“He never saw a war that he didn’t like,” Trump said elsewhere in his eulogy at Graham’s D.C. memorial service on Tuesday, July 28
NEED TO KNOW
- President Donald Trump came to a disagreement with his own prepared eulogy of Sen. Lindsey Graham on Tuesday, July 28, at the late South Carolina Republican’s funeral
- After he read a line stating “virtually everyone, Republican or Democrat, liked Lindsey,” Trump added, “Well, not everybody”
- “He never saw a war that he didn’t like,” Trump said elsewhere in his remarks, adding “only his true friends would understand that”
As he memorialized his friend and longtime ally Lindsey Graham at the late Republican senator’s funeral on Tuesday, July 28, President Donald Trump came to a disagreement with his own prepared remarks after he read a line stating “virtually everyone, Republican or Democrat, liked Lindsey.”
“Well, not everybody, but it sounds good. Not everybody,” Trump said, laughing. “He was a tough cookie, ok, I have to veer from this for a second.”
Credit: Alex Brandon-Pool/Getty; Vitalii Nosach/Global Images Ukraine via Getty
Trump’s remarks came as he stood at the pulpit in Washington, D.C.’s National Cathedral, overlooking Graham’s casket that entered the church draped in the American flag after an earlier service in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda.
When the president ended his eulogy, he walked by the casket and patted it twice before returning to his seat.
Watch in full: President Donald J. Trump's remarks honoring the life and legacy of Senator Lindsey Graham pic.twitter.com/hi9UVgxpT5
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) July 28, 2026
In his remarks, Trump hailed Graham for his rise “from a small town in rural South Carolina, a place he loves so much, to become a constant fixture of American politics at the highest level and a force to be reckoned with all over the world.”
But he also made sure to highlight their differences, as he did in the days following the 71-year-old’s sudden death from a heart condition on July 11 when he rated his devoted ally a “99.9 out of 100” for initially rejecting Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“As you remember, Lindsey and I did not exactly get off to the best of starts,” Trump said, recalling the 2016 Republican presidential primary. “Lindsey said something rather nasty on his flight to becoming the next president of the United States.”
Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty
“So, naturally, I did something that I shouldn’t have done. And I shared his personal cell phone number with the millions of people that happened to be watching that particular day,” Trump added.
Trump then read out a phone number, offering it up “if anybody wants to give it a shot.”
“That was the beginning of a friendship in a way,” Trump said. “But it was Lindsey who had the last laugh because while I blew up his phone all for one day, we became great friends and Lindsey did not stop calling me for the next 10 years.”
Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty
He also noted Graham was “very hawkish” when it came to U.S. foreign policy and pushing for military intervention abroad.
“He never saw a war that he didn’t like,” Trump said. “Only his true friends would understand that.”
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Documentary footage released over the weekend showed Graham celebrating the U.S. launching the war against Iran in its earliest days and offering to help Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convince Trump to go to war in Lebanon, as well.
Credit: Andrew Harnik/Getty
“Lindsey would have been blown away” by Netanyahu’s attendance at his funeral, Fox News host Sean Hannity told the prime minister during his own eulogy on Tuesday. “He loved you.”
Graham’s funeral was attended by current and former Senate colleagues, Fox News hosts, Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, world leaders — including Netanyahu and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, fresh off morning White House meetings with Trump — and virtually Trump’s entire Cabinet, including Vice President JD Vance.
Newly minted South Carolina Sen. Darline Graham, Lindsey’s younger sister he helped raise as a young man, was also in attendance.
Darline, who is eyeing a full term after being appointed by the governor to serve through January, was photographed weeping by her brother’s casket at the Capitol Rotunda earlier on Tuesday.
Credit: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty
“He was a tough cookie, Darline,” Trump said after noting that “not everybody” liked her brother. “He was beautiful.”
A funeral in South Carolina is scheduled for Wednesday, July 29, followed by a private burial.
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