Israel and Ukraine leaders to attend Lindsey Graham funeral rites as Washington farewell begins
WASHINGTON — The funeral ceremonies for Lindsey Graham begin Tuesday in Washington, drawing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ukrainian President...
WASHINGTON — The funeral ceremonies for Lindsey Graham begin Tuesday in Washington, drawing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to the US capital for a two-day farewell to the longtime Republican senator from South Carolina.
The memorials will put Graham’s foreign-policy imprint on display one last time. Netanyahu and Zelenskyy are both expected to meet Donald Trump at the White House while in Washington, underscoring how closely Graham’s political career remained tied to the big foreign crises he watched, pushed and argued over for decades. He died of a heart condition at 71 shortly after returning to Washington from Kyiv, where he had met Zelenskyy earlier this month while working on a new Russia sanctions bill.
Capitol tribute first, then the cathedral
The first memorial events will unfold on Capitol Hill, where Graham served for years before rising to become one of the Senate’s most recognizable Republican voices. He spent eight years in the House and 23 in the Senate, after starting his public service as a former US Air Force lawyer.
From the Capitol Rotunda, his casket will be carried to the Washington National Cathedral for an afternoon service. The route reflects the stature Graham built in the capital over a long political life, and the unusually high-level foreign attendance gives the ceremonies a diplomatic edge as well as a personal one.
Trump is also expected at the cathedral service. That detail carries its own history. Graham once lashed out at Trump in harsh terms, calling him a “jackass” and a “race-baiting bigot” before later shifting to support him.
A hawk on foreign policy
Graham was known for a hardline stance on global security issues, especially Russia and Iran, and for an instinctive readiness to back allies under pressure. Those views were on display in the final stretch of his life. While in Kyiv earlier this month, he was still pressing ahead with new sanctions legislation targeting Russia, a sign that even late in his career he remained locked into the same fights that defined much of his Senate tenure.
On Sunday, the Wall Street Journal published footage shot by a documentary team in February that appeared to capture Graham expressing delight over the Iran war and enthusiastic support for Netanyahu and Israel. The material added a final, sharp-edged glimpse of a senator who rarely softened his views on the Middle East and often found himself in the thick of Washington’s fiercest foreign-policy debates.
For foreign leaders attending the ceremonies, the moment goes beyond protocol. Netanyahu’s presence will recall Graham’s deep ties with Israel’s government. Zelenskyy’s attendance points to Graham’s late-life effort to keep US attention fixed on Ukraine’s fight against Russia. The White House meetings with Trump turn the memorial week into a brief summit of sorts, even if grief, ceremony and politics all share the same stage.
Graham’s death closes a chapter for South Carolina and for the Republican Party’s hawkish wing. His Washington farewell now begins where his career spent so much of its time: on Capitol Hill, under the domes and stones of the capital he inhabited for nearly three decades. The last public image of the week may be less about mourning alone than about the network of leaders, allies and adversaries he pulled into his orbit right to the end.
