00:00First, to Darlene and to the Graham family, all of you, I know you loved Lindsey and were proud of
00:06him, and he was proud of you, and I'm very, very sorry.
00:09It's good to see you all here among his friends and his colleagues, and I also, of course, have to
00:13issue my condolences to them.
00:15I know so many of you loved Lindsey like I did. So many of you argued with Lindsey, laughed with
00:21Lindsey, relied on Lindsey.
00:22And I also, of course, want to give condolences to a group of people you sometimes don't hear as often
00:28mentioned in the same breath, but I know who loved him, which is his staff.
00:32I know all of you worked for him for a long time. Many of you worked for him for longer
00:36than, you know, I've been in public service certainly longer, some of you even than I've been graduated from high
00:42school.
00:43Don't mean to age any of you, but what a testament to a man that he has so much loyal
00:49and devoted staff.
00:50And I think that's the first thing I want to tell about Lindsey Graham. I want to tell some stories,
00:55but I also want to make an observation, which is that Lindsey Graham loved people from all walks of life.
01:03I think in part because of the way that he grew up, because the fact that he wasn't handed everything,
01:08he was fascinated in everybody.
01:12He was fascinated in the waitstaff in the Senate dining room. He was fascinated in the people who made the
01:18food.
01:18He was fascinated in the lowest staffer who had been hired three days earlier. He was fascinated by, of course,
01:25the very leadership of our country.
01:28And I think he was fascinated in people because he loved people and he was interested in them.
01:33He was the kind of guy who would walk into the Senate. And when he walked into the Senate, this
01:38was a guy who could have stood more than five foot six or five foot seven,
01:42but he'd swashbuckle in with his jacket open. Like he was six foot five. He had an attitude to him.
01:49And it's one of the reasons why Lindsey Graham was Lindsey Graham, but he would walk into the United States
01:54Senate and he would, he would slap you on the back.
01:57He would greet the person who served his food. He treated everybody the same because he was fascinated and he
02:03loved every single person in this chamber.
02:06And that's a great testament to the man. You know, I first got to know Lindsey Graham when I was
02:12on the Senate campaign trail for my own Senate race in 2022.
02:16And I remember riding in the back of the car with him, you know, during these campaigns, you go from
02:21one event to the next and to the next event.
02:23And I remember learning a lot from him. I had a lot of people who campaigned with me during that
02:28time.
02:29But I learned something from Lindsey Graham, the way that he interacted with people, the way that he was so
02:34interested in what was going on and what was moving people and what was motivating them and what they were
02:39interested in.
02:40That affection and love of people was obvious even on the campaign trail.
02:45But so, too, was Lindsey Graham's world-class sense of humor.
02:50And in one event in particular, we had just left one event. We were riding at the back of the
02:54car going to the next event.
02:56And Lindsey Graham told me a story about his time in the house.
03:00And if I repeated exactly what he told me, Darlene, it would be the end of my political career forever.
03:07But what I can say is that I was laughing so hard that by the time we got to the
03:12next event, I had abdominal cramps and I was barely able to speak because Lindsey Graham could make anybody laugh
03:19and he could make anybody feel at home.
03:21I was talking to, you know, a mutual friend of ours, a person who didn't always agree with Lindsey Graham's
03:26politics just shortly after his death.
03:29And I expected the person maybe to say something critical.
03:32But he said, you know what, even though we sometimes disagreed, I loved Lindsey Graham.
03:37It was impossible not to like him.
03:40That swashbuckling, infectious laugh, that attitude, that passion that so many others have talked about.
03:47Lindsey Graham was impossible not to like as a human being and, of course, as a United States senator.
03:55You know, I remember on that campaign trail where, you know, you're trying to raise money.
04:00And one of the ways that you raise money is you send people to your campaign website.
04:05And I said, Lindsey, before one of these Fox hits on the campaign trail, I said, Lindsey, could you maybe
04:13mention the website, jdvance.com?
04:16And over a four-minute interview, he must have mentioned jdvance.com close to a dozen times.
04:22The host would ask, how was the weather?
04:25And Lindsey would say, well, before I check the weather, I always go to jdvance.com.
04:31And in a four- or five-minute TV appearance, Lindsey Graham raised us over $100,000.
04:38And that campaign stop was a critical part of me getting elected to the United States Senate and, of course,
04:44going on this incredible journey.
04:46That was who Lindsey Graham was.
04:48I remember once I got to the Senate, getting in this argument with Lindsey, and as John said, as Leader
04:55Thune said,
04:55he was a fierce defender of Ukraine.
04:58And he and I got into this intense argument at a Senate lunch, I think some of our colleagues probably
05:03remember this,
05:04about a funding bill for Ukraine.
05:06And I remember at the end of it going back to my staff, and I was at the time working
05:10on a rail legislation that I really, really cared about.
05:14And I remember going back to my staff and saying, well, that's probably the end of Lindsey's vote on the
05:20railway bill
05:20because he is never going to support anything I support after the argument that he and I just had.
05:27And, of course, I found out a couple of weeks later from another Senate colleague
05:31that the fiercest advocate of that bill behind the scenes was Senator Lindsey Graham.
05:37Now, Lindsey was who he was, and I knew that Lindsey couldn't even pretend to care about rail policy.
05:44It was something I really cared about, but it wasn't something Lindsey was particularly focused on.
05:49And so I went to Lindsey and I said, why are you helping me?
05:53Why are you helping this legislation?
05:55And I expected him to do what so many politicians would do.
05:58I expected him to lie and say, well, I really care about rail legislation.
06:03And he said, oh, I don't care about that at all.
06:07I said, well, why are you helping me?
06:09And he said, well, I don't care about it, but you do.
06:12And that was the kind of colleague he could be, a person you argued with and fought with in one
06:17minute,
06:17but behind the scenes without collecting an ounce of credit was working for you
06:23and working for the things that you cared about in the next.
06:26That was who Lindsey Graham was.
06:30You know, before I knew Lindsey, one of the most enduring parts of his legacy is I do believe that
06:39Justice Kavanaugh would not be on the Supreme Court
06:42were it not for his fierce advocacy during a critical moment.
06:46Remember that Senate confirmation hearing where Lindsey, and by the way,
06:51he got criticism from the Republican side of the aisle for this.
06:54He would always vote for qualified Democrat judicial nominations.
06:58He came to the judicial nomination process in a spirit of bipartisanship.
07:03Again, he was criticized sometimes from our side of the aisle for that.
07:07But what he saw happening to Kavanaugh was not a policy disagreement.
07:11It was character assassination.
07:13And Lindsey got as fiery and as passionate as I have ever seen a human being get during a judicial
07:20confirmation.
07:20And I believe that he saved that nomination.
07:24Now, that moment, of course, went viral, but Lindsey didn't do it for social media clicks.
07:29He did it to do something at the very highest part of the Senate, which was to persuade his colleagues
07:37and persuade his colleagues he did.
07:39I remember there were a few people who were waffling at that moment, a few people who were unsure what
07:45they were going to do.
07:45Lindsey didn't just earn a lot of headlines, he actually persuaded people.
07:51And that maybe is how I will choose most to remember my friend Lindsey Graham.
07:59He saw that the Senate, at its very worst, could be a venue for character assassination.
08:06But because he loved people, he saw that the Senate, at its very best, could be a deliberative body geared
08:13towards persuading people.
08:16And that's what Lindsey Graham did in that case and in so many others.
08:21So I choose to remember Lindsey Graham as a man who could disagree with you without being disagreeable.
08:28I choose to remember Lindsey Graham as a person who could fight with you on one issue, but fight for
08:35you on another issue.
08:37I remember Lindsey Graham as a man who loved people.
08:41And because he loved people, he was willing to reason with them, to respect them, and ultimately to persuade them.
08:52May God comfort all of those who loved Lindsey Graham, particularly his beautiful family.
09:00And may God rest the soul of Senator Lindsey Graham, a true American original.
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