Richard Arnold: US Correspondent on death of former US Senator Lindsey Graham

Long-time US Senator Lindsey Graham has passed away.

President Donald Trump said he was saddened by Graham's passing, despite the two having a chequered past. 

US Correspondent Richard Arnold told Mike Hosking that when Graham was running against Trump, he called him a 'kook, crazy and unfit for office' prior to the 2016 election.

However once Trump emerged as the leading candidate, he changed his narrative.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Richard on the morning to you.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
Good morning mine.

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Lindsey grahams did came from nowhere in them.

Speaker 3 (00:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
The death of Lindsay Graham at seventy one has shocked
a lot of people, I think, because he'd just flown
back from Ukraine yesterday, his tenth visited since Russia invaded.
He was scheduled to appear on Meet to Press, the
political chat show this morning, and late last night. He'd
spoken by phone with Trump just a short time before
his apparent cardiac arrest. The Senator's office says he died
from a brief and sudden illness. Trump saying, now.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
Wed I spoke to him, it could have been, you know,
minutes before. Other than being tired, he was fine, and
so it had to be something like that. That would
just be a quick end, and maybe that's not the
worst way to go well.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Trump says Graham was one of the greatest people and
senators he has known. They didn't always have the kindest
words for each as we know they were. He did
rivals for the presidency twenty sixteen. When Graham said, quote,
there's only one way to make America great again. Tell
Donald Trump to go to hell. He called Trump a
demagogue and quote race baiting, the xenophobic religious bigot. When

(01:03):
Trump started to lock in the Republican vote, Graham changed
his approach. He slammed the medium, saying he was concerned
by press attempts to quote label the guy to some
kind of cook not fit to be president. Yet, only
a short time earlier, Graham said of Trump.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
I think he's a kook. I think he's crazy. I
think he's unfit for office.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
Where have we heard that before? Yeah, that was some
flip flop. Lindsay Graham also was a Senate partner with
the late Senator John McCain. They took lots and lots
of trips together around the world, argued in favor of
the Iraq War. When Trump slam McCain, who was a
war hero, Tenator Graham did not stand up for his
senate colleague.

Speaker 3 (01:42):
Have to say.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Trump said during the twenty sixteen campaign of McCain, who
spent over five years as a pow in Vietnam after
his plane was shot down and he then refused special
treatment by the viet Cong because his father was an admiral,
that John McCain was quote not a war hero because
he was captured. I like people that weren't captured, said Trump,
the man who, of course avoided the Vietnam War, claiming

(02:03):
you have a bone spur in his feet. Senator Graham
said at the time, quote, I don't like what he
says about John McCain. But when we meaning himself and
Trump played golf, it's fun. On the Capitol riot of
Generary the sixth of twenty twenty one, Senator Graham said, quote,
count me out. Enough is enough. Then he became a
close supporter Trump despite all the stolen election nonsense, saying quote,
I'm trying to keep a relationship with him after the riots.

(02:25):
So he wanted to remain as a political influencer since
the way politics works, perhaps, and he would align with
Democrats on rare occasions as well. He was also an
unflinching supporter of Ukraine and Israel, a country who's PM
that who now says has lost one of its greatest friends. Netno,
who says Graham was a straight talker as well. Behind

(02:45):
the scenes, you.

Speaker 4 (02:46):
Wanted to tell me something unpleasant, it would do so,
you know, in his southern role, and sometimes I always
say that I knew something bad was coming. When he said, well,
you know, you want to take it from a good
old Southern born from you know much about the world,
and then he'd bring it in you know.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
Well, when he was just twenty, Lindsey Graham lost both
his mother and father had that young age, and became
his eleven year old sister's legal guardian. He never married
nor had children of his own. He served as a
military lawyer before his political careers. So his life is
quite a story. And as they say on social media
at times, it's complicated.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
Right, So the MoU is going, where's the war ap?

Speaker 2 (03:23):
Well, there are conflicting claims over the status of the
Straight of Forumu's oil channel. Is it open is it closed?
Iran says the Straight is shut down because of what
they insist on vessels violating Irun's control. The US says
the Straight as fully and fully open to shipping to
the insurance companies signed on with that, but the Pentagon
carried out intense air strikes in the past few hours,
hitting about one hundred and forty Iranian military targets. Asked

(03:45):
about this today, Trump says.

Speaker 3 (03:47):
It's open. We bombed the hell out of them last night.
They're very, very evil and sick people. We had meetings
with them for the last They agreed to a deal yesterday,
perfect deal for us. No nuclear no this, no that,
no nothing, They'd give up everything. And then after that
they left the room. And then within an hour they

(04:11):
launched a grown now their ship.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
So deal on no deal, Mike, don't know.

Speaker 1 (04:16):
See Wednesday, Richard Arnold state side. Just a couple of
other things. Have you missed it over the long weekend?
Platinus gone. He was the Democrat who we've told you
about over the last couple of weeks. Just a building
file of seeming skullduggery in his personal life. So he
finally followed. And then this weird business of Trump coming
back from Turkey via London because he sent the new

(04:39):
plane to London because he claimed at the time that
the troops at one of the bases wanted to see
the plane, so he sent the new one up there
while he jumped on the old one. Of course, no
one believed that. So then we subsequently learned about the
business of the death threat from the Iranians. But meantime
they're handing out subpoenas left right and sent her for
The New York Times to testify underw after they alleged

(05:01):
security concerns around Air Force one as in the new one.
They suggested the plane wasn't secure enough and Secret Service
at urge Trump to switch planes on the way home.
So they're investigating illegal leaks. They argue the reporters not
the targets, but those leaking the classified information are so
we'll keep you posted on that.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
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