Senator Lindsey Graham reportedly brushed off advice to seek medical attention after admitting he didn’t feel well hours before his sudden death — before joking that he “can’t die now.”
The South Carolina Republican died Saturday night from an aortic rupture caused by hardened arteries, the Medical Examiner of the District of Columbia concluded in a preliminary report Sunday. He was 71.
He had spent the last weeks of his life working toward brokering normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel, according to an account from Axios reporter Barak Ravid.
Graham spoke with President Donald Trump over the phone Saturday night, briefing him on his trip to Ukraine, which he returned from Friday. Trump told Graham he was preparing to launch more strikes against Iran following another attack on commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, Ravid reported.
However, shortly after getting off the phone with Trump, Graham reportedly told another confidant that he wasn’t feeling well. That person urged the senator to seek medical attention immediately, and Graham said he would after his scheduled appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press the following morning.
Graham then reportedly joked, “I can’t die now. I still need to do the Russia sanctions, get Iran sorted out and do Israeli-Saudi normalization,” according to Axios.
He died several hours later from what his office described as a “brief and sudden illness” at his Washington, D.C. home.
However, a medical examiner later revealed he died from an aortic rupture caused by hardened arteries, which is a condition where there is a break in the main artery that carries blood from the heart. It is caused by arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease, which is when there is a gradual weakening of the arteries.
Graham’s sudden death caught many of his colleagues in the Capitol off guard, prompting an outpouring of tributes from politicians on both sides of the aisle — and from leaders across the world.
Speaking to NBC News on Sunday morning, Trump said he was shocked to hear Graham had died, saying he was “like a member of the family.”
The 80-year-old president also noted that Graham had called him around 7 p.m. on Saturday in what Trump said may have been his last phone call. He said Graham, who had just returned from Ukraine, sounded “a little tired.”
Trump, as well as Graham’s Senate colleagues, remembered him as a hard worker who was eager to work across party lines.
“He was willing to work on gnarly issues and take on (at times) political risks for the right reasons,” Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, wrote on X. Senator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, wrote: “Lindsey was a fearless patriot, a devoted public servant, and one of the fiercest advocates for America’s national security.”
Graham’s death means that South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster will have to nominate a replacement for him in the Senate, and the state party will need find a new candidate to put on the ballot.
Under South Carolina law, if a party nominee dies, is disqualified after their nomination or resigns for legitimate nonpolitical reasons, “the vacancy must be filled in a special primary election.” The filing period begins the second Tuesday after the nominee’s death. In this case, that would be July 21.