By Nolan D. McCaskill and Joseph Ax
WASHINGTON, July 28 (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy are expected to attend the funeral on Tuesday of U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, who forcefully lobbied Washington to back both countries during conflict.
President Donald Trump, who Graham denounced early in his political career before becoming a staunch supporter, is due to speak at the Washington National Cathedral service following a ceremony at the U.S. Capitol.
Graham, a South Carolina Republican who died suddenly from a heart ailment on July 11 at age 71, was a defense hawk who regularly called for an interventionist U.S. role on the world stage and strongly backed both Israel and Ukraine.
He met with Zelenskiy in Kyiv only a day before his death, the 10th time he had visited Ukraine since Russia’s 2022 invasion. The Senate is preparing to vote on a bipartisan package of new sanctions on Russia that Graham spent his final days trying to push across the finish line.
Graham was one of Trump’s most visible allies, making frequent appearances on cable television news shows to tout the administration’s policies. In recent months, he had been a stalwart defender of the unpopular Iran war.
SISTER VIES TO SUCCEED HIM IN SENATE
Graham had been running for a fifth term in the Senate after winning the South Carolina Republican primary in June. His sister, Darline Graham, was appointed by South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster to fill the remainder of his term.
She has announced her intention to seek a full six-year term in November, with Trump’s endorsement. The Democratic candidate, pediatrician Annie Andrews, is considered a long shot given South Carolina’s strong Republican lean.
Lindsey Graham served as his sister’s guardian after their parents died when she was still a girl.
A former Air Force lawyer and a member of South Carolina’s Air National Guard, Graham served in the state legislature and the U.S. House of Representatives before winning his Senate seat in 2002.
He briefly ran for president in the 2016 election, when he was adamantly opposed to Trump’s candidacy; he called the future president a “race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot” on CNN.
But he eventually became one of Trump’s most loyal backers in the Senate, and the two were frequent golf partners.
In addition to Tuesday’s ceremonies in Washington, Graham will also have funeral services on Wednesday in South Carolina, where he will be buried.
(Reporting by Nolan D. McCaskill in Washington and Joseph Ax in New York; editing by Scott Malone and Deepa Babington)
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