Sen. Lindsey Graham Dies at 71 From Aortic Dissection, Hours After Returning From Ukraine

Sen. Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican whose four-decade rise from small-town lawyer to one of Washington's most quoted foreign-policy voices made him a fixture of American politics, died Saturday night at the age of 71. His office said he passed away after a "brief and sudden illness," hours after returning from a trip to Ukraine.

The cause of death was an aortic dissection due to arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease, according to preliminary findings released by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner for the District of Columbia. An aortic dissection is a life-threatening tear in the wall of the aorta, the body's largest artery; it can be fatal within minutes and often strikes without warning. Graham had given no public indication of serious illness in the days before his death.

President Donald Trump, who spoke with Graham on Saturday night just hours before he died, called the senator a "true American Patriot" and said that "other than being tired, he was fine" during their conversation. The two men had a combustible history: Graham was one of Trump's fiercest critics during the 2016 primary, famously calling him a "race-baiting, xenophobic bigot," before evolving into one of the president's most reliable Senate allies and a frequent golf partner.

First elected to the House in 1994 and to the Senate in 2002, Graham built a reputation as a hawkish internationalist who pushed for a muscular American role abroad, from Iraq and Afghanistan to the current confrontation with Iran and support for Ukraine. He was chairman of the Senate Budget Committee and, before his death, was campaigning for a fifth six-year term in November's election. His trip to Kyiv, where he met with President Volodymyr Zelensky, was characteristic of a career spent championing U.S. military aid to the country.

Tributes poured in across party lines within hours of the announcement. Colleagues described a lawmaker who could spar viciously on the Senate floor and then share a laugh in the cloakroom, a dealmaker on issues from immigration to judicial nominations who was as comfortable on Sunday talk shows as he was in classified briefings. Graham never married and had no children; he had spoken often of helping to raise his younger sister after their parents died when he was a young man.

Graham's death sets off an immediate political scramble in South Carolina, where Gov. Henry McMaster will be responsible for scheduling a special election to fill the seat, and it deprives Senate Republicans of a senior voice on the Budget and Judiciary panels at a moment of narrow margins. Funeral arrangements had not been announced as of Sunday morning.