Trump Spoke on Phone with Lindsey Graham ‘Minutes’ Before He Died

President Donald Trump is revealing heartbreaking new details about his final conversation with Sen. Lindsey Graham, saying the two spoke what “could have been minutes” before the South Carolina Republican suddenly died Saturday evening.

Trump, 80, said Graham, 71, sounded tired after returning from an overseas trip to Ukraine, but otherwise seemed perfectly fine during their last call.

“What makes it even stranger is that I got a call last night, sometime in the early evening,” Trump said Sunday on NBC News’ Meet the Press, suggesting the call may have come around 7 p.m.

According to Trump, Graham was still doing what he had done for decades in Washington: working the phones, pushing legislation and trying to get things done.

“He said we’re all set for the SAVE America Act,” Trump recalled. “He was pushing the SAVE America Act like crazy. He got back and said he just landed from Ukraine. I said, ‘That’s a long trip to make.’ He sounded a little tired, but perfect. But a little bit tired.”

Just hours later, Graham was gone.

His office announced that the longtime senator had died Saturday evening following a “brief and sudden illness,” shocking allies across Washington and leaving a major hole in the Republican Party.

Graham had reportedly made several calls before his death, including one with CBS News anchor Margaret Brennan, and had been scheduled to appear on a Sunday political program.

Trump said the news hit him hard, describing Graham not just as a political ally, but as someone who had become “family.”

“He’s going to be appreciated more now than he was when he was living,” Trump said. “He’s a tough one to lose. He was great — he was unique in every way. He was like a member of the family to me. It’s very tough.”

The loss is especially striking given the long and complicated history between the two Republican heavyweights.

More than a decade ago, Trump and Graham were bitter rivals during the 2016 Republican presidential primary. Graham warned the party against nominating Trump, while Trump mocked Graham from the campaign trail and even read the senator’s cellphone number aloud at a rally.

Graham responded by cutting an ad showing himself destroying his cellphone in several different ways.

At the time, Graham was also furious over Trump’s attacks on his close friend, the late Sen. John McCain. Their relationship remained icy during the early Trump years, but the frost eventually melted.

By 2018, Graham had become one of Trump’s most important Senate allies. His fiery defense of Brett Kavanaugh during the bruising Supreme Court confirmation fight became a defining moment for conservatives.

Trump brought that moment up again Sunday, saying Graham’s performance may have changed history.

“His moment on Brett Kavanaugh was one of the classics, I think, in the history of the Senate,” Trump said, arguing Kavanaugh had been treated unfairly by Democrats.

“I think that saved Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court ascension,” Trump added. “Lindsey did a thing there that I think nobody else could’ve done that.”

During the Kavanaugh hearings, Graham erupted over Democrats’ handling of Christine Blasey Ford’s accusations, accusing them of sitting on the allegations until the final stretch of the confirmation battle. The exchange instantly went viral and cemented Graham’s status as a conservative fighter willing to take on the left when the stakes were highest.

Trump acknowledged that he and Graham still had disagreements over the years, especially on foreign policy, but said the senator had a rare gift that many Republicans lack: the ability to battle Democrats one day and cut a deal with them the next.

“If I had a really big problem with a certain Democrat, he could work it out,” Trump told CNN’s State of the Union. “That’s something most Republicans can’t do.”

Trump also called Graham a “natural politician” and a “tough cookie,” praising his instincts, loyalty and ability to survive in the roughest corners of Washington.

The two men spent many days together on the golf course in recent years, a far cry from their early days as political enemies.

“I thought Lindsey was gonna be living forever,” Trump said. “I said, ‘Lindsey, you’re gonna live forever.’ And he was gonna have a big victory. He was scheduled to win by a lot.”

Graham had been up for reelection this cycle and was expected to cruise to victory despite a GOP primary challenge fueled in part by criticism of his hawkish foreign policy views. Trump’s allies had helped Graham fend off that challenge, underscoring just how far their relationship had come since 2016.

Trump said he already has someone in mind to succeed Graham, though he declined to name that person publicly.

For now, the president is mourning a friend, an ally and one of the most consequential Republican senators of his generation.

“He was unique in every way,” Trump said.