President Donald Trump appeared Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press to pay tribute to Senator Lindsey Graham after the South Carolina Republican died unexpectedly late Saturday.
The president made the last-minute arrangement to call into the program after Graham’s death was announced just after 2 a.m. Sunday. Graham was originally slated to appear as one of the program’s guests this week, and made frequent appearances on the show over the decades. NBC’s Kristen Welker, the program’s moderator, noted that it was to be Graham’s 64th appearance on the show Sunday.
Trump told Welker that he’d spoken with Graham only hours before the senator’s death was relayed to his office shortly after 1:00 a.m. The two spoke about Trump’s top priority on Capitol Hill, the SAVE America Act, which Trump said Graham was pushing “like crazy”. The senator was just back in Washington after a trip to Ukraine, where he met with President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“It was like a member of the family to me, he was like a member of the family to me,” the president said of the senator, adding he’d planned to possibly meet with Graham on Sunday. “It’s very tough, actually. It’s amazing.”
Of his call with Graham, he added: “It was around the time– it couldn’t have been much longer. It could have been his last call, I don’t know.”
The president said Graham “sounded tired” on the call: “He actually said he was tired.” But Trump added that his overseas trip had rightfully sapped the senator’s energy.
Staffers for the 71-year-old lawmaker told NBC News that there were no indications that Graham was suffering from any kind of illness or medical issues before his death late Saturday evening.
