Before I get into this, I have to admit that Sen. Lindsey Graham's death has impacted me more than I ever thought a modern politician's could (except maybe Marco Rubio — my regular readers will understand). Seriously, though, as I wrote over the weekend, while I didn't always agree with him, I was a fan of Graham's and found him fascinating, entertaining, and to be a true patriot. His death has sat with me heavily over the last few days since I broke the news late Saturday night/early Sunday morning for our site.
And while I already knew a good deal about him, the more I learned, the more I realized we lost a good one and far too soon.
Related: The Lindsey Graham We Don't Talk About Enough
There have been many rumors going around, but we're finally starting to learn more about what happened the night he died, and I think it's worth noting. I know many are curious, and it's important to put the facts out there, even if they feel morbid. I still see too many pushing conspiracy theories.
First, we know he called Donald Trump shortly before he died. I have to say that I've never heard the president sound quite as emotional as he did on Sunday, when he appeared on various news programs talking about Graham. They spoke about Graham's trip to Ukraine, Russian sanctions, and Iran.
According to Axios, Graham also spoke with someone else that evening and told them he wasn't feeling too well. That person reportedly urged him to seek medical attention, and he said he would do so on Sunday after his appearance on Meet the Press.
"I can't die now. I still need to do the Russia sanctions, get Iran sorted out, and do Israeli-Saudi normalization," he told the person.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) is now helping us fill in what happened next.
Tuberville told reporters on Monday that his own former scheduler now worked for Graham. On Saturday evening, that woman, along with one of Tuberville's current staff members, had gone out to dinner and to watch the World Cup match at a restaurant in Washington, D.C., but while they were dining, she received a call from her boss.
"Lindsey called and said, 'Listen, I'm having chest pains... I need to do something," Tuberville said.
The staffer asked Graham if he'd called 911, and he said no, that he'd called her instead, so she called 911 on his behalf. She left the restaurant to go to his house to check on him, but "by the time she got there, 911 had knocked the door down, and they were working on him," Tuberville said.
The Alabama senator went on to describe just how dedicated Graham was to his country.
"It's just one of those things. Lindsey basically worked himself to death," Tuberville told reporters. "You know, most of us have families — he didn't have any family — and if we had a couple of days off, he went to that airport, and he went somewhere to try to work out something for our country. Like today, I normally walk in to the 5:30 meeting, if we had a few days off, [I'd ask] 'Lindsey, where have you been?' Because you knew he'd been somewhere. We'd either talk golf or talk about him going overseas somewhere and talking to some ambassador, some president."
"He was very well known, he was very smart, and he knew foreign relations," Tuberville concluded. Here are his full remarks:
Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) says his former staffer called 911 on behalf of Sen. Lindsey Graham after Graham said he was experiencing chest pains.
— CBS News (@CBSNews) July 13, 2026
“By the time she got there, 911 had knocked the door down,” Tuberville said. “They were working on him.” pic.twitter.com/1qZqn5obDh
Of course, we know now that a preliminary autopsy showed that Graham died from an aortic dissection caused by arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease. It's impossible to know what would have happened if he'd called 911 sooner, but I take comfort in knowing that up until the last minute, he was doing what he loved and trying to seek what's best for our country. God bless him.
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