reason to do it. Yeah, Lindsay,
part of what he was was just a warrior. Every day.
He'd go to the Sunday shows when the news were great.
He'd go to the Sunday shows when the news was terrible,
and like nobody wanted to be out there defending whatever
was on fire at that moment, and Lindsay was like,
I'll do it, and he would. Part of it is
he would do it in a cheerful, funny, affable way.
(07:41):
If things were a mess, he'd kind of acknowledge, yeah,
they're a mess, but you know, all right. It was
I literally have been been walking around in a daze
much of today because I mean I spent a lot
of time with Lindsay and we would go out and
I've been texting you guys.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
By the way, you shared a picture that probably on
your You guys were recently in Paris.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
So so, and this was just you know how iPhone
kind of randomly picks pictures.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
Now I'm sort of convinced our phones like spy on
us and know everything.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Yeah, but yeah, that's that is accurate. I agree with
you on that one.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
But bizarrely enough, today my iPhone kind of midday popped
up a picture of me and Lindsey and Katie Britt
and Eric Schmidt, all four of us in Paris, and
we're on a river boat and we're right in front
of the Eiffel Tower and we went for the eightieth
anniversary of D Day. It was an amazing trip. It
was a powerful, beautiful trip with you know, we got
(08:40):
to see these World War Two veterans who it's the
very tail end of their journey on Earth, and the
four of us are just arm in arm and it
was just beautiful. And I've been I've been texting and
talking to friends and colleagues and all of us are
just going, this doesn't seem real real, Yeah, I mean
(09:02):
it's you know, I did an interview with a reporter
today who said, who will fill the void? Who will
fill Lindsey Graham's shoes, And my answer is nobody. Nobody.
The role he played in the Senate, he was universally respected,
but also universally liked and even adored by people who
(09:23):
disagreed with him. Passionately he could be by the way,
the guy was as effective a cross examiner as I've
ever seen. Lindsay was a South Carolina trial lawyer, and
he could on the Judiciary Committee, the.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Two committees together.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
So people understand you guys, it wasn't just being like
centers together. You guys worked on committees as well.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
We worked Judiciary. We spent thousands of hours together. We
were on Senate Armed Services together, we were on Foreign
Relations together, and we just worked hand in hand on
a lot of issues. There are issues where we disagreed immigration.
Lindsay and I were in very different places, but there
were a lot of issues when Lindsey was with you.
(10:10):
I don't know that there was a more potent ally
in the Senate when he was with you. Yeah, and
it would he could be. Look it was I can't count.
There are a hundred different Senate Republican lunches when people
were having really passionate, sharp disagreements about something, and Lindsay
(10:32):
would stand up and say something, and he'd always have
a joke and people be double or laughing. There be
times when people are like screaming at each other, almost
ready to like, you know, take a swing at each other. Yeah,
and Lindsey would sort of cut the tension and bring
people back to the task at hand. You know, when
(10:52):
I'm in DC fairly regularly, I'll have dinner with other
senators and there's kind of a group of folks that
I invite that are sort of the like guys I
like hanging out with. And Lindsey was almost the auto invite,
because if Lindsay showed up at the table, your ribs
would hurt from laughing. And by the way, it wasn't
just that he was like telling jokes. He was just
(11:14):
insightful and smart and he cared. Look, look, whether he
loved his country or not.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
That's one of the things I don't think people understand
how much he loved this country.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
You mentioned.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Didn't have he wasn't married, he didn't have kids. His
family was America. His family was defending America. I said
this this morning on Fox and Friends. He had a
grand It was a love story with the United States
of America.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
Yes, I'll tell you. It was also with our military,
So Lindsay absolutely. Lindsay spent thirty three years in the
Air Force active duty.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
As a colonel.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
People don't know that he rose up to being a colonel.
I did tell him. I said, Lindsay, if the clowns
at the Pentagon ever try to give you a star,
damn it, I'm going to the Florida filibuster it. I
ain't calling you General Graham. You could be Potigram, but
just understand there's a hard ceiling. And and he basically
agreed with me and said, yeah, I sure hope they'll
(12:07):
make me a general. They shouldn't. I mean, I mean,
that's like a classic.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
He was.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
And I've been with him both in the US and
abroad where we would meet with service men and women,
and he had a connection to the men and women
of the armed services, a love affair where they loved
him and I would see them come up and like
hug him, and he would.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
He viewed it.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
As his mission. I'm going to fight for you. If
you're defending this country, if you signed up to be
in the military, I'm going to fight ferociously for you,
and that was it was real, It was sincere, It
was passionate. That was a beautiful thing.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
You know.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
I think one of the cool things about his services country.
I've got a lot of friends that sign up after
nine to eleven, and in politics some times they get
frustrated with people that serve their country and they go
to Washington and everything is based on why I was
in the military and you weren't kind of thing. He
didn't use his military service that day, and a lot
(13:12):
of people didn't realize that. Number one, he was a
colonel until he passed away. A lot of people didn't
realize he was in for thirty years. A lot of
you didn't realize he was in the reserves while serving
his country. In Congress, he continued to be in the
reserves and to continue to do that.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
But he didn't come in and.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Go, well, I would I serve it wasn't a trump
card for him, and it was it was. It was
He obviously fought hard for military and he fought hard
for things in a state that were related to military
and military complex and bases, but it wasn't his number
one thing on TV, like, well, let me tell you
why because I served and you didn't. He didn't use
(13:47):
it that way publicly.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
Never.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
A lot and a lot of people that I know
that are in the military and have recently retired that
gave twenty twenty five years, that's what they liked about
him the most.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Well. And look to understand, he grew up in modest
circumstances in South Carolina. He grew up his parents ran
a bar in a pool hall. And part of to
understand Lindsay's magic is he was like the best bartender
you've ever seen, who would smile and crack a joke
and and and whether you were celebrating a great thing
(14:21):
that happened in your life, or you were there weeping
because your wife just divorced you, or you just had
a death in the family, and and he could, he
could the charm that he brought, the sort of effortless
I remember years ago, I was at a Silver Elephant dinner,
which is the big Republican dinner in South Carolina, and
he was speaking there. And at the time, Ryan's Prebus
(14:44):
was the chairman of the r NC, and I think
Rynce was speaking at that dinner. This was a while ago,
but I think Ryance was speaking at that dinner. I
remember Lindsay got up and went, Right's previous, Ryan's previous.
What the hell is that is not like a French
electric car and like it brought the house down. I mean,
(15:07):
he would throw lines out there all the time, and
it was he also had a special gift for I
would say, earning the trust of and providing really valuable
counsel to extraordinarily volatile, larger than life figures. And two
(15:32):
in particular, John McCain and Donald Trump. Yes, now, look
John McCain. I served a lot of years with John.
When I arrived in the Senate, John McCain hated my guts.
In fact, he was quoted as saying I hate his
eff and guts. Like John and I battled in a
bloody way. Yes, over the years, John and I became friends.
(15:54):
But John was, you know, in terms of the history
of the Senate, John McCain was one of those legends
who have walked the halls of the Senate. I disagreed
with so many positions John had. But but the man
was a war hero. The man fought for a country
he was He was imprisoned in Vietnam, he was tortured,
He denied early release. I mean he was larger than life, yes,
(16:15):
and he could be volcanic like John's temper.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
It was real. It was real.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
Oh, I had been on this.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
I've been on the other end of that.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
You've been on the other end of that, and it
is let me tell you, I the talking to is
that I received earlier in my career were brutal when
I got them.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
Lindsey was John McCain's best friend in the Senate and
he was the McCain whisperer. I mean, it was an
amazing thing. And Lindsey would kind of soften John's you know,
he come in and pound the hell out of someone
and Lindsey start to cut a joke and like, you
know men, Yeah, it.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Was Joe Aberman said he spoke Democrat and Republican. Well
is I think the way he described it, he could.
He could, he could, and he could speak McCain, which
was really important.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
And he also speaks Trump like, look their times, just
like John McCain, we get really pissed off. There are times,
this is no secret, when Donald Trump gets pissed off
and when he's angry and he's like on a tear.
Lindsey we kind of all say, Lindsey, go on in
there and sort of talk him down, and Lindsey could.
It was an amazing thing. He'd just sort of laugh
(17:24):
a little bit, and you know, Trump would yell at him,
and he'd make Trump laugh and it would just soften
the whole thing. He had a gift for that. And
it was not just because he wanted people to like him.
He had a gift because he was trying to get
these these great men. He was trying to move them
in what he believed was a positive direction for America.
And it was a beautiful thing to watch him do that.
(17:50):
I will say, Lindsey, some of y'all who listened to
Verdict may not know this. Lindsey Graham was the very
first guest yes in the history of Verdict. Like when
we had just launched this show. This show launched on
the first night of the very first Trump impeachment, and
the show went from zero. Look, before we launched, we
(18:10):
had zero viewers, zero listeners. Yeah, it's skyrocketed up the
charts and it became the number one ranked podcast in
the world. And as we're doing it, and we would
do it every night. This was Peb pre Ben this
is what I was doing with Michael Knowles, who is
a great friend of both of ours. Yeah, and it
(18:32):
would be every night after the impeachment trial. We'd go
and do a Verdict that night and put it out
real time. And Lindsey came, all right, I want you
to watch the cold open for our show that Lindsey
recorded as our very first guest ever.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
All right, take a listen. This is again the cold
open Lindsey Graham, the first guest on Verdict back in
the day.
Speaker 4 (18:55):
Hello, I'm Senner Lindsey Graham. Welcome to Verdict with Ted Cruz,
the number one in the entire country.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
What is a podcast?
Speaker 5 (19:11):
Welcome back to Verdict with Ted Cruz.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
I'm Michael Knowles.
Speaker 5 (19:14):
I'm joined by not one, but two US Senators to
help us break down the most shocking day of the
entire impeachment trial. Senator Graham, thank you so much for
being here at VI Here, gentlemen, the last time that
we sat down, I was told this impeachment was going
to drag on for weeks. We were going to get witnesses,
we were gonna get Bolton, we were gonna get Hunter Biden.
This was going to get long and ugly. I go
(19:36):
to sleep, I wake up today and the senators are
voting no more witnesses. This thing could be over next week,
Senator Cruz, what happened?
Speaker 3 (19:45):
Well, today was a big day. And let me say, Lindsey,
thank you, well you I appreciate your coming. This is
late at night. We spent all day.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
In the setting, a lot of money on production.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
Sorry, well, this was you're right yesterday. If the vote
had gone differently today, this trial could have gone on
for months. We could have seen it drag on and
on and on. And it was a big deal. It
was up in the air, and today was the most
important vote we've had in the.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Entire By the way, I love it. Even there he
cracked a joke.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
He's like, you're not spent a lot on production, Like
he had to get his zinger in there.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
That's just what made Lindsay lindsay.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
Well, and look at the time, we were filming Verdict
in a basement studio about a mile from Capitol Hill,
and so we drove there after the day of the trial.
It was like midnight and you went to this basement studio,
You walked at a dark alley and you walked down
these like concrete stairs and listen. Lindsay and I at
(20:40):
the time were not actually that close of friends. We
had been more adversaries than friends. Our friendship developed over
the years. And as we're walking down the stairs, he's like,
I feel like Joe Peshi and Goodfellas, are you getting
ready to whack me? Because like we're like walking into
a dark basement in the middle of nowhere. And he
(21:01):
looks around. In our studio, we had this this shag
carpet out of the nineteen seventies. We had these big,
old brown leather chairs. We had these giant microphones, kind
of like we still have the giant microphones. Yeah, and
he says, on this show, the cactus don't Yeah, Okay,
I miss miss our cactus. Our cactus is still our
cactus is still part of the Verdict family. But he
(21:25):
looked around and head said this on the podcast, He's like,
you guys are the number one podcast in the world.
Who the hell is number two? Some guy in a
van by the river like it was. It was side splitting,
but but that charm it had real power because it
(21:49):
would cause people to listen. It would break through and listen.
He was not always joking. If you were to think
of the singular moment, what is the number one thing
people remember that Lindsey Graham did, And I'm going to
suggest it was when during the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
I was gonna say no doubt Brett kavanall and saving
Brett Kavanaugh from the insanity of the left that we're
accusing him of the most horrific crimes without any evidence,
making it up as they went trying to destroy him
the same way they went after Clarence Thomas very much,
but in a TMZ twenty twenty plus year type of
going after him, just more vile social media. You didn't
(22:32):
have that with a Clarence Thomas, right, Like Clarence Thomas
was ABCNBC, CNN, it was mainstream now. They were trying
to assassinate Brett Kavanaugh's integrity and they were using all
social media to try to accomplish it well.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
And Lindsey unloaded on the Democrats and it changed the
entire dynamics of the hearing. I want you most of
y'all have seen and heard this, but I want you
to give a listen again, because I think there's a
real argument without Lindsay doing this Brett Kavanaugh may not
get confirmed. Give a listen to Lindsay Ath the hearing.
Speaker 4 (23:03):
Are you aware that at nine to twenty three on
the night of July the ninth, the day you were
nominated to the Supreme Court by President Trump, Senator Schumer
said twenty three minutes after your nomination, I will oppose
Judge Kavanaugh's nomination with everything I have. I have a bypartison,
and I hope a by person majority will do the same.
(23:26):
The stakes are simply too high for anything less. Well,
if you weren't aware of it, you are now. Did
you meet with Senator Diane Feinstein on August twentieth? I
did meet with Centa Finese. Did you know that her
staff had already recommended a lawyer to dodnor Ford.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
I did not know that.
Speaker 4 (23:44):
Did you know that her and her staff had this
allegations for over twenty days?
Speaker 3 (23:50):
I did not know that at the time.
Speaker 4 (23:52):
If you wanted an FBI investigation, you could have come
to us. What you want to do is destroy this
guy's life, hold the seat open, and hope you went
in twenty twenty you've said that, not me. You've got
nothing to apologize for. When you see soda. Maron Kagan
tell him that Lindsay said, Oh, because I voted for them,
(24:15):
I would never do to them what you've done.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
To this guy.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
This is the most unethical sham since I've been in politics.
And if you really wanted to know the truth, you
sure as hell wouldn't have done what you've done to
this guy. Are you a gang rapist?
Speaker 5 (24:34):
No?
Speaker 4 (24:35):
I cannot imagine what you and your family have gone through. Boy,
y'all want power. God, I hope you never get it.
I hope the American people can see through this sham
that you knew about it and you held it. You
had no intention of protecting doctor fort none. She's as
much of a victim as you are.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
God.
Speaker 4 (24:56):
I hate to say it because these have been my friends,
but I'll tell you when it comes to this, you're
looking for a fair process. You came to the wrong
town at the wrong time.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
My friend, Senator, you look at that frustration. That was genuine.
It wasn't inauthentic, It wasn't something that was a pre
planned moment.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
It wasn't scripted.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
We've see a lot of scripted moments from politicians these days,
and some of these hearings are it's all pre organized,
pre planned protesters involved. That was real and raw and
as you mentioned, and I think you should explain a
little bit more.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
This forced and change the direction that hearing was going.
Speaker 4 (25:39):
Well.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
And listen Lindsey's career. For a lot of his career,
he's been a very bipartisan senator. Senator, He's worked with
a lot of Democrats. As he noted, he voted to
confirm both Justice Sotomayor and Justice Kagan, and the Democrats
were all happy with him. They were all lovey dove
And so when he says, look, I would never do
to them what you're doing to Brett Kavanaugh, I had
(26:00):
power to it. I was sitting there at the DAAs
when when Lindsay was unloading, and you could have heard
a pin drop in the room, you know, the silence
when he asked Brett Kavanaugh, are you a gang rapist?
And Brett says no, and Lindsey's just silent for about
four seconds, and the entire silence, there's not a peep
(26:23):
in the hearing room. That was a riveting moment. And
by the way, you mentioned Clarence Thomas. Clarence Thomas is
on the Supreme Court because during his confirmation hearing, the
Democrats did the same thing, which is they sand bagged
him with allegations from Anita Hill. And the American people
heard Anita Hill's testimony in Clarence Thomas's and by a
(26:45):
margin of about two to one, they believe Justice Thomas.
The same thing happened with Brett Kavanaugh. That's why Clarence
Thomas got confirmed. That's why Brett Kavanaugh got confirmed. And
Lindsey's that moment there played I think a real part
in people assessing and saying, way to this is not
a real inquiry, This is not a fair assessment. This
is a political slime job. These guys had these allegations
(27:08):
for weeks. They sat on them, they held them back.
This is it is a drive by shooting by partisans
who just want power. That was what was effective. And
I'll tell you so. My mom, Ben, You know my mom.
She's love my mom. She's ninety one, about to be
ninety two in November. She is as conservative it can be.
My mom thinks you and I are a little wobbly.
(27:30):
She is a rock rib conservative.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
By the way, I don't know if I ever said
this on the show. I've never had more fun hanging
out with your mom than than your reelection night. Watching
her be excited, watching her son not a senator, her
son when reelection.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
And just the beaming joy on her face.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
You weren't there when in that part you were busy,
and she came in and she was just so happy,
and I was like, this might be my favorite moment
the whole night.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
So my mom, prior to the Kavanaugh hearing, was not
a Lindsey Graham fan. She mostly knew Lindsay because he
and I had battled a lot on immigration. We had
very different views on immigration, and so that's, you know,
anyone who fights her son my mom doesn't like. And
so when that cross examined examination ends, my mother sends
(28:24):
me a text and says, okay, I now love Lindsey Graham.
And I actually got up a few minutes later and
I walked over to Lindsay and I pulled out my phone.
I said, Lindsay, here's a text I just got from
my mom, and I clicked on it and he cracked
up laughing, And then my mother proceeded to go to
(28:48):
his website and to give him thirty five dollars.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Are you serious? That's what I am.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
I am serious, And I told him, I said, Lindsay,
in my entire time in politics, my mother's never con
tributed to my campaign and she's given you money like
it was And he loved that. But it was look,
he could be when he was engaged in a fight.
He was as effective a warrior as you could see.
(29:19):
And that was powerful. And it was he and I
worked together. Look, you look last summer, the working Family's
tax cut, the big reconciliation bill, which we've talked a
lot about on this podcast. I still think it's the
legislation that has the most conservative victories in it of
any bill that's ever passed at a law. Yeah, Lindsay
(29:42):
was the chairman of the Budget Committee, and the Budget
committee plays a critical part in reconciliation has to pass
the budget resolution to begin with, Lindsay and I worked
hand in hand. I don't know that we win that
reconciliation battle without Lindsay's leadership as chairman of the Budget Committee,
and he would There were times when people are you know, look,
(30:04):
our majority is not always rock solid. You have people
that run off this way, run off that way, and
to get fifty votes to yes is really, really hard
and Lindsay was awfully good at it.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
He was all making friends.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
I mean, that's one of the lost arts in politics,
I think, is just how good he was at making
friends and making friends that he disagreed with in his
own party and making friends on other side. But he
also had just a way of understanding when there's moments
to laugh and not.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
I told this earlier. I was young. I don't think
I've ever told you this story.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
It was probably two thousand and five or six seven,
somewhere in there, and it was something to deal with
Iraq or Afghanistan. And I was on I think it
was Shepherd Smith's show on Fox back in the day,
and they asked me directly about Len's and something he'd said.
They played the soot come out of it, they asked me,
and I was pretty blunt and I was like, I
(31:06):
strongly disagree with him.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
YadA, YadA, YadA. I get done.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
And it was one of those you don't know it's
coming moments, welcome to live TV, And so I gave
my assessment. I get done Centater within probably a minute.
I was not out of the seat yet. My phone rings. Now,
if you're twenty something in your phone rings and it's
a senator like that's like it's you know, you answer right,
So I answer it. It's two two number and it's
(31:31):
Lindsey Graham. I don't know who he got my number from.
And I answer and he starts just unloading on me,
telling me why I'm wrong.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
But it was all a ruse.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
He was messing with me because he was down the
hall in the green room at Fox, knowing he was
gonna see me in twenty seconds. So I'm on the
phone walking out of the studio and it's you know,
the hallway there, it's a short hallway you go down
make it's on the left, green rooms on the right,
and I'm hearing the conversation in my ear delayed and
I'm hearing his voice and I walk in and we'd
(32:01):
never met before, like never had met before that moment,
and I'm on the phone with him and he looks
at me and goes, gotcha, and that was it, like
he didn't mind that was ripping on him. And I
walked in there, we laughed and he talked to me
for a minute, but he literally just wanted to mess
with me, like it was like the perfect you know
joke there and that's how he was.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
But like after that, it was hard. He was smart.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
It was harder for me to go after him on
TV because I liked him personally from that moment of him.
He could have been a jerk, he wasn't. He saw
the humor in the moment and was like, I'm gonna
mess with this guy, and it was.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
It was a brilliant political move.
Speaker 3 (32:37):
And that's who Lindsay was. I don't know a single
senator out of ninety nine other senators who didn't didn't
like genuinely like Lindsay and consider him a friend like
all of them. And it was a gift. And by
the way, I've been in Senate lunches, and we've talked
about a lot of those Senate lunches on this podcast,
where things got raw and bare knuckles, and on foreign policy, look,
(33:04):
Lindsey was an interventionist. He was an aggressive interventionist in
the style of John McCain. He believed it, it was honest,
but he was very much an interventionist. We've had lunches
where Lindsey and Rand Paul would scream at each other
and Lindsay Rand is very much an isolationists. Lindsay and
by the way, I'm in the middle of both of them.
(33:25):
I agree with with with with Lindsay about half the
time and Rand about half the time. I've also been
in lunches where Lindsay and JD Vance would be screaming
at each other. JD Is is much more of an
isolationist and disagreed with Lindsay. Like on Ukraine. I mean
they would go at it where JD Vance wanted us
to get the hell out of Ukraine yesterday, Lindsey was
(33:48):
passionate on the other side, and they would slug it out.
You know. JD put out a very kind and gracious
tweet today actually telling that story, saying, look, you know,
Lindsay has yelled at me, but I respected him and
he was my friend. And actually I saw a clip
today that I've never seen before. So Blake Masters, Blake
Masters ran for Senate in Arizona. I like Blake. I
(34:09):
went and campaigned for him. He didn't win. I wish
Blake had won, but he did not. Uh and uh,
you know, Blake Is is more on the isolation side
of things. He's more with with Rand and JD. And
on Ukraine he was a vocal opponent of the Ukraine conflict.
And it's interesting Lindsey went to campaign for Blake and
(34:30):
and they asked him, all, wait a second, you guys
disagree on Ukraine. I want you to listen to to
Lindsey's response as the he's there campaigning for a guy
with whom he has sharp disagreements on foreign policy.
Speaker 4 (34:42):
Give a listen, remember my race, Remember Lindsey Graham dot com.
Anybody watch Sean Hannity. So I was on Sean Hannity
three nights a week, Blake saying they're gonna shoot my
dog tomorrow at midnight if you don't give me I
know you're.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
Living on cat food, but you can.
Speaker 4 (35:03):
You can spare a few bucks here, people responded, My
opponent raised one hundred and thirty two million dollars against me,
the most in the history of the Senate. Man why
across the cabin they hated my guts. They wanted to
destroy the guy's life. I sort of got in the way.
That's the way these people are, right. There's nothing they
(35:24):
won't do for power. So the reason people responded to
me is you don't have to agree with me all
the time, but when there's a fight, I will.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
Show up he shows up, he's not lying when he
says that.
Speaker 3 (35:37):
Yeah, And look, he would joke all the time, like
when he was running for reelection the last time. He
would go on on Hannity, to go on Fox News
and he'd say Lindsey Graham dot Comlinsy Graham dot Comlinsy
Graham dot com. And he was shameless. I mean, he
was like, Hi, my name is Lindsay Graham dot com.
He would raise money and he'd say, he'd say, if
you're a little old lady and you're trying to feed
your cat, don't feed your cat tonight, go and give
(35:57):
me money instead. And it would people would crack up,
but they would do it. But so Blake masters who
lost that race. He tweeted out that video. But here's
what he said in his tweet, which is interesting. Blake said,
quote once when a donor asked Senator Graham, why are
you helping Blake given how much you two disagree on
(36:18):
foreign policy? He replied with a grin, So Blake's wrong
about Ukraine. Who gives a shit. We aren't here to
talk about how correct I am all the time. We're
here to talk about getting the Senate majority because I
want to be chairman of my committees, and Blake continues,
(36:39):
Lindsey was cheerful and determined, and he understood that he
played a team sport. May his memory be eternal. That's
pure Lindsey Graham. He could disagree with you, and Lord
knows he and I did, but it wasn't personally, wasn't
angry with you, and and that sort of joy. Look,
it is amazing the number of times you look at
(37:02):
his relationship with Trump. Lindsay was a huge Trump critic,
and he ran against him, said he was going to
destroy the world. But by the way, you look at me,
all right, So in the presidential look, Lindsay ran against Trump,
ran against me. And in the course of that campaign,
Lindsay said, you know, if you killed Ted on the
(37:23):
Senate floor and the Senate was the jury, nobody could
convict you. I can admit that that was funny as hell.
I like laughed. I'm like, all right, that's a hell
of a line. Now, Lindsay ended up not prevailing in
that race. Obviously, he dropped out. And after Lindsay dropped out,
he endorsed my campaign. So he came and endorsed my campaign,
(37:44):
and he campaigned with me for president twenty sixteen, and
and Lindsey said, at the time, he and I were
doing a fundraiser together, and I stood up and I said,
you know, I got to say, this is the first
time in my life I've ever been endorsed by someone
who's publicly called for my And that was kind of
(38:04):
how Lindsay was. He He had, you know, in the
same time. You know, he and Trump would battle like crazy,
but Trump just liked him and it was real, and
Lindsey liked Trump. Lindsey saw the power. Look, Trump has
a cast iron backbone, he has courage, and and Lindsey
(38:25):
saw the historic value of President Trump's strength and it
was really important. Now, all right, I'll give you another
story from from first term Trump. We were having a
disputed about funding the border wall, and the President wanted
to sign and was going to sign an emergency declaration
(38:45):
and use the emergency powers of the president to shift
funding to the border wall. I came up with a
different legal theory that would let him build the border wall,
let him build every penny of the border wall one
hundred percent, but not do it through an emergency declaration.
And my concern was, look, if you create the president
for doing this. The next Democrat president, the next if
(39:07):
we have a President Bernie Sanders or President Elizabeth Warren,
they're going to declare an emergency on climate change. They're
going declare an emergency on gun violence and use it
to justify all sorts of bad policies. So I had
a second theory that would have done one hundred percent
of the upside without the downside of the bad president.
And I pitched it to Lindsay, and Lindsay was like, yeah,
that makes sense. And so Lindsey and I spent a
(39:29):
day trying to call the President and pitch this theory.
And at the time, the White House staff did not
want Lindsay and me to talk to the president, so
they were blocking us. They were preventing us from getting
through to the president.
Speaker 1 (39:42):
The oldest trick in Washington is that one right there.
Speaker 3 (39:46):
And so we were sitting there, it was getting to
be maybe seven seven thirty at night, we were on
the Senate floor, and we were both frustrated because for
twenty four hours we'd been calling the president, we hadn't
gotten through. And I finally said to Lindsay, screw it,
Let's get in the car and drive over there. He's
like what, and I'm like, yeah, let's just go over
there right now. He's like all right, let's go. And
then oddly enough, a third senator jumped in the car,
(40:09):
Ben Sass, who was another friend but he was just
kind of standing there, and Ben's like, oh, I'll go.
And so the three of us drove over and we're
literally we're not invited. We're uninvited.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
We're just you're not the list.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
And by the way, people need to understand, there's two
gates you go through, and if you're not on the list,
they look at you like you're an alien.
Speaker 3 (40:26):
Okay, So we're driving over and and Lindsey calls and
actually gets Trump on the phone as we're driving over,
and he's like, yeah, we're coming over right now. And
Trump was getting ready to have dinner with Milania and
it was like their first like couple's dinner, a romatic
dinner in like a month, and Lindsay's like, no, we
(40:47):
need to see you right now. And so we go
up to the residence and Trump is pissed. He is
madder than a hornet because like, his whole date night
has been blown up by us going over the White House,
and so we come over there and we're up in
the residence and Trump brings up a couple of lawyers
from the White House Counsel's office and and they're smart guys,
(41:08):
but they were on the other side of this. And
we begin arguing. And I got to say, look, Lindsay
could judge the prevailing wins really quickly, and and he
could see that Trump was not buying what I was
selling that particular night. So Lindsey very quickly abandons me.
He just jumps out and he goes and sits with
with with with Trump, and I'm arguing with this lawyer
(41:28):
from the White House Council. I mean, we are slugging
it out. I mean it's it was a bare knuckle fight.
And Lindsey turns to Trump and said, who do you
think is winning? How they do it? And like Trump's
kind of laughing, and they're almost like color commentators watching
us have this legal argument. And then in the middle
(41:49):
of it, Trump calls one of one of the staff
of the White House and says, bring us some of
those pigs in a blanket, those those those little ord'ums.
So they bring a plate of pigs in the blanket
and this on for like three hours.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
No, so you guys straight up Trump the date night.
Speaker 3 (42:05):
Yeah, it blew up the date night. We ended up
not being persuasive that night, although I will say Lindsay
cut me loose so fast and any job. But he didn't,
like he admitted after He's like, yeah, you weren't winning,
So I wasn't gonna be with that. He's like, I'll
be behind you, way way way behind you.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
Right behind you. Yeah, around the corner.
Speaker 3 (42:25):
But it was the sort of thing that's that was
very much Lindsey Graham, and it's part of why Trump
listened to him, because he didn't win every argument, but
he was there to go again and to go again,
and it was really effective. And I'll tell you where
it mattered enormously. There's no area Lindsay and I worked
(42:47):
more closely on than Iran and standing up to the
incredible danger to America. If the Ayatota ever gets a
nuclear weapon, I think it's an existential threat to America.
I think if the Iahtola who chanced death to America
gets a nuclear weapon, I think the odds are unacceptably
high that that hundreds of thousands, or even millions of
(43:09):
Americans would be murdered, and Lindsay agreed with that, and
he and I worked hanned in hand over and over
and over again, talking with President Trump every week, sometimes
every day, saying you're exactly right to stand up to Iran.
The President has said repeatedly, Iran will never get a
nuclear weapon. There will be zero enrichment. And Lindsey was
(43:31):
an incredible ally. Uh that that that I've was fighting alongside,
and the President listened to us, which is part of
why we've seen, uh seen the President's incredible strong leadership
taking out Iran's military capacity and stopping them from getting
nuclear weapons. That that that was one of the most
(43:52):
important legacies Lindsay ever had.
Speaker 2 (43:54):
It's it's really incredible. We're gonna do something really fun
this week as well. That first podcast that you did
with your first guess was Lindsey Graham. We are gonna
put that out this week, so look for that on
the feed as well. Senator I, I I'm so glad
you got to talk about your friend. I mean this
so sincerely, I'm so sorry for your loss. When you
lose a friend, I've lost too many you lose them,
(44:15):
especially a sudden like this. It is gut wrenching. Uh,
hug your Hug your family, Hug your friends, call your friends,
check on your friends. I say that often to people
you just never know. Uh and and and uh, I'm
glad you've got to spend so much quality time with him.
Speaker 3 (44:31):
Well, he will be missed. He left a legacy that
that that was extraordinary. And I will say, whether you
agreed with him or disagreed with him, Lindsey loved this
country and and he devoted every waking moment of his
life to fighting for this country. That that was his mission.
(44:52):
And I admired that. I I admired that it was real,
it was genuine, and and he made a profound difference.
It is a good reminder Lindsay was just seventy one
years old. He was full of energy and vigor. To
be honest, if I were to pick one of my
colleagues who was not going to be making not gonna
make it, Lindsey would not have been on the list.
(45:13):
He had the energy that that he was unstoppable at energy.
And it's a good reminded all of us that that
that none of us are guaranteed to be here tomorrow.
So so hug your family, hug your kids and say
thanks to God for the for the privilege of living
in a time of consequence and making a difference in
(45:35):
our country. And I will say this, Lindsey Graham made
an enormous difference for our country.
Speaker 2 (45:40):
Amen to that, Senator Cruz. And I will see you
back here in a couple of days. We'll put out
that podcast with Lindsey Graham as well, so you can
if you missed it, you can hear it or you
can watch it.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
And uh.
Speaker 2 (45:51):
And to Lindsey Graham's family friends, we're thinking about them
as well. God bless you guys, and we'll see you
back here in a couple of days.
Welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
It is the Ben Ferguson Show, and it's good to
have you with us. We are talking about the sad
and shocking news about the passing of Lindsey Graham, a
man that is larger in life, a man that served
his country, a man that served in the military longer
than he served in the Senate or in public office.
That is one of the things a lot of people
(00:22):
don't know about Lindsey Graham. I'm going to walk you
through his life, his legacy, what happened, what the President
is saying, what Benjamin Nette Yahoo's saying, and what others
are saying as well. And before I get to that,
I'm also going to have a conversation that we just
did with Senator Ted Cruz talking about his dear friend
that he has lost.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Before we get to all that.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
As America celebrates its two hundred and fiftyth anniversary, this
milestone is also time to reflect on the enduring relationship
between the US and Israel, our greatest ally. President John F.
Kennedy once said Israel was not created in order to disappear.
Israel will endure and flourish. Now those words capture the
spirit of a young democracy determined to survive two nations
(01:06):
thousands of miles apart, yet united by shared values of democracy, faith, freedom,
and resilience. As America celebrates two hundred fifty years of independence,
the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews turns to God
in prayer, asking not only for his wisdom, but his
guidance for elected officials and to lead America and Israel
(01:28):
to moral clarity and national unity.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
I want to give you something.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
That I get to wear proudly on TV every day,
a free US Israel flagpen. All you have to do
to get this is go online to flag PENFCJ dot org.
That's flagpen IFCJ dot org to get your free US
Israel flagpen and stand with both nations flagpen if CJ
(01:55):
dot org. Now I want you to hear about the
life and legacy of Lindsay. I am what he meant
to those around him, including Senator Ted Cruz, as we
talk about some amazing stories about what they did together
in the Senate. Welcome it is verdict with Centator Ted Cruz,
Ben Ferguson with you, and this is going to be
one of those shows that is it's a hard one. Senator,
(02:16):
one of your best friends in the Senate, a dear
friend of yours, someone that I've gotten to know over
the last several gosh twenty plus years. You woke up
to the same shocking news that I did, that Lindsey
Graham had passed away suddenly. And this is someone that
you worked with and knew so well.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Look, this was a hard day. This was a shocking day.
I woke up, as so many people did across America,
with the news that Lindsay had passed away of what
has been reported to be a massive heart attack at
his home Saturday night. I was stunned. I had five
or six texts in my phone as I woke up,
(02:56):
and I just stared at them in disbelief. It did
not seem real. Uh. Lindsay was a good friend of mine.
Lindsay was He was one of a kind. He was
someone He and I did not always see eye to eye.
In fact, we battled on a lot of issues. But
but we also agreed on a whole bunch of issues.
And we were close allies fighting for years UH to
(03:21):
confirm conservative judges and conservative conservative justices. We were close
allies fighting to defend the Second Amendment. We were close
allies fighting to support the men and women of the military.
We were close allies fighting to to defend our national security,
to to stand with our allies, to stand with Israel,
(03:42):
and we were close allies standing up to America's enemies,
that especially Iran and and and Lindsay was someone he
was a force of nature. But his personality. I gotta say,
if you spent time with Lindsay, I think it was
impossible to discy like Lindsay. He was charming, he was
(04:03):
funny as hell, like just witty. For years I used
to say to Lindsay and John Kennedy, I'd ask each
of them, I don't know which one of you is funnier,
and they'd kind of both sort of bow up their
chests and get mad at eye. And I actually, I
do have a theory. I think John Kennedy is the
better stand up comedian. Like like if John Kennedy and
(04:26):
John prepares a fair amount of his material, but when
he's delivering it, he could be a professional comedian. Yes,
But Lindsey was wittier just sitting there. He would fire
zingers that you're like it was, and many of them
were self deprecating. He did not take himself too seriously.
He would make fun of himself like crazy he did.
(04:50):
And it was you know, I've traveled abroad with Lindsay
multiple times. He loved our country absolutely with a passion. Look,
Lindsey wasn't married, he didn't have kids. Every ounce of
his life was the Senate. He would travel all over
(05:11):
the world. I mean, it's just what he did. He
was out, you know, I think it was beautiful in
some ways fitting. So he had just come back from Ukraine.
He'd been meeting with President Zelensky. He came back to
the United States Saturday night. He was on the phone
with President Trump. And by the way, he was one
of President Trump's closest friends. And I say that without
(05:32):
exaggeration because Lindsay and Trump disagreed on a lot of issues.
But Trump loved the guy, and it was was hard.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
If you saw him talking about him on Meet the Press,
He's like he kind of had like unfeathered access to
the White House. He goes, he really did a lot
of people, but he was like Lindsay just came over
all the time.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
Loo.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
Look, Lindsay was like the Trump whisper. He would call Trump.
He talked to him early in the morning, he talked
to him late at night. He talked to them day
after day after day, and Trump would Trump didn't always
agree with him, but he would listen to him and Lindsey.
When Trump was really mad about at something, Lindsey could
kind of walk him back off that cliff a little bit.
Lindsey was like, and I've spent a lot of time
(06:15):
with Lindsay and Trump together, and the bond they had
was really special, and it was in some ways almost
a perfect distillation of his life. That he is in Ukraine,
he flies back to the United States, He's on the
phone with President Trump, and Sunday morning he was scheduled
to be on Meet the Press. It would have been
(06:35):
his sixty fourth appearance on Meet the Press.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
And that's a lot in politics.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
By the way, Meet the Press is kind of like
Saturday Night Live. If you're like a celebrity being on
Meet the Press. That's a number that I would love
to know what that is ranking compared to other Republicans.
You've done it a lot, but it's not sixty something times.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Now. I've done it a lot, but it's nowhere close
to that. And I try to be pretty deliberate I
do Sunday shows when I've got a particular message that
I'm trying to drive, Like, when there's a reason, I
try to be quite deliberate about doing it. Lindsey. Look, look,
I have two teenage daughters, I've got a wife, I've
got a family. I want to be back in Texas,
you know, with my family, and so a Sunday show
(07:19):
there had to be a reason to do it. Yeah, Lindsay,
part of what he was was just a warrior. Every day.
He'd go to the Sunday shows when the news were great.
He'd go to the Sunday shows when the news was terrible,
and like nobody wanted to be out there defending whatever
was on fire at that moment, and Lindsay was like,
I'll do it, and he would. Part of it is
he would do it in a cheerful, funny, affable way.
(07:41):
If things were a mess, he'd kind of acknowledge, yeah,
they're a mess, but you know, all right. It was
I literally have been been walking around in a daze
much of today because I mean I spent a lot
of time with Lindsay and we would go out and
I've been texting you guys.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
By the way, you shared a picture that probably on
your You guys were recently in Paris.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
So so, and this was just you know how iPhone
kind of randomly picks pictures.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
Now I'm sort of convinced our phones like spy on
us and know everything.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Yeah, but yeah, that's that is accurate. I agree with
you on that one.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
But bizarrely enough, today my iPhone kind of midday popped
up a picture of me and Lindsey and Katie Britt
and Eric Schmidt, all four of us in Paris, and
we're on a river boat and we're right in front
of the Eiffel Tower and we went for the eightieth
anniversary of D Day. It was an amazing trip. It
was a powerful, beautiful trip with you know, we got
(08:40):
to see these World War Two veterans who it's the
very tail end of their journey on Earth, and the
four of us are just arm in arm and it
was just beautiful. And I've been I've been texting and
talking to friends and colleagues and all of us are
just going, this doesn't seem real real, Yeah, I mean
(09:02):
it's you know, I did an interview with a reporter
today who said, who will fill the void? Who will
fill Lindsey Graham's shoes, And my answer is nobody. Nobody.
The role he played in the Senate, he was universally respected,
but also universally liked and even adored by people who
(09:23):
disagreed with him. Passionately he could be by the way,
the guy was as effective a cross examiner as I've
ever seen. Lindsay was a South Carolina trial lawyer, and
he could on the Judiciary Committee, the.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Two committees together.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
So people understand you guys, it wasn't just being like
centers together. You guys worked on committees as well.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
We worked Judiciary. We spent thousands of hours together. We
were on Senate Armed Services together, we were on Foreign
Relations together, and we just worked hand in hand on
a lot of issues. There are issues where we disagreed immigration.
Lindsay and I were in very different places, but there
were a lot of issues when Lindsey was with you.
(10:10):
I don't know that there was a more potent ally
in the Senate when he was with you. Yeah, and
it would he could be. Look it was I can't count.
There are a hundred different Senate Republican lunches when people
were having really passionate, sharp disagreements about something, and Lindsay
(10:32):
would stand up and say something, and he'd always have
a joke and people be double or laughing. There be
times when people are like screaming at each other, almost
ready to like, you know, take a swing at each other. Yeah,
and Lindsey would sort of cut the tension and bring
people back to the task at hand. You know, when
(10:52):
I'm in DC fairly regularly, I'll have dinner with other
senators and there's kind of a group of folks that
I invite that are sort of the like guys I
like hanging out with. And Lindsey was almost the auto invite,
because if Lindsay showed up at the table, your ribs
would hurt from laughing. And by the way, it wasn't
just that he was like telling jokes. He was just
(11:14):
insightful and smart and he cared. Look, look, whether he
loved his country or not.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
That's one of the things I don't think people understand
how much he loved this country.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
You mentioned.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Didn't have he wasn't married, he didn't have kids. His
family was America. His family was defending America. I said
this this morning on Fox and Friends. He had a
grand It was a love story with the United States
of America.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
Yes, I'll tell you. It was also with our military,
So Lindsay absolutely. Lindsay spent thirty three years in the
Air Force active duty.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
As a colonel.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
People don't know that he rose up to being a colonel.
I did tell him. I said, Lindsay, if the clowns
at the Pentagon ever try to give you a star,
damn it, I'm going to the Florida filibuster it. I
ain't calling you General Graham. You could be Potigram, but
just understand there's a hard ceiling. And and he basically
agreed with me and said, yeah, I sure hope they'll
(12:07):
make me a general. They shouldn't. I mean, I mean,
that's like a classic.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
He was.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
And I've been with him both in the US and
abroad where we would meet with service men and women,
and he had a connection to the men and women
of the armed services, a love affair where they loved
him and I would see them come up and like
hug him, and he would.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
He viewed it.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
As his mission. I'm going to fight for you. If
you're defending this country, if you signed up to be
in the military, I'm going to fight ferociously for you,
and that was it was real, It was sincere, It
was passionate. That was a beautiful thing.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
You know.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
I think one of the cool things about his services country.
I've got a lot of friends that sign up after
nine to eleven, and in politics some times they get
frustrated with people that serve their country and they go
to Washington and everything is based on why I was
in the military and you weren't kind of thing. He
didn't use his military service that day, and a lot
(13:12):
of people didn't realize that. Number one, he was a
colonel until he passed away. A lot of people didn't
realize he was in for thirty years. A lot of
you didn't realize he was in the reserves while serving
his country. In Congress, he continued to be in the
reserves and to continue to do that.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
But he didn't come in and.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Go, well, I would I serve it wasn't a trump
card for him, and it was it was. It was
He obviously fought hard for military and he fought hard
for things in a state that were related to military
and military complex and bases, but it wasn't his number
one thing on TV, like, well, let me tell you
why because I served and you didn't. He didn't use
(13:47):
it that way publicly.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
Never.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
A lot and a lot of people that I know
that are in the military and have recently retired that
gave twenty twenty five years, that's what they liked about
him the most.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Well. And look to understand, he grew up in modest
circumstances in South Carolina. He grew up his parents ran
a bar in a pool hall. And part of to
understand Lindsay's magic is he was like the best bartender
you've ever seen, who would smile and crack a joke
and and and whether you were celebrating a great thing
(14:21):
that happened in your life, or you were there weeping
because your wife just divorced you, or you just had
a death in the family, and and he could, he
could the charm that he brought, the sort of effortless
I remember years ago, I was at a Silver Elephant dinner,
which is the big Republican dinner in South Carolina, and
he was speaking there. And at the time, Ryan's Prebus
(14:44):
was the chairman of the r NC, and I think
Rynce was speaking at that dinner. This was a while ago,
but I think Ryance was speaking at that dinner. I
remember Lindsay got up and went, Right's previous, Ryan's previous.
What the hell is that is not like a French
electric car and like it brought the house down. I mean,
(15:07):
he would throw lines out there all the time, and
it was he also had a special gift for I
would say, earning the trust of and providing really valuable
counsel to extraordinarily volatile, larger than life figures. And two
(15:32):
in particular, John McCain and Donald Trump. Yes, now, look
John McCain. I served a lot of years with John.
When I arrived in the Senate, John McCain hated my guts.
In fact, he was quoted as saying I hate his
eff and guts. Like John and I battled in a
bloody way. Yes, over the years, John and I became friends.
(15:54):
But John was, you know, in terms of the history
of the Senate, John McCain was one of those legends
who have walked the halls of the Senate. I disagreed
with so many positions John had. But but the man
was a war hero. The man fought for a country
he was He was imprisoned in Vietnam, he was tortured,
He denied early release. I mean he was larger than life, yes,
(16:15):
and he could be volcanic like John's temper.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
It was real. It was real.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
Oh, I had been on this.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
I've been on the other end of that.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
You've been on the other end of that, and it
is let me tell you, I the talking to is
that I received earlier in my career were brutal when
I got them.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
Lindsey was John McCain's best friend in the Senate and
he was the McCain whisperer. I mean, it was an
amazing thing. And Lindsey would kind of soften John's you know,
he come in and pound the hell out of someone
and Lindsey start to cut a joke and like, you
know men, Yeah, it.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Was Joe Aberman said he spoke Democrat and Republican. Well
is I think the way he described it, he could.
He could, he could, and he could speak McCain, which
was really important.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
And he also speaks Trump like, look their times, just
like John McCain, we get really pissed off. There are times,
this is no secret, when Donald Trump gets pissed off
and when he's angry and he's like on a tear.
Lindsey we kind of all say, Lindsey, go on in
there and sort of talk him down, and Lindsey could.
It was an amazing thing. He'd just sort of laugh
(17:24):
a little bit, and you know, Trump would yell at him,
and he'd make Trump laugh and it would just soften
the whole thing. He had a gift for that. And
it was not just because he wanted people to like him.
He had a gift because he was trying to get
these these great men. He was trying to move them
in what he believed was a positive direction for America.
And it was a beautiful thing to watch him do that.
(17:50):
I will say, Lindsey, some of y'all who listened to
Verdict may not know this. Lindsey Graham was the very
first guest yes in the history of Verdict. Like when
we had just launched this show. This show launched on
the first night of the very first Trump impeachment, and
the show went from zero. Look, before we launched, we
(18:10):
had zero viewers, zero listeners. Yeah, it's skyrocketed up the
charts and it became the number one ranked podcast in
the world. And as we're doing it, and we would
do it every night. This was Peb pre Ben this
is what I was doing with Michael Knowles, who is
a great friend of both of ours. Yeah, and it
(18:32):
would be every night after the impeachment trial. We'd go
and do a Verdict that night and put it out
real time. And Lindsey came, all right, I want you
to watch the cold open for our show that Lindsey
recorded as our very first guest ever.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
All right, take a listen. This is again the cold
open Lindsey Graham, the first guest on Verdict back in
the day.
Speaker 4 (18:55):
Hello, I'm Senner Lindsey Graham. Welcome to Verdict with Ted Cruz,
the number one in the entire country.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
What is a podcast?
Speaker 5 (19:11):
Welcome back to Verdict with Ted Cruz.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
I'm Michael Knowles.
Speaker 5 (19:14):
I'm joined by not one, but two US Senators to
help us break down the most shocking day of the
entire impeachment trial. Senator Graham, thank you so much for
being here at VI Here, gentlemen, the last time that
we sat down, I was told this impeachment was going
to drag on for weeks. We were going to get witnesses,
we were gonna get Bolton, we were gonna get Hunter Biden.
This was going to get long and ugly. I go
(19:36):
to sleep, I wake up today and the senators are
voting no more witnesses. This thing could be over next week,
Senator Cruz, what happened?
Speaker 3 (19:45):
Well, today was a big day. And let me say, Lindsey,
thank you, well you I appreciate your coming. This is
late at night. We spent all day.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
In the setting, a lot of money on production.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
Sorry, well, this was you're right yesterday. If the vote
had gone differently today, this trial could have gone on
for months. We could have seen it drag on and
on and on. And it was a big deal. It
was up in the air, and today was the most
important vote we've had in the.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Entire By the way, I love it. Even there he
cracked a joke.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
He's like, you're not spent a lot on production, Like
he had to get his zinger in there.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
That's just what made Lindsay lindsay.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
Well, and look at the time, we were filming Verdict
in a basement studio about a mile from Capitol Hill,
and so we drove there after the day of the trial.
It was like midnight and you went to this basement studio,
You walked at a dark alley and you walked down
these like concrete stairs and listen. Lindsay and I at
(20:40):
the time were not actually that close of friends. We
had been more adversaries than friends. Our friendship developed over
the years. And as we're walking down the stairs, he's like,
I feel like Joe Peshi and Goodfellas, are you getting
ready to whack me? Because like we're like walking into
a dark basement in the middle of nowhere. And he
(21:01):
looks around. In our studio, we had this this shag
carpet out of the nineteen seventies. We had these big,
old brown leather chairs. We had these giant microphones, kind
of like we still have the giant microphones. Yeah, and
he says, on this show, the cactus don't Yeah, Okay,
I miss miss our cactus. Our cactus is still our
cactus is still part of the Verdict family. But he
(21:25):
looked around and head said this on the podcast, He's like,
you guys are the number one podcast in the world.
Who the hell is number two? Some guy in a
van by the river like it was. It was side splitting,
but but that charm it had real power because it
(21:49):
would cause people to listen. It would break through and listen.
He was not always joking. If you were to think
of the singular moment, what is the number one thing
people remember that Lindsey Graham did, And I'm going to
suggest it was when during the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
I was gonna say no doubt Brett kavanall and saving
Brett Kavanaugh from the insanity of the left that we're
accusing him of the most horrific crimes without any evidence,
making it up as they went trying to destroy him
the same way they went after Clarence Thomas very much,
but in a TMZ twenty twenty plus year type of
going after him, just more vile social media. You didn't
(22:32):
have that with a Clarence Thomas, right, Like Clarence Thomas
was ABCNBC, CNN, it was mainstream now. They were trying
to assassinate Brett Kavanaugh's integrity and they were using all
social media to try to accomplish it well.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
And Lindsey unloaded on the Democrats and it changed the
entire dynamics of the hearing. I want you most of
y'all have seen and heard this, but I want you
to give a listen again, because I think there's a
real argument without Lindsay doing this Brett Kavanaugh may not
get confirmed. Give a listen to Lindsay Ath the hearing.
Speaker 4 (23:03):
Are you aware that at nine to twenty three on
the night of July the ninth, the day you were
nominated to the Supreme Court by President Trump, Senator Schumer
said twenty three minutes after your nomination, I will oppose
Judge Kavanaugh's nomination with everything I have. I have a bypartison,
and I hope a by person majority will do the same.
(23:26):
The stakes are simply too high for anything less. Well,
if you weren't aware of it, you are now. Did
you meet with Senator Diane Feinstein on August twentieth? I
did meet with Centa Finese. Did you know that her
staff had already recommended a lawyer to dodnor Ford.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
I did not know that.
Speaker 4 (23:44):
Did you know that her and her staff had this
allegations for over twenty days?
Speaker 3 (23:50):
I did not know that at the time.
Speaker 4 (23:52):
If you wanted an FBI investigation, you could have come
to us. What you want to do is destroy this
guy's life, hold the seat open, and hope you went
in twenty twenty you've said that, not me. You've got
nothing to apologize for. When you see soda. Maron Kagan
tell him that Lindsay said, Oh, because I voted for them,
(24:15):
I would never do to them what you've done.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
To this guy.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
This is the most unethical sham since I've been in politics.
And if you really wanted to know the truth, you
sure as hell wouldn't have done what you've done to
this guy. Are you a gang rapist?
Speaker 5 (24:34):
No?
Speaker 4 (24:35):
I cannot imagine what you and your family have gone through. Boy,
y'all want power. God, I hope you never get it.
I hope the American people can see through this sham
that you knew about it and you held it. You
had no intention of protecting doctor fort none. She's as
much of a victim as you are.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
God.
Speaker 4 (24:56):
I hate to say it because these have been my friends,
but I'll tell you when it comes to this, you're
looking for a fair process. You came to the wrong
town at the wrong time.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
My friend, Senator, you look at that frustration. That was genuine.
It wasn't inauthentic, It wasn't something that was a pre
planned moment.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
It wasn't scripted.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
We've see a lot of scripted moments from politicians these days,
and some of these hearings are it's all pre organized,
pre planned protesters involved. That was real and raw and
as you mentioned, and I think you should explain a
little bit more.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
This forced and change the direction that hearing was going.
Speaker 4 (25:39):
Well.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
And listen Lindsey's career. For a lot of his career,
he's been a very bipartisan senator. Senator, He's worked with
a lot of Democrats. As he noted, he voted to
confirm both Justice Sotomayor and Justice Kagan, and the Democrats
were all happy with him. They were all lovey dove
And so when he says, look, I would never do
to them what you're doing to Brett Kavanaugh, I had
(26:00):
power to it. I was sitting there at the DAAs
when when Lindsay was unloading, and you could have heard
a pin drop in the room, you know, the silence
when he asked Brett Kavanaugh, are you a gang rapist?
And Brett says no, and Lindsey's just silent for about
four seconds, and the entire silence, there's not a peep
(26:23):
in the hearing room. That was a riveting moment. And
by the way, you mentioned Clarence Thomas. Clarence Thomas is
on the Supreme Court because during his confirmation hearing, the
Democrats did the same thing, which is they sand bagged
him with allegations from Anita Hill. And the American people
heard Anita Hill's testimony in Clarence Thomas's and by a
(26:45):
margin of about two to one, they believe Justice Thomas.
The same thing happened with Brett Kavanaugh. That's why Clarence
Thomas got confirmed. That's why Brett Kavanaugh got confirmed. And
Lindsey's that moment there played I think a real part
in people assessing and saying, way to this is not
a real inquiry, This is not a fair assessment. This
is a political slime job. These guys had these allegations
(27:08):
for weeks. They sat on them, they held them back.
This is it is a drive by shooting by partisans
who just want power. That was what was effective. And
I'll tell you so. My mom, Ben, You know my mom.
She's love my mom. She's ninety one, about to be
ninety two in November. She is as conservative it can be.
My mom thinks you and I are a little wobbly.
(27:30):
She is a rock rib conservative.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
By the way, I don't know if I ever said
this on the show. I've never had more fun hanging
out with your mom than than your reelection night. Watching
her be excited, watching her son not a senator, her
son when reelection.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
And just the beaming joy on her face.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
You weren't there when in that part you were busy,
and she came in and she was just so happy,
and I was like, this might be my favorite moment
the whole night.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
So my mom, prior to the Kavanaugh hearing, was not
a Lindsey Graham fan. She mostly knew Lindsay because he
and I had battled a lot on immigration. We had
very different views on immigration, and so that's, you know,
anyone who fights her son my mom doesn't like. And
so when that cross examined examination ends, my mother sends
(28:24):
me a text and says, okay, I now love Lindsey Graham.
And I actually got up a few minutes later and
I walked over to Lindsay and I pulled out my phone.
I said, Lindsay, here's a text I just got from
my mom, and I clicked on it and he cracked
up laughing, And then my mother proceeded to go to
(28:48):
his website and to give him thirty five dollars.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Are you serious? That's what I am.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
I am serious, And I told him, I said, Lindsay,
in my entire time in politics, my mother's never con
tributed to my campaign and she's given you money like
it was And he loved that. But it was look,
he could be when he was engaged in a fight.
He was as effective a warrior as you could see.
(29:19):
And that was powerful. And it was he and I
worked together. Look, you look last summer, the working Family's
tax cut, the big reconciliation bill, which we've talked a
lot about on this podcast. I still think it's the
legislation that has the most conservative victories in it of
any bill that's ever passed at a law. Yeah, Lindsay
(29:42):
was the chairman of the Budget Committee, and the Budget
committee plays a critical part in reconciliation has to pass
the budget resolution to begin with, Lindsay and I worked
hand in hand. I don't know that we win that
reconciliation battle without Lindsay's leadership as chairman of the Budget Committee,
and he would There were times when people are you know, look,
(30:04):
our majority is not always rock solid. You have people
that run off this way, run off that way, and
to get fifty votes to yes is really, really hard
and Lindsay was awfully good at it.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
He was all making friends.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
I mean, that's one of the lost arts in politics,
I think, is just how good he was at making
friends and making friends that he disagreed with in his
own party and making friends on other side. But he
also had just a way of understanding when there's moments
to laugh and not.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
I told this earlier. I was young. I don't think
I've ever told you this story.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
It was probably two thousand and five or six seven,
somewhere in there, and it was something to deal with
Iraq or Afghanistan. And I was on I think it
was Shepherd Smith's show on Fox back in the day,
and they asked me directly about Len's and something he'd said.
They played the soot come out of it, they asked me,
and I was pretty blunt and I was like, I
(31:06):
strongly disagree with him.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
YadA, YadA, YadA. I get done.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
And it was one of those you don't know it's
coming moments, welcome to live TV, And so I gave
my assessment. I get done Centater within probably a minute.
I was not out of the seat yet. My phone rings. Now,
if you're twenty something in your phone rings and it's
a senator like that's like it's you know, you answer right,
So I answer it. It's two two number and it's
(31:31):
Lindsey Graham. I don't know who he got my number from.
And I answer and he starts just unloading on me,
telling me why I'm wrong.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
But it was all a ruse.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
He was messing with me because he was down the
hall in the green room at Fox, knowing he was
gonna see me in twenty seconds. So I'm on the
phone walking out of the studio and it's you know,
the hallway there, it's a short hallway you go down
make it's on the left, green rooms on the right,
and I'm hearing the conversation in my ear delayed and
I'm hearing his voice and I walk in and we'd
(32:01):
never met before, like never had met before that moment,
and I'm on the phone with him and he looks
at me and goes, gotcha, and that was it, like
he didn't mind that was ripping on him. And I
walked in there, we laughed and he talked to me
for a minute, but he literally just wanted to mess
with me, like it was like the perfect you know
joke there and that's how he was.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
But like after that, it was hard. He was smart.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
It was harder for me to go after him on
TV because I liked him personally from that moment of him.
He could have been a jerk, he wasn't. He saw
the humor in the moment and was like, I'm gonna
mess with this guy, and it was.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
It was a brilliant political move.
Speaker 3 (32:37):
And that's who Lindsay was. I don't know a single
senator out of ninety nine other senators who didn't didn't
like genuinely like Lindsay and consider him a friend like
all of them. And it was a gift. And by
the way, I've been in Senate lunches, and we've talked
about a lot of those Senate lunches on this podcast,
where things got raw and bare knuckles, and on foreign policy, look,
(33:04):
Lindsey was an interventionist. He was an aggressive interventionist in
the style of John McCain. He believed it, it was honest,
but he was very much an interventionist. We've had lunches
where Lindsey and Rand Paul would scream at each other
and Lindsay Rand is very much an isolationists. Lindsay and
by the way, I'm in the middle of both of them.
(33:25):
I agree with with with with Lindsay about half the
time and Rand about half the time. I've also been
in lunches where Lindsay and JD Vance would be screaming
at each other. JD Is is much more of an
isolationist and disagreed with Lindsay. Like on Ukraine. I mean
they would go at it where JD Vance wanted us
to get the hell out of Ukraine yesterday, Lindsey was
(33:48):
passionate on the other side, and they would slug it out.
You know. JD put out a very kind and gracious
tweet today actually telling that story, saying, look, you know,
Lindsay has yelled at me, but I respected him and
he was my friend. And actually I saw a clip
today that I've never seen before. So Blake Masters, Blake
Masters ran for Senate in Arizona. I like Blake. I
(34:09):
went and campaigned for him. He didn't win. I wish
Blake had won, but he did not. Uh and uh,
you know, Blake Is is more on the isolation side
of things. He's more with with Rand and JD. And
on Ukraine he was a vocal opponent of the Ukraine conflict.
And it's interesting Lindsey went to campaign for Blake and
(34:30):
and they asked him, all, wait a second, you guys
disagree on Ukraine. I want you to listen to to
Lindsey's response as the he's there campaigning for a guy
with whom he has sharp disagreements on foreign policy.
Speaker 4 (34:42):
Give a listen, remember my race, Remember Lindsey Graham dot com.
Anybody watch Sean Hannity. So I was on Sean Hannity
three nights a week, Blake saying they're gonna shoot my
dog tomorrow at midnight if you don't give me I
know you're.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
Living on cat food, but you can.
Speaker 4 (35:03):
You can spare a few bucks here, people responded, My
opponent raised one hundred and thirty two million dollars against me,
the most in the history of the Senate. Man why
across the cabin they hated my guts. They wanted to
destroy the guy's life. I sort of got in the way.
That's the way these people are, right. There's nothing they
(35:24):
won't do for power. So the reason people responded to
me is you don't have to agree with me all
the time, but when there's a fight, I will.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
Show up he shows up, he's not lying when he
says that.
Speaker 3 (35:37):
Yeah, And look, he would joke all the time, like
when he was running for reelection the last time. He
would go on on Hannity, to go on Fox News
and he'd say Lindsey Graham dot Comlinsy Graham dot Comlinsy
Graham dot com. And he was shameless. I mean, he
was like, Hi, my name is Lindsay Graham dot com.
He would raise money and he'd say, he'd say, if
you're a little old lady and you're trying to feed
your cat, don't feed your cat tonight, go and give
(35:57):
me money instead. And it would people would crack up,
but they would do it. But so Blake masters who
lost that race. He tweeted out that video. But here's
what he said in his tweet, which is interesting. Blake said,
quote once when a donor asked Senator Graham, why are
you helping Blake given how much you two disagree on
(36:18):
foreign policy? He replied with a grin, So Blake's wrong
about Ukraine. Who gives a shit. We aren't here to
talk about how correct I am all the time. We're
here to talk about getting the Senate majority because I
want to be chairman of my committees, and Blake continues,
(36:39):
Lindsey was cheerful and determined, and he understood that he
played a team sport. May his memory be eternal. That's
pure Lindsey Graham. He could disagree with you, and Lord
knows he and I did, but it wasn't personally, wasn't
angry with you, and and that sort of joy. Look,
it is amazing the number of times you look at
(37:02):
his relationship with Trump. Lindsay was a huge Trump critic,
and he ran against him, said he was going to
destroy the world. But by the way, you look at me,
all right, So in the presidential look, Lindsay ran against Trump,
ran against me. And in the course of that campaign,
Lindsay said, you know, if you killed Ted on the
(37:23):
Senate floor and the Senate was the jury, nobody could
convict you. I can admit that that was funny as hell.
I like laughed. I'm like, all right, that's a hell
of a line. Now, Lindsay ended up not prevailing in
that race. Obviously, he dropped out. And after Lindsay dropped out,
he endorsed my campaign. So he came and endorsed my campaign,
(37:44):
and he campaigned with me for president twenty sixteen, and
and Lindsey said, at the time, he and I were
doing a fundraiser together, and I stood up and I said,
you know, I got to say, this is the first
time in my life I've ever been endorsed by someone
who's publicly called for my And that was kind of
(38:04):
how Lindsay was. He He had, you know, in the
same time. You know, he and Trump would battle like crazy,
but Trump just liked him and it was real, and
Lindsey liked Trump. Lindsey saw the power. Look, Trump has
a cast iron backbone, he has courage, and and Lindsey
(38:25):
saw the historic value of President Trump's strength and it
was really important. Now, all right, I'll give you another
story from from first term Trump. We were having a
disputed about funding the border wall, and the President wanted
to sign and was going to sign an emergency declaration
(38:45):
and use the emergency powers of the president to shift
funding to the border wall. I came up with a
different legal theory that would let him build the border wall,
let him build every penny of the border wall one
hundred percent, but not do it through an emergency declaration.
And my concern was, look, if you create the president
for doing this. The next Democrat president, the next if
(39:07):
we have a President Bernie Sanders or President Elizabeth Warren,
they're going to declare an emergency on climate change. They're
going declare an emergency on gun violence and use it
to justify all sorts of bad policies. So I had
a second theory that would have done one hundred percent
of the upside without the downside of the bad president.
And I pitched it to Lindsay, and Lindsay was like, yeah,
that makes sense. And so Lindsey and I spent a
(39:29):
day trying to call the President and pitch this theory.
And at the time, the White House staff did not
want Lindsay and me to talk to the president, so
they were blocking us. They were preventing us from getting
through to the president.
Speaker 1 (39:42):
The oldest trick in Washington is that one right there.
Speaker 3 (39:46):
And so we were sitting there, it was getting to
be maybe seven seven thirty at night, we were on
the Senate floor, and we were both frustrated because for
twenty four hours we'd been calling the president, we hadn't
gotten through. And I finally said to Lindsay, screw it,
Let's get in the car and drive over there. He's
like what, and I'm like, yeah, let's just go over
there right now. He's like all right, let's go. And
then oddly enough, a third senator jumped in the car,
(40:09):
Ben Sass, who was another friend but he was just
kind of standing there, and Ben's like, oh, I'll go.
And so the three of us drove over and we're
literally we're not invited. We're uninvited.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
We're just you're not the list.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
And by the way, people need to understand, there's two
gates you go through, and if you're not on the list,
they look at you like you're an alien.
Speaker 3 (40:26):
Okay, So we're driving over and and Lindsey calls and
actually gets Trump on the phone as we're driving over,
and he's like, yeah, we're coming over right now. And
Trump was getting ready to have dinner with Milania and
it was like their first like couple's dinner, a romatic
dinner in like a month, and Lindsay's like, no, we
(40:47):
need to see you right now. And so we go
up to the residence and Trump is pissed. He is
madder than a hornet because like, his whole date night
has been blown up by us going over the White House,
and so we come over there and we're up in
the residence and Trump brings up a couple of lawyers
from the White House Counsel's office and and they're smart guys,
(41:08):
but they were on the other side of this. And
we begin arguing. And I got to say, look, Lindsay
could judge the prevailing wins really quickly, and and he
could see that Trump was not buying what I was
selling that particular night. So Lindsey very quickly abandons me.
He just jumps out and he goes and sits with
with with with Trump, and I'm arguing with this lawyer
(41:28):
from the White House Council. I mean, we are slugging
it out. I mean it's it was a bare knuckle fight.
And Lindsey turns to Trump and said, who do you
think is winning? How they do it? And like Trump's
kind of laughing, and they're almost like color commentators watching
us have this legal argument. And then in the middle
(41:49):
of it, Trump calls one of one of the staff
of the White House and says, bring us some of
those pigs in a blanket, those those those little ord'ums.
So they bring a plate of pigs in the blanket
and this on for like three hours.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
No, so you guys straight up Trump the date night.
Speaker 3 (42:05):
Yeah, it blew up the date night. We ended up
not being persuasive that night, although I will say Lindsay
cut me loose so fast and any job. But he didn't,
like he admitted after He's like, yeah, you weren't winning,
So I wasn't gonna be with that. He's like, I'll
be behind you, way way way behind you.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
Right behind you. Yeah, around the corner.
Speaker 3 (42:25):
But it was the sort of thing that's that was
very much Lindsey Graham, and it's part of why Trump
listened to him, because he didn't win every argument, but
he was there to go again and to go again,
and it was really effective. And I'll tell you where
it mattered enormously. There's no area Lindsay and I worked
(42:47):
more closely on than Iran and standing up to the
incredible danger to America. If the Ayatota ever gets a
nuclear weapon, I think it's an existential threat to America.
I think if the Iahtola who chanced death to America
gets a nuclear weapon, I think the odds are unacceptably
high that that hundreds of thousands, or even millions of
(43:09):
Americans would be murdered, and Lindsay agreed with that, and
he and I worked hanned in hand over and over
and over again, talking with President Trump every week, sometimes
every day, saying you're exactly right to stand up to Iran.
The President has said repeatedly, Iran will never get a
nuclear weapon. There will be zero enrichment. And Lindsey was
(43:31):
an incredible ally. Uh that that that I've was fighting alongside,
and the President listened to us, which is part of
why we've seen, uh seen the President's incredible strong leadership
taking out Iran's military capacity and stopping them from getting
nuclear weapons. That that that was one of the most
(43:52):
important legacies Lindsay ever had.
Speaker 2 (43:54):
It's it's really incredible. We're gonna do something really fun
this week as well. That first podcast that you did
with your first guess was Lindsey Graham. We are gonna
put that out this week, so look for that on
the feed as well. Senator I, I I'm so glad
you got to talk about your friend. I mean this
so sincerely, I'm so sorry for your loss. When you
lose a friend, I've lost too many you lose them,
(44:15):
especially a sudden like this. It is gut wrenching. Uh,
hug your Hug your family, Hug your friends, call your friends,
check on your friends. I say that often to people
you just never know. Uh and and and uh, I'm
glad you've got to spend so much quality time with him.
Speaker 3 (44:31):
Well, he will be missed. He left a legacy that
that that was extraordinary. And I will say, whether you
agreed with him or disagreed with him, Lindsey loved this
country and and he devoted every waking moment of his
life to fighting for this country. That that was his mission.
(44:52):
And I admired that. I I admired that it was real,
it was genuine, and and he made a profound difference.
It is a good reminder Lindsay was just seventy one
years old. He was full of energy and vigor. To
be honest, if I were to pick one of my
colleagues who was not going to be making not gonna
make it, Lindsey would not have been on the list.
(45:13):
He had the energy that that he was unstoppable at energy.
And it's a good reminded all of us that that
that none of us are guaranteed to be here tomorrow.
So so hug your family, hug your kids and say
thanks to God for the for the privilege of living
in a time of consequence and making a difference in
(45:35):
our country. And I will say this, Lindsey Graham made
an enormous difference for our country.
Speaker 2 (45:40):
Amen to that, Senator Cruz. And I will see you
back here in a couple of days. We'll put out
that podcast with Lindsey Graham as well, so you can
if you missed it, you can hear it or you
can watch it.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
And uh.
Speaker 2 (45:51):
And to Lindsey Graham's family friends, we're thinking about them
as well. God bless you guys, and we'll see you
back here in a couple of days.
Host
Ben Ferguson
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