Political leaders honor Republican US senator, whose hawkish foreign policy shaped decades in Washington
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World leaders and senior political figures convened in Washington for the memorial of the long-serving US senator Lindsey Graham, remembering the “swashbuckling” South Carolina Republican “a true American original” whose embrace of “America First” never softened his advocacy for a staunch interventionist US foreign policy.
Prominent Republicans paid tribute to Graham, a polarizing figure and onetime rival turned stalwart ally of Donald Trump who championed the US-Israel war on Iran. He was a prominent voice in the anti-abortion movement and a unwavering supporter of Israel, serving as one of Capitol Hill’s most outspoken foreign policy hawks.
Speaking during a ceremony inside the Capitol Rotunda, the US Senate majority leader, John Thune, hailed Graham as a “fierce defender of Ukraine”, following its full-scale invasion by Russia in 2022, and a “powerful voice for the [anti-abortion] movement”.
