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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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
It is Verdict with Center Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you,
and this is going to be one of those shows
that is It's a hard one.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Center.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
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 Lindsay
Graham had passed away suddenly. And this is someone that
you worked with and knew so well.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
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,
(00:49):
and I just stared at them in disbelief. It did
not seem real. Lindsey was a good friend of mine.
Lindsey 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
we also agreed on a whole bunch of issues, and
we were close allies fighting for years to confirm conservative
(01:14):
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 defend our national security, to
stand with our allies, to stand with Israel. And we
(01:35):
were close allies standing up to America's enemies, that especially Iran.
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 dislike Lindsay.
He was charming. He was funny as hell, like just
(01:59):
witty for you. 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 E and I. Actually, I do have a theory.
I think John Kennedy is the better stand up comedian.
Like like if John Kennedy and John prepares a fair
(02:20):
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. And it was you know,
(02:44):
I've traveled abroad with Lindsey multiple times. He loved our
country absolutely with a passion. Look, Lindsay wasn't married, he
didn't have kids. Every ounce of his life was the Senate.
He would travel all over the world. I mean, it's
just what he did. He was out, you know, I
(03:08):
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 exaggeration because Lindsay and Trump
disagreed on a lot of issues. But Trump loved the guy,
(03:32):
and it was was hard.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
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 3 (03:44):
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 him 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, Lindsay
could kind of walk him back off that cliff a
little bit. Lindsey was like, and I've spent a lot
(04:06):
of time 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
(04:27):
would have been his sixty fourth appearance on Meet the Press.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
And that's a lot in politics.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
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 (04:48):
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 re and
I try to be quite deliberate about doing it. Lindsay, 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
(05:11):
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 do the Sunday shows where 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,
(05:32):
affable way. 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 (05:50):
By the way, you shared a picture that probably up
on your phone. You guys were recently in.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Paris, so so, and this was just you know how
iPhone kind of randomly picks pictures. Now, I'm sort of
convinced our phones like spy on us and know everything.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Yeah, but yeah, that's that is accurate. I agree with
you on that one.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
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
(06:32):
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
(06:54):
it's you know, I did an interview with a reporter
today who said, who 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
(07:16):
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 2 (07:33):
Two committees together, So people understand you guys, it wasn't
just being like centers together. You guys worked on committees
as well.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
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.
(08:03):
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
(08:24):
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
(08:44):
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
it hurt from laughing. And by the way, it wasn't
just that he was like telling jokes. He was just
(09:06):
insightful and smart and he cared.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Look, look, whether he loved his country, that's one of
the things he I don't think people understand how much
he loved this country. You mentioned 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 (09:30):
Yes, I'll tell you. It was also with our military,
So lindsaysolutely. Lindsey spent thirty three years in the Air Force,
active duties.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
As a colonel. People don't know that.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
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 Colonel Graham, but just understand there's a
hard ceiling. And and he basically agreed with me and said, yeah,
I sure hope that I'll make be a general. They should.
(10:01):
I mean, I mean, that's like a classic he was.
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
(10:21):
him and I would see them come up and like
hug him, and he would he viewed it 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
(10:42):
a beautiful thing. You know.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
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 sometimes 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 saying he didn't
use his military service that night. And a lot of
(11:04):
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 (11:18):
But he didn't come in and.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
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.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
He didn't use it that way publicly.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
Never.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
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 (11:49):
Well, And look to understand Lindsay, 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
(12:13):
thing 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
(12:36):
previous 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
(12:59):
mean 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
(13:24):
two 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,
(13:46):
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 the man was
a war hero, the man 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,
(14:07):
and he could be volcanic like John's temper.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
It was real. It was real. Oh I had been
I've been on the other end of that. You've been
on the other end of that, and it is.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Let me tell you, I the talking to is that
I received earlier in my career were brutal when I
got them.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
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 was.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Joeberman 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 (14:54):
And he also speaks Trump like. Look their times, just
like John McCain. We get 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 a
(15:16):
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.
(15:42):
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
(16:02):
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
(16:24):
would be every night after the impeachment trial. We'd go
into 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 (16:41):
Yeah, before we play that, and it's just it's gonna
make you laugh. I want to talk to you about
something really important right now. And most people think that
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(17:04):
over four hundred and thirty thousand abortions while receiving more
than eight hundred and thirty million dollars in government reimbursements
and grants. That's our money being used in the lives
of innocent preborn babies. And at the same time, one
of the longest running newspapers in the United States revealed
(17:24):
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(18:53):
This is again the Cold Open Lindsey Graham, the first
guest on Verdict back in the day.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Hello, I'm sinner instam.
Speaker 4 (19:00):
Welcome to Verdict with Ted Cruz, the number one podcast
in the entire country.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
What is a podcast?
Speaker 5 (19:15):
Welcome back to Verdict with Ted Cruz. I'm Michael Knowles.
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. Ad to be 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
(19:35):
get witnesses, we were going to get Bolton, we were
gonna get Hunter Biden. This was going to get long
and ugly. I go 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 (19:48):
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 in.
Speaker 4 (19:56):
The setting a lot of money on production.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
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 (20:15):
Entire By the way, I love it. Even there he
cracked a joke.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
He's like, you're not spent a lot on production, Like
he had to get his zinger in there.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
That's just what made Lindsay lindsay.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
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
(20:44):
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 we're like walking
into a dark basement in the middle of nowhere. And
(21:05):
he 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. Yea, And
he says on the 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
(21:29):
looked around and he 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. Yeah, because
(21:53):
it 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 (22:13):
I was gonna say no doubt Brett Kavanaugh and saving
Brett Kavanaugh from the insanity of the left that were
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 Klarence Thomas very much,
but in a TMZ twenty twenty plus year type of
going after him, just more vile social media. You didn't
(22:36):
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.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
It well, 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 at
the hearing.
Speaker 4 (23:07):
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
by parson. I hope a by person majority will do
(23:29):
the same. 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 Fine Sine. Did you know that
her staff had already recommended a lawyer to doctor Ford?
I did not know that. Did you know that her
and her staff had this allegations for over twenty days?
Speaker 1 (23:54):
I did not know that at the time.
Speaker 4 (23:56):
If you wanted an FBI investigation, you could have come
to us. What you want to do is destroy this
guy's life, hold this seat open, and hope you went
in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
You've said that, not me.
Speaker 4 (24:10):
You've got nothing to apologize for. When you see Soda
Maron Kagan, tell him that Lindsay said, oh, because I
voted for them, I would never do to them what
you've done to this guy. This is the most unethical
sham since I've been in politics. And if you really
(24:30):
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? No? 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,
(24:50):
and you held it. You had no intention of protecting
doctor Ford none. She's as much of a victim as
you are. I hate to say that because these have
been my friends, but let me tell you, when it
comes to this, you're looking for a fair process. You
came to the wrong town at the wrong time, My friend.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
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 (25:23):
It wasn't scripted.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
We've see a lot of scripted moments from politicians these days,
and some of these hearings there it's all pre organized,
pre planned.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Protesters involved.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
That was real and raw, and as you mentioned, and
I think you should explain a little bit more. This
forced and changed the direction that hearing was going well.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
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 love w
and so when he says, look, I would never do
to them what you're doing to Brett Kavanaugh, that had
(26:04):
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
(26:27):
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
(26:49):
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, wait a second, this is
not a real inquiry, This is not a fair assessment.
This is a political slime job. These guys had these
(27:11):
allegations 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 I 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.
(27:34):
She is a rock rib conservative.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
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 your reelection night, watching her
be excited, watching her son not a Senator her son
yea when reelection and just the beaming joy on her face.
You weren't there when in that part, you were busy
and she came in and she he was just so happy,
(28:01):
and I was like, this might be my favorite moment
of the whole night.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
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
(28:28):
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
(28:52):
his website and to give him thirty five dollars Are
you serious that I'm I'm serious? And I told him,
I said, Lindsay, in my entire time in politics, my
mother's never contributed 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
(29:16):
a fight. He was as effective a warrior as you
could see. 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
(29:37):
it's the legislation that has the most conservative victories in
it of any bill that's ever passed at a law
h Lindsay 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
(29:57):
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, 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 Lindsey was awfully good
(30:22):
at it.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
He was all making friends.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
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 the side. But he
also had just a way of understanding when there's moments
to laugh and not.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
I told this earlier. I was young. I don't think
I've ever told you this story.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
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 Shepard Smith's show on Fox back in the day,
and they asked me directly about Lindsey Graham and something
he'd said. They played the soot come out of it,
they asked me, and I was pretty blunt and I
(31:09):
was like, I strongly disagree with him.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
YadA, YadA, YadA. I get done.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
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
(31:34):
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. But it was all a ruse.
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,
(31:55):
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
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.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
That was it, Like he didn't mind that was ripping
on him.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
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. But
like after that, it was hard. He was smart. It
was harder for me to go after him on TV
because I liked him personally.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
From that moment of him. He could have been a jerk,
he wasn't.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
He saw the humor in the moment and was like,
I'm gonna mess with this guy, and it was.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
It was a brilliant political move.
Speaker 3 (32:41):
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 sent lunches, and we've talked
about a lot of those senator lunches on this podcast,
where things got raw and bare knuckles and on foreign policy. Look,
(33:08):
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.
(33:29):
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
(33:52):
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. Say, 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
(34:13):
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
(34:34):
and they asked him. Well, 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 (34:46):
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.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
If you don't get me.
Speaker 4 (35:04):
I know you're living on cat food, but you can.
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.
(35:25):
That's the way these people are, right, there's nothing they
want to 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
show up.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
He shows up. He's not lying when he says that.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
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
(36:01):
me money instead. And people would crack up, but they
would do it. But so Blake masters who lost us
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
(36:22):
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,
(36:43):
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
(37:05):
his relationship with Trump. Lindsay was a huge Trump critic. Yeah,
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
(37:27):
Senate floor and the Senate was the jury, nobody could
convict you. I can admit 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
(37:47):
campaign and he campaigned with me for president twenty sixteen.
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 murder. And that was kind
(38:08):
of 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
(38:28):
Lindsey 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 dispute about funding the border wall, and the President
wanted to sign and was going to sign an emergency
(38:48):
declaration 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 hundred percent, but not do it through an emergency declaration.
And my concern was, look, if you create the precedent
for doing this the next Democrat president, the next if
(39:11):
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
(39:33):
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 (39:46):
The oldest trick in Washington is that one right there.
Speaker 3 (39:50):
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've 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,
(40:13):
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, We're.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
Just you're not list.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
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 (40:30):
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 come 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
(40:50):
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 the by us going over
to the White House. And so we come over there
and we're up in the residence and and Trump brings
up a couple of lawyers from the White House Counsel's
office and and they're smart guys, but but they were
(41:13):
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 from the White House Council.
(41:33):
I mean, we are slugging it out. I mean, it's uh,
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 of it, Trump calls one
(41:54):
of one of the staff of the White House and says,
bring us some of those pigs in a blanket, those
those those little orders. So they bring a plate of
pigs in the banket and this goes on for like
three hours.
Speaker 1 (42:06):
No, so you guys straight up Trump the date night.
Speaker 3 (42:09):
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 was 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.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
You, right behind you. Yeah, around the corner.
Speaker 3 (42:29):
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
(42:50):
more closely on than Iran and standing up to the
incredible danger to America if the Ayatola ever gets a
nuclear weapon. I think it's an existential threat to America.
I think if the Ayatola 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
(43:13):
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
(43:35):
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 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 important legacies
(43:57):
Lindsay ever had.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
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 guest was Lindsey Graham. We are going
to 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,
(44:19):
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 got to spend so much quality time with him.
Speaker 3 (44:34):
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.
(44:56):
And I admired that. I I admired that it was real,
it was ja you 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.
(45:17):
He had the energy that that he was unstoppable at energy.
And it's a good remindered all of us that that
that none of us are guaranteed to be here tomorrow.
So so hug your family, hug your kids, and and
say thanks to God for the for the privilege of
living in a time of consequence and and and making
(45:38):
a difference in our country. And I will say this,
Lindsey Graham made an enormous difference for our country.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
Amen to that, Senator Cruz. And I will see you
back here in a couple of days. We'll put out
that podcast with Lindsay Graham as well, so you can
if you missed it, you can hear it or you
can watch it.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
Uh and uh.
Speaker 2 (45:55):
And to Lindsey Graham's family friends were 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 Verdict with Center Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you,
and this is going to be one of those shows
that is It's a hard one.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Center.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
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 Lindsay
Graham had passed away suddenly. And this is someone that
you worked with and knew so well.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
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,
(00:49):
and I just stared at them in disbelief. It did
not seem real. Lindsey was a good friend of mine.
Lindsey 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
we also agreed on a whole bunch of issues, and
we were close allies fighting for years to confirm conservative
(01:14):
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 defend our national security, to
stand with our allies, to stand with Israel. And we
(01:35):
were close allies standing up to America's enemies, that especially Iran.
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 dislike Lindsay.
He was charming. He was funny as hell, like just
(01:59):
witty for you. 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 E and I. Actually, I do have a theory.
I think John Kennedy is the better stand up comedian.
Like like if John Kennedy and John prepares a fair
(02:20):
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. And it was you know,
(02:44):
I've traveled abroad with Lindsey multiple times. He loved our
country absolutely with a passion. Look, Lindsay wasn't married, he
didn't have kids. Every ounce of his life was the Senate.
He would travel all over the world. I mean, it's
just what he did. He was out, you know, I
(03:08):
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 exaggeration because Lindsay and Trump
disagreed on a lot of issues. But Trump loved the guy,
(03:32):
and it was was hard.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
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 3 (03:44):
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 him 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, Lindsay
could kind of walk him back off that cliff a
little bit. Lindsey was like, and I've spent a lot
(04:06):
of time 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
(04:27):
would have been his sixty fourth appearance on Meet the Press.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
And that's a lot in politics.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
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 (04:48):
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 re and
I try to be quite deliberate about doing it. Lindsay, 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
(05:11):
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 do the Sunday shows where 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,
(05:32):
affable way. 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 (05:50):
By the way, you shared a picture that probably up
on your phone. You guys were recently in.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Paris, so so, and this was just you know how
iPhone kind of randomly picks pictures. Now, I'm sort of
convinced our phones like spy on us and know everything.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Yeah, but yeah, that's that is accurate. I agree with
you on that one.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
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
(06:32):
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
(06:54):
it's you know, I did an interview with a reporter
today who said, who 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
(07:16):
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 2 (07:33):
Two committees together, So people understand you guys, it wasn't
just being like centers together. You guys worked on committees
as well.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
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.
(08:03):
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
(08:24):
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
(08:44):
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
it hurt from laughing. And by the way, it wasn't
just that he was like telling jokes. He was just
(09:06):
insightful and smart and he cared.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Look, look, whether he loved his country, that's one of
the things he I don't think people understand how much
he loved this country. You mentioned 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 (09:30):
Yes, I'll tell you. It was also with our military,
So lindsaysolutely. Lindsey spent thirty three years in the Air Force,
active duties.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
As a colonel. People don't know that.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
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 Colonel Graham, but just understand there's a
hard ceiling. And and he basically agreed with me and said, yeah,
I sure hope that I'll make be a general. They should.
(10:01):
I mean, I mean, that's like a classic he was.
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
(10:21):
him and I would see them come up and like
hug him, and he would he viewed it 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
(10:42):
a beautiful thing. You know.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
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 sometimes 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 saying he didn't
use his military service that night. And a lot of
(11:04):
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 (11:18):
But he didn't come in and.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
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.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
He didn't use it that way publicly.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
Never.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
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 (11:49):
Well, And look to understand Lindsay, 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
(12:13):
thing 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
(12:36):
previous 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
(12:59):
mean 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
(13:24):
two 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,
(13:46):
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 the man was
a war hero, the man 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,
(14:07):
and he could be volcanic like John's temper.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
It was real. It was real. Oh I had been
I've been on the other end of that. You've been
on the other end of that, and it is.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Let me tell you, I the talking to is that
I received earlier in my career were brutal when I
got them.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
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 was.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Joeberman 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 (14:54):
And he also speaks Trump like. Look their times, just
like John McCain. We get 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 a
(15:16):
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.
(15:42):
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
(16:02):
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
(16:24):
would be every night after the impeachment trial. We'd go
into 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 (16:41):
Yeah, before we play that, and it's just it's gonna
make you laugh. I want to talk to you about
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(17:04):
over four hundred and thirty thousand abortions while receiving more
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of innocent preborn babies. And at the same time, one
of the longest running newspapers in the United States revealed
(17:24):
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(18:53):
This is again the Cold Open Lindsey Graham, the first
guest on Verdict back in the day.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Hello, I'm sinner instam.
Speaker 4 (19:00):
Welcome to Verdict with Ted Cruz, the number one podcast
in the entire country.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
What is a podcast?
Speaker 5 (19:15):
Welcome back to Verdict with Ted Cruz. I'm Michael Knowles.
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. Ad to be 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
(19:35):
get witnesses, we were going to get Bolton, we were
gonna get Hunter Biden. This was going to get long
and ugly. I go 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 (19:48):
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 in.
Speaker 4 (19:56):
The setting a lot of money on production.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
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 (20:15):
Entire By the way, I love it. Even there he
cracked a joke.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
He's like, you're not spent a lot on production, Like
he had to get his zinger in there.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
That's just what made Lindsay lindsay.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
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
(20:44):
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 we're like walking
into a dark basement in the middle of nowhere. And
(21:05):
he 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. Yea, And
he says on the 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
(21:29):
looked around and he 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. Yeah, because
(21:53):
it 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 (22:13):
I was gonna say no doubt Brett Kavanaugh and saving
Brett Kavanaugh from the insanity of the left that were
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 Klarence Thomas very much,
but in a TMZ twenty twenty plus year type of
going after him, just more vile social media. You didn't
(22:36):
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.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
It well, 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 at
the hearing.
Speaker 4 (23:07):
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
by parson. I hope a by person majority will do
(23:29):
the same. 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 Fine Sine. Did you know that
her staff had already recommended a lawyer to doctor Ford?
I did not know that. Did you know that her
and her staff had this allegations for over twenty days?
Speaker 1 (23:54):
I did not know that at the time.
Speaker 4 (23:56):
If you wanted an FBI investigation, you could have come
to us. What you want to do is destroy this
guy's life, hold this seat open, and hope you went
in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
You've said that, not me.
Speaker 4 (24:10):
You've got nothing to apologize for. When you see Soda
Maron Kagan, tell him that Lindsay said, oh, because I
voted for them, I would never do to them what
you've done to this guy. This is the most unethical
sham since I've been in politics. And if you really
(24:30):
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? No? 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,
(24:50):
and you held it. You had no intention of protecting
doctor Ford none. She's as much of a victim as
you are. I hate to say that because these have
been my friends, but let me tell you, when it
comes to this, you're looking for a fair process. You
came to the wrong town at the wrong time, My friend.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
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 (25:23):
It wasn't scripted.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
We've see a lot of scripted moments from politicians these days,
and some of these hearings there it's all pre organized,
pre planned.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Protesters involved.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
That was real and raw, and as you mentioned, and
I think you should explain a little bit more. This
forced and changed the direction that hearing was going well.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
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 love w
and so when he says, look, I would never do
to them what you're doing to Brett Kavanaugh, that had
(26:04):
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
(26:27):
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
(26:49):
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, wait a second, this is
not a real inquiry, This is not a fair assessment.
This is a political slime job. These guys had these
(27:11):
allegations 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 I 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.
(27:34):
She is a rock rib conservative.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
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 your reelection night, watching her
be excited, watching her son not a Senator her son
yea when reelection and just the beaming joy on her face.
You weren't there when in that part, you were busy
and she came in and she he was just so happy,
(28:01):
and I was like, this might be my favorite moment
of the whole night.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
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
(28:28):
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
(28:52):
his website and to give him thirty five dollars Are
you serious that I'm I'm serious? And I told him,
I said, Lindsay, in my entire time in politics, my
mother's never contributed 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
(29:16):
a fight. He was as effective a warrior as you
could see. 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
(29:37):
it's the legislation that has the most conservative victories in
it of any bill that's ever passed at a law
h Lindsay 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
(29:57):
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, 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 Lindsey was awfully good
(30:22):
at it.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
He was all making friends.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
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 the side. But he
also had just a way of understanding when there's moments
to laugh and not.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
I told this earlier. I was young. I don't think
I've ever told you this story.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
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 Shepard Smith's show on Fox back in the day,
and they asked me directly about Lindsey Graham and something
he'd said. They played the soot come out of it,
they asked me, and I was pretty blunt and I
(31:09):
was like, I strongly disagree with him.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
YadA, YadA, YadA. I get done.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
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
(31:34):
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. But it was all a ruse.
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,
(31:55):
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
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.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
That was it, Like he didn't mind that was ripping
on him.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
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. But
like after that, it was hard. He was smart. It
was harder for me to go after him on TV
because I liked him personally.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
From that moment of him. He could have been a jerk,
he wasn't.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
He saw the humor in the moment and was like,
I'm gonna mess with this guy, and it was.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
It was a brilliant political move.
Speaker 3 (32:41):
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 sent lunches, and we've talked
about a lot of those senator lunches on this podcast,
where things got raw and bare knuckles and on foreign policy. Look,
(33:08):
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.
(33:29):
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
(33:52):
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. Say, 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
(34:13):
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
(34:34):
and they asked him. Well, 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 (34:46):
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.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
If you don't get me.
Speaker 4 (35:04):
I know you're living on cat food, but you can.
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.
(35:25):
That's the way these people are, right, there's nothing they
want to 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
show up.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
He shows up. He's not lying when he says that.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
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
(36:01):
me money instead. And people would crack up, but they
would do it. But so Blake masters who lost us
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
(36:22):
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,
(36:43):
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
(37:05):
his relationship with Trump. Lindsay was a huge Trump critic. Yeah,
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
(37:27):
Senate floor and the Senate was the jury, nobody could
convict you. I can admit 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
(37:47):
campaign and he campaigned with me for president twenty sixteen.
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 murder. And that was kind
(38:08):
of 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
(38:28):
Lindsey 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 dispute about funding the border wall, and the President
wanted to sign and was going to sign an emergency
(38:48):
declaration 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 hundred percent, but not do it through an emergency declaration.
And my concern was, look, if you create the precedent
for doing this the next Democrat president, the next if
(39:11):
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
(39:33):
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 (39:46):
The oldest trick in Washington is that one right there.
Speaker 3 (39:50):
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've 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,
(40:13):
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, We're.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
Just you're not list.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
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 (40:30):
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 come 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
(40:50):
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 the by us going over
to the White House. And so we come over there
and we're up in the residence and and Trump brings
up a couple of lawyers from the White House Counsel's
office and and they're smart guys, but but they were
(41:13):
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 from the White House Council.
(41:33):
I mean, we are slugging it out. I mean, it's uh,
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 of it, Trump calls one
(41:54):
of one of the staff of the White House and says,
bring us some of those pigs in a blanket, those
those those little orders. So they bring a plate of
pigs in the banket and this goes on for like
three hours.
Speaker 1 (42:06):
No, so you guys straight up Trump the date night.
Speaker 3 (42:09):
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 was 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.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
You, right behind you. Yeah, around the corner.
Speaker 3 (42:29):
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
(42:50):
more closely on than Iran and standing up to the
incredible danger to America if the Ayatola ever gets a
nuclear weapon. I think it's an existential threat to America.
I think if the Ayatola 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
(43:13):
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
(43:35):
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 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 important legacies
(43:57):
Lindsay ever had.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
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 guest was Lindsey Graham. We are going
to 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,
(44:19):
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 got to spend so much quality time with him.
Speaker 3 (44:34):
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.
(44:56):
And I admired that. I I admired that it was real,
it was ja you 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.
(45:17):
He had the energy that that he was unstoppable at energy.
And it's a good remindered all of us that that
that none of us are guaranteed to be here tomorrow.
So so hug your family, hug your kids, and and
say thanks to God for the for the privilege of
living in a time of consequence and and and making
(45:38):
a difference in our country. And I will say this,
Lindsey Graham made an enormous difference for our country.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
Amen to that, Senator Cruz. And I will see you
back here in a couple of days. We'll put out
that podcast with Lindsay Graham as well, so you can
if you missed it, you can hear it or you
can watch it.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
Uh and uh.
Speaker 2 (45:55):
And to Lindsey Graham's family friends were 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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