[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 113 (Monday, July 13, 2026)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3906-S3907]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       REMEMBERING LINDSEY GRAHAM

  Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about my friend and 
colleague Lindsey Olin Graham.
  Now, some watching might be surprised that I would describe T5Lindsey 
Graham as my friend, but those who know me and know the 16 years I have 
spent here know that Lindsey and I traveled the world together, 
legislated together, served together, fought for our Nation together.
  We had our ups and downs. We certainly had our disagreements, and I 
will tell a few quick stories, if I might, in his memory.
  There was a moment during the Kavanaugh hearings that was one of the 
most tense and ugly and difficult we had together on Judiciary. And it 
was also the time when we were working together on the bill that funds 
the State Department and foreign aid.
  And he and I had worked together to create an outside organization to 
support U.S. foreign aid. And he arrived first and spoke, and I had 
waited for him to leave for me to come and speak because we were having 
one of our moments.
  And I could see as I stood up to speak that he was waiting. He was 
born the same day as my older brother, July 9. And I said to that room: 
It may surprise a room full of people in Washington that I can love 
Lindsey Graham and want to throttle Lindsey Graham in the same minute 
in the same day, but that is Lindsey.
  We served on Judiciary together. We served on Foreign Relations 
together. We served on Appropriations together. He could make up his 
mind like that. He would commit to doing something, and he would stick 
with it. He had some core commitments and passions that were a through 
line for the entire time we served together.
  I first got to know Lindsey best through our mutual friend John 
McCain. Senator McCain kept trying and trying to get me to travel with 
him to the Munich Security Conference, and on that very first trip, 
Lindsey was, of course, also along. And in meeting after meeting with 
leaders from around the world, hearing his insights, his humor, and his 
powerful commitment to the fight for freedom inspired me.
  He and I also traveled all over Africa and the Middle East, and over 
many years, we did a lot of good together. We wrote and shaped and 
passed some of the most important bills I have had the honor of working 
on while here.
  And when I woke up Saturday morning, shocked to hear that he had died 
abruptly the night before, I thought back to the dinner we had just had 
together in Ankara, Turkiye at the NATO summit. Providentially, it was 
our first really good, warm dinner together in a while. And it was a 
chance for me to see the Lindsey I knew best from years gone by.
  He was a fierce and tireless advocate for the Ukrainian cause for 
Volodymyr Zelenskyy and for the fight for freedom currently unfolding 
in Eastern Europe, and he had had a fabulous day. Zelenskyy's meeting 
with President Trump had gone well. Trump had pledged to let Zelenskyy 
and the Ukraine license our critical PAC-3 Patriot interceptors, and 
Trump had told him he would at long last let us take up and pass in the 
Senate a bill to impose greater costs and sanctions on the buyers of 
Russian oil and gas. He was on cloud nine.
  And we celebrated his birthday, which was the next day, together. One 
of the things we talked about, as we often did, was how neither one of 
us could believe we were here. I was in a tough car accident a few days 
earlier in Lewes, DE, where a pickup truck came across the center line 
and totaled the car I was in. And I and everybody else involved in what 
was a five-car pileup walked away unscratched.
  And as we were walking back to the hotel, he put his arm around me 
and he said: I hope you are going to stick with this because we have 
got a lot more good to do. I had no idea that would be the last time we 
would speak.
  Born in the town of Central, SC, raised by a couple who owned a bar 
and a restaurant. He was the first in his family to go to college. 
Orphaned at a young age. He was dedicated to caring for his younger 
sister Darline, who we will soon have join us here in the U.S. Senate.
  And when he found here in the Senate his friend and mentor and role 
model John McCain, in many ways he found his life's purpose. He and I 
did our best work together on Appropriations and Foreign Relations. 
Looking at how hard it was to get the nation of Colombia, which was 
nearly collapsing in internal conflict with Marxist guerrillas and drug 
cartels, we looked at something called Plan Colombia that over several 
administrations with a determined and broad engagement by the United 
States and hard work by the Colombian people and their government 
helped stabilize a country otherwise descending into chaos.
  And over years of working together, we crafted something called the 
Global Fragility Act, which was designed to take that same view, having 
our State Department and, yes, USAID, and our Department of Defense and 
have a common strategy for identifying countries that were teetering on 
the edge and where thoughtful, engaged, long-term American involvement 
could make the difference.
  He and I were working right now on its reauthorization. One of the 
bills I am proudest of that we worked on over several Congresses was 
the U.S. Foundation for International Conservation Act. We renamed it 
the Foundation for Counterterrorism and Conservation. Lindsey, ever 
agile, was working for ways to make the argument for this foundation. 
The bill has been signed into law. We are simply trying to get the 
administration to launch it. In his usual clever and agile way, he 
summarized what I would make as an argument in paragraphs, and he would 
make in two sentences.
  He made up red ball caps that said ``good for animals, bad for 
terrorists'' and handed them out broadly.
  Lindsey and I gave a speech once to the major supporters of the 
University of Notre Dame in Indiana, and I had worked on my speech and 
had all sorts of remarks and points and comments. He showed up looking 
like he had just woken up, smoothing his hair down. And I stood up and 
gave, you know, 10 minutes of detailed and thorough, and I thought, 
thoughtful remarks about terrorism and the West and the balance

[[Page S3907]]

of power in the world, things they had asked us to talk about.
  And like the incredible and talented country lawyer he was, without a 
single note, he stood up and made a few simple, powerful, and engaging 
points with humor and with engagement. And I watched that room full of 
people just eating out of his hand.
  He could make an argument. When you were on the receiving end of an 
argument you disagreed with, it was unpleasant and uncomfortable. When 
you were pulling in the same direction, making an argument in all of 
our best interests, it was a delight to work with him.
  One of the things I never really persuaded him on was my passion for 
patent policy. I chaired the Intellectual Property Subcommittee on 
Judiciary, a committee we long served on together.
  And as we were coming back from a conference in Europe--this was 
years ago--I spotted my moment to make my case for my really important 
patent policy legislation and sidling up and sitting down next to him 
on the plane, I spent some time really making my best arguments.
  And as we landed back in the United States, Lindsey stumbled off the 
plane and, to me memorably, turned to the other Senators and said: I 
have a new idea for how we will torture people in Guantanamo; we will 
make them listen to Chris Coons talk about patents.
  I said: So you will cosponsor the bill? And he ran.
  I have many, many other stories of moments, tense moments with heads 
of state, moments with a group of Senators trying to hammer out a big 
bill on immigration or infrastructure where Lindsey's humor, his 
irreverent, often inappropriate, but hysterical humor broke the ice and 
brought us together.
  One trip I will never forget was 2 weeks after October 7 when Senator 
Graham and Senator Cardin pulled together 10 of us, 5 Republicans and 5 
Democrats, of a very broad range. We went to Tel Aviv. We went to 
Riyadh. We went to Cairo. We had 2-hour in-person and intense meetings 
with Muhammad bin Salman of the Saudi Kingdom, with El-Sisi, President 
of Egypt, with the Prime Minister Netanyahu and his war cabinet. It was 
a grim and heavy moment because the people of Israel had just suffered 
a horrific attack from Hamas.
  But part of why that attack had happened was this process of 
negotiating Saudi recognition of Israel and Israeli recognition of 
Palestinian self-governance, and an American guarantee to the Saudis 
was so close to conclusion, was making real progress, that Hamas chose 
that moment to strike.
  Lindsey never stopped trying to make that happen, not when Biden was 
President, not now that Trump is President. And at a formal dinner we 
were at together in Ankara at the NATO summit, he stood up and made the 
case again.
  I hope that my colleagues will look on the history of this man who 
couldn't believe he had the honor and the blessing of serving here in 
the Senate, a man with a mercurial temper, a man of incredible humor, 
and a man with a tireless work ethic who served our Nation in the Air 
Force and who served our country in the Senate.
  And we will redouble our efforts to make real the dream that he and I 
wrote together to create a conservation foundation that will secure 
ungoverned spaces--South America and in Africa and Southeast Asia--and 
shut down jihadist groups and extremist groups and conserve and protect 
wildlife and open spaces for the future. It requires just one signature 
from Secretary Rubio.
  I hope that this body will take up and reauthorize our Global 
Fragility Act based on lessons learned over years together going to 
difficult and dangerous and remote places and looking at what was 
working and not working, places where our response was overmilitarized 
or where our response was discoordinated or where our response was too 
little, too late.
  And I certainly hope that we will take up and pass the Graham-
Blumenthal bill to impose real costs on Putin. That was the source of 
his joy in his final days. He was so excited, when we spoke, about 
going into Kyiv, about giving the good news to Zelenskyy, about coming 
back here this week and passing this bill
  John, before him--Senator McCain, before him--and Senator Graham, 
often after, said: Putin will only stop when we stop him.
  I believed that then. I believe it now.
  For someone who worked so hard and for so long on our Nation's best 
interests, I think the least we could do to honor Lindsey Graham's 
memory is to take up and pass in this Senate the legislation for which 
he worked and fought so long.
  Let me close by saying to everyone who worked for Lindsey--and I have 
known many of you over the years--to his sister Darline, to his 
extended friends and family in South Carolina, know that even though he 
and I fought like hell on many occasions, it was like fighting with a 
brother--someone, although he changed and moved and at times we had 
great difficulties in distance, I always knew in the end, in his heart, 
he loved this Nation. He loved this institution. He loved South 
Carolina. And he loved the people he represented.
  My predecessor in this seat--Senator, then-Vice President, then-
President--Joe Biden was close with Lindsey. They, too, had their 
moments, their fights, their falling out. But President Biden has also 
said that he and Dr. Biden are praying for Lindsey's family and all who 
worked with him and knew him. And I join them in offering my deep and 
heartfelt condolences.
  I am just so grateful--I am just so grateful--that my last memory of 
him is of him in his best place, seeing a pathway toward accomplishing 
yet another big goal. And as we walked back to the hotel, he turned to 
me and he said: I never dreamed--I never imagined--I would get to be a 
U.S. Senator. And I hope you, Chris Coons, won't give up on it because 
it is a great place. It is a great institution. Change is going to 
come, and we are going to get a lot of great things done together.
  Well, my friend, I look forward to doing those things in your honor.
  I yield the floor.

                          ____________________