Graham Was the Best Kind of 'Operator'

Froma Harrop on Jul 14, 2026

On Feb. 22, 2022, two days before Vladimir Putin sent his tanks rumbling toward Ukraine's capital, Donald Trump said of the Russian leader: "This is genius. ... Here's a guy who's very savvy."

Eight days later, Lindsey Graham offered a starkly different sentiment: "The only way this ends is for somebody in Russia to take this guy out."

The Republican senator from South Carolina had a history of dismissing Trump's worldview. When Trump first ran in 2015, Graham let loose, calling him a "race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot."

After Trump won, Graham shocked observers by heaping unbridled praise on the game show host now entering the White House. He came off as an almost comical fawner. Many thought Graham had no principles or self-respect, that he'd do anything to ensure reelection. Turns out, he had very different motives. He was playing the long game.

Graham stayed in, it seems, to stem MAGA's weakening views on the importance of strong American global leadership. Trump himself had isolationist tendencies, amplified by ignorance of world affairs.

How did Graham become one of Trump's dearest golf buddies? He employed wit wrapped in Southern charm. He'd say things to Trump like "Mr. President, you're not far behind God." (The mockery it contained may have flown over Trump's head.) Graham was playing the long game of retaining influence in an administration run by a mercurial and angry personality.

Many of us failed to see this. Graham was determined to stay in the president's good graces to preserve American support for Ukraine's resistance to Putin's aggression. And he held that stance even when Trump ignorantly said about Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky: "I've been watching him negotiate with no cards. He had no cards."

Zelensky responded, "We're not playing cards." Graham understood the national security threat posed by Putin's march toward NATO's borders. And it turns out that Zelensky obviously had cards in the form of Ukraine's program to develop a drone force now battering Russia's infrastructure.

Trump recently did a 180 on Zelensky. "Look, he's done an amazing job," Trump said.

Graham also remained a steadfast supporter of Israel when much of MAGA and many Democrats turned against it over the war in Gaza. Graham didn't always agree with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's policies, but he had a sophisticated understanding of Israel's need to defend itself.

On the domestic front, Graham had joined a group of Republicans who worked with Democrats to pass the 2013 immigration reform bill in the Senate. Had Republican House Speaker John Boehner put it up for a vote, the bill would have approved and put teeth in immigration enforcement. Boehner let it die because some of his members opposed the part extending amnesty to otherwise law-abiding immigrants who had been in the U.S. and working for a long time.

Graham was one of 10 Republicans who joined an agreement on gun control. That took guts.

Graham's lowest moment came when he tried to help Trump overturn the results of the 2020 election. He asked Georgia's secretary of state, in Brad Raffensperger's recollection, to throw out legally cast mail ballots. Republican Raffensperger refused to do so.

Complex man, Graham was. A few days ago, he dined with Delaware Democrat Sen. Chris Coons at the NATO conference in Turkey. "While we disagreed fiercely on many policy issues," Coons said in a statement of remembrance, "he was complicated and could not be pigeonholed." Coons went on: "Few have been able to frustrate and anger, amuse and engage me in a single conversation the way Lindsey could."

Graham is a reminder of patriots who loved this country before radicals in both parties turned against it. Can anyone replace him?

Follow Froma Harrop on X @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Web page at www.creators.com.

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