Washington [US], July 30: President Donald Trump has remembered Lindsey Graham as a "giant of the United States Senate" at the late lawmaker's funeral in Washington.
In his eulogy, Trump also called Graham, who died earlier this month at the age of 71, a "true American original, who left us much too soon".
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also attended the funeral on Tuesday to pay their respects to Graham, who was a major supporter of both countries.
"He was a man who gave America the full measure of his good and mighty heart until that heart itself just gave out," Trump said. Graham had just returned home from a trip to Kiev in Ukraine to meet with President Zelensky when he died of an "aortic dissection" - a tear in the heart's main artery.
"He died doing the work he was born to do," Trump said.
Graham was first elected to the US Senate in 2002, where he represented the state of South Carolina until his death.
He developed a reputation as one of the Senate's most prominent foreign policy hawks. He supported the US war with Iran before his death and was a strong proponent of Israel. He was also one of Ukraine's top allies in the Senate, at a time when the Republican Party remained split on the extent to which the US should intervene in global conflicts.
"Nothing of significance happened anywhere in the world without Lindsey Graham having a view on it," Trump noted.
He stuck largely to his script in remarks that lasted roughly 15 minutes. His eulogy of Graham was a tight summation of the Republican senator's life and political career, leavened with anecdotes and quips, many of which elicited chuckles from the attendees.
He touched on their shared love of golf, Graham's dedication to foreign policy, and his "magnetic personality" and "vim and vigour".
Trump and Graham had their differences, particularly at the start of Trump's rise to national politics.
They traded harsh words when they ran against each other in the 2016 presidential campaign. Graham later evolved into a staunch ally after Trump won the election. The two men had grown close in recent years, as the president's remarks clearly showed.
Trump recounted an episode in which he publicly shared Graham's phone number at a 2015 campaign event, after the senator lobbed a profane insult his way.
"His phone exploded," Trump told the mourners assembled in the nave of the cathedral.
"It was Lindsey who had the last laugh," he continued. "Because while I blew up his phone for one day, we became great friends and Lindsey did not stop calling me for the next 10 years." Other prominent speakers, including Fox News host Sean Hannity, paid tribute to Graham as a "force of nature" and "true original".
Hannity at one point addressed Graham's sister, Darline Graham, who was appointed to fill her brother's seat after his death and who sat in one of the front pews on Tuesday, telling her: "You were his life." Graham and his sister lost their parents at a young age, with both their mother and father dying within 15 months of each other. Graham later adopted her. Vice-President JD Vance was among several top Trump administration officials who also attended the service at the Washington National Cathedral.
Source: Qatar Tribune
