Publicly and privately, the president has been musing about aging and fate after his friend’s sudden death. He is set to deliver a eulogy for Graham on Tuesday.
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Donald Trump did not expect Lindsey Graham to die first. At 71, Graham was nearly a decade younger than the president and had remained an energetic presence in Washington and around the world until the end. His sudden death this month rattled the president, according to Trump’s public remarks and two people familiar with his private comments.
In the days that followed, Trump returned repeatedly to the loss, publicly marveling at how someone so active could be gone, privately musing on whether the senator’s punishing travel schedule had contributed and searching for answers in family history and genetics.
For Trump, Graham was a friend and golf partner who had become one of the constants of his political life — someone who shared his relentless work ethic and served as one of the president’s loudest champions in the Senate. Trump is scheduled to deliver a eulogy for the South Carolina Republican on Tuesday afternoon at Washington National Cathedral.
“I said, ‘You guys, I just can’t believe it,’” Trump told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on July 12 — filling in for Graham, who had been scheduled to appear — hours after the senator’s death. The president also reflected on his friend’s energy and enthusiasm for his work.
“I thought he was just going to live forever,” Trump told NBC.
In subsequent interviews, the president connected Graham’s death to a family history of heart disease.
“His father died just about at the same age,” Trump told Newsmax on July 13. “I’m a believer in the racehorse theory,” he said, invoking the idea that traits such as strength and stamina are inherited.
In private, the president wrestled with the loss, too. The often high-energy Trump was subdued in the wake of Graham’s death and asked others if the senator’s travels — with Graham returning to the United States from Ukraine shortly before dying — could have taken a toll, the people said.
Unlike other lawmakers such as Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), who has been publicly dealing with medical issues and has been hospitalized for six weeks, Graham had been highly visible and actively campaigning before his death, adding to the shock for Trump and other administration officials, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk about the president’s private interactions.
The White House swiftly lowered its flags to half-staff and released a compilation of Trump’s comments on Graham.
Trump, an inveterate political animal, did not abandon his political priorities as he mourned. He called on the Senate to pass an industry-friendly cryptocurrency bill “in honor of” Graham, who had not sponsored the legislation. (The bill remains stalled, with Democrats saying it does not go far enough to regulate Trump and other officials’ crypto holdings.)
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But a president who prides himself on his relentless motion stopped — for a moment — to reflect.
In interviews, he reminisced about how Graham competed with him for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination before eventually becoming an ally, fought for the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh and frequently served as the president’s emissary to Democrats who didn’t like Trump but could engage with Graham.
“Everything for him was about work,” Trump told “Fox & Friends” on July 13, before bestowing one of his highest compliments on Graham: He was good on TV.
“A lot of people can’t do it at all. A lot of people, when the camera goes on, they’re terrible. I see it all the time. I watch people,” Trump said. “Most people aren’t very good, and he did it and he did it with pride and he did it because he loved our country.
A preliminary medical report found that Graham died of a torn aorta.
His sudden passing came on the eve of the two-year anniversary of the assassination attempt on Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, where his survival probably came down to a matter of centimeters; had Trump turned his head in a different direction, a bullet could have hit his head rather than his ear. That near-death experience prompted its own period of reflection. Trump told Newsmax on July 13 that he has repeatedly reviewed the video.
“I watch it all the time,” he said, again crediting his survival to divine intervention. “The whole thing is a miracle.”
Trump has continued to face threats to his life, including an Iranian-linked threat that led to him to switch planes on July 8, the New York Times reported earlier this month, several days before Graham’s death.
“Because of the position I’m in, I’ve done quite a bit of research into the word ‘assassination,’ Terrible word. And they go after consequential presidents,” Trump told CBS in April after an attempted shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, which prompted Trump and other senior officials to evacuate the event. “I wasn’t worried. I understand life. We live in a crazy world.”
The White House did not respond to questions about Trump’s grief or thoughts on his own vulnerability.
“Senator Lindsey Graham was a dear friend to the President,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. “The President looks forward to delivering a heartfelt eulogy at his funeral service on Tuesday.”
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