CHARLESTON, S.C. — President Trump said Monday he’s recommended that Lindsey Graham’s sister be named as his temporary replacement in the U.S. Senate.
Trump posted on social media that Gov. Henry McMaster should appoint Darline Graham Nordone to fulfill the rest of Graham’s term, which expires in January. Graham died over the weekend at age 71, and McMaster is expected to announce his pick later Monday.
After their parents died at a young age, Graham was left to raise his sister, whom he later adopted. The pair were very close, and Graham’s sister was by his side as he filed reelection paperwork earlier this year.
A special election will be held next month to pick a new Republican nominee in the general election for Graham’s seat. He had been seeking a fifth term this year.
The rare open Senate seat has ignited a scramble among South Carolina’s most ambitious conservatives, who have been eager to climb the political ladder.
Republicans just finished a sprawling and bruising contest to figure out their nominee for succeeding McMaster, who is wrapping up his second term. State Atty. Gen. Alan Wilson won the nomination, overcoming a field that included Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, Rep. Nancy Mace and Ralph Norman — all of whom are now eyeing Graham’s seat following his death over the weekend.
According to South Carolina law, a one-week filing period for a special primary election begins on the second Tuesday after the candidate’s death, or July 21.
The special primary election would be held on the second Tuesday after that filing period closes, or Aug. 11. Any necessary runoff would follow two weeks after that, or Aug. 25.
From that point, the new nominee would have just over two months to campaign for the general election on Nov. 3.
All of this is problematic according to federal law, which requires military and overseas ballots to go out 45 days before any federal election. For the general election primary, that would have been June 27. Federal Election Commission officials didn’t immediately return a message seeking clarity about the process.
Graham died on Saturday night, and a preliminary medical examiner report said he suffered a tear in his aorta, known as an aortic dissection.
In the hours after Graham’s death was announced, South Carolina’s Republican circles were already swirling with rumors about possible replacements. Given the proximity of November’s election, it’s likely that whomever McMaster appoints could be a top contender in the special primary, although it’s possible that McMaster’s choice will only serve as a temporary caretaker.
Evette, who has served nearly eight years alongside McMaster and received his endorsement in the governor’s race, is one possibility. She lost the June 23 runoff to Wilson.
A person with knowledge of Evette’s thinking but not authorized to discuss it publicly said that she was getting encouragement from across the state and feels she would have good chances in the special primary.
It’s unlikely that any House member would be appointed to finish Graham’s current term, since Republicans have such a slim majority in the chamber.
U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson, a rumored replacement, said he assured Trump on Sunday that “my goal is to remain in the House to keep his two-vote majority for the American people!!!”
However, that doesn’t mean that House members won’t run for the next full term. A person with knowledge of Mace’s thinking but not authorized to speak about it publicly said she was considering the race. Mace is not running for reelection to the House.
But another Republican from the state, Rep. Russell Fry, could be a possibility. The two-term lawmaker represents the growing area around Myrtle Beach, and he’s been a top Trump ally.
A spokesman for businessman Mark Lynch, whom Graham defeated in the primary, didn’t return a message Sunday.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who lived in South Carolina before joining the Trump administration, has fielded calls about potentially replacing Graham but doesn’t have interest in the role, according to a person who insisted on anonymity to describe private conversations.
No Democrat has won a Senate seat in South Carolina in decades, and Republicans in recent history typically take statewide seats by double digits. When he last ran in 2020, Graham defeated his Democratic opponent, Jaime Harrison, by a 10 percentage point margin.
So while history suggests that Graham was en route to a fifth term, Republicans are carefully surveying the landscape.
Charleston pediatrician Annie Andrews won the Democratic nomination last month and has raised more than $8 million in the race, and she had just under $3 million cash on hand at the end of May, according to federal filings. Graham had taken in $6 million, with just over $4 million on hand.
In a statement Sunday, Andrews called on South Carolinians to join her “in setting partisanship aside and offering gratitude” to Graham for his service.
Harrison, noting that he and Graham “had our share of political disagreements,” wrote on social media that he “always appreciated that even in our fiercest political battles, we could still share a conversation, a laugh, and a mutual respect for South Carolina and the institutions we were both privileged to serve.”
Graham leaves a major void in the Senate, where seniority can determine influence. He served more than two decades in the chamber, positioning himself to lead committees and set the agenda.
Sen. Tim Scott, South Carolina’s junior senator, has been in office only since 2012 — short by the state’s standards. Fritz Hollings served for 38 years, and Strom Thurmond was there for 47.
Scott, who co-chaired Graham’s reelection effort, described his former colleague as “irreplaceable.”
“America lost a statesman, but I lost a friend,” he told ABC’s “This Week.”
Kinnard writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Fatima Hussein in Washington contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON — The sudden death of Sen. Lindsey Graham, the veteran South Carolina Republican lawmaker, is scrambling the state’s U.S. Senate race as Republicans face a fast primary election to replace him on the ballot.
Graham, 71, who died Saturday after what the D.C. medical examiner called an aorta rupture, was seeking a fifth term in the Senate. Even as his political allies publicly mourned his loss, jockeying began over the vacancy, and President Trump signaled an intention to weigh in.
“I have somebody that I think would be great, but I don’t want to say it now because it’s just, you know, it’s too soon with Lindsey,” Trump, who ordered American flags to be lowered to half-staff in Graham’s honor, said Sunday on NBC News’ “Meet the Press.” “I don’t want to even talk about anybody, but I do have somebody that I think is really good.”
Graham’s death eats into Republicans’ voting majority in the Senate, as does the absence of Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who has been hospitalized for weeks. It adds new uncertainty for the GOP at a time when the party is contending with Trump’s declining popularity among Americans and tensions have been high among Senate Republicans at odds with Trump.
Graham’s death creates the second major shakeup of a Senate race in a week, following Democratic candidate Graham Platner’s dropping out in Maine. Like that state’s Democrats, South Carolina Republicans now face a snap process for choosing a new nominee four months before the November midterms.
But whereas Maine Democrats are expected to decide Platner’s replacement at a convention in two weeks, South Carolina Republican voters will choose Graham’s replacement next month at the ballot box.
Whether the absence of an incumbent could tighten the race or force the GOP to funnel extra money into it remains to be seen. South Carolina is a reliably red state and Graham’s seat was not widely seen as competitive; the race has been rated as solidly Republican by Cook Political Report.
“I expect we’ll have a good November,” said Drew McKissick, chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party, but, he added: “You never take anything for granted, and that’s the last thing I would do in a situation like this.”
McKissick remembered Graham as dedicated to helping his party across levels and in sometimes little-noticed ways, assisting county organizations and down-ballot candidates.
“His time [was] spent on so many issues that were incredibly important to our party,” McKissick said. “He was a staunch pro-life senator with no equal.”
To replace him on the November ballot, the party must hold a special election, according to state election law. Republicans who want to vie for the seat will be able to file starting July 21, and the primary election will be Aug. 11, with a possible Aug. 25 runoff.
Graham was opposed by Democrat Annie Andrews, a pediatrician, who in a statement Sunday called the senator “a man of great faith who proudly served our nation.”
“I hope that South Carolinians will join me in setting partisanship aside and offering gratitude to Senator Lindsey Graham for his service to the great state of South Carolina,” Andrews wrote.
Because it is now an open seat, that changes the race, said Jay Parmley, executive director of the South Carolina Democratic Party.
It will require the “rejiggering” of campaign strategy built around opposing Graham, but the Democrats’ big-picture approach of countering Trump and MAGA Republican values will stand regardless of who becomes the new nominee, Parmley said. He predicted the race would be competitive.
“This absolutely is in play,” Parmley said of the seat. “I think it was in play before … but now, I think it’s game on.”
Democrats must retain their seats in three competitive states and flip seats in at least four others. The party has largely focused on Maine, Alaska, Iowa, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas for possible flips.
South Carolina remains a stretch for Democrats, so Graham’s death likely doesn’t change the party’s calculus, said Democratic strategist Andrew DeStefano.
“The math is still very clear and doable,” DeStefano said. “I would rather be Dems than Republicans right now, even with the Senate math and even playing in some tough states.”
Under South Carolina law, Gov. Henry McMaster, a Republican, can appoint someone to fill Graham’s vacant seat until January. In a statement, McMaster said Graham was “irreplaceable,” calling him “the fiercest of fighters for South Carolina and America.”
If a member of the South Carolina congressional delegation were to be appointed to the seat, it would erode the party’s slim margin in that chamber — something some House Republicans were reportedly seeking to avoid. At least one, Rep. Joe Wilson, said Sunday he had told Trump would not seek the seat in order to preserve the House majority.
In Kentucky, McConnell is set to retire at the end of this term, and a race is underway to fill his vacant seat in November. If he were to die before the new session of Congress begins in January, it could set off a legal fight over an untested Kentucky state law requiring a special election to fill a Senate vacancy, but would not affect the November race.
On Sunday, McConnell said in a statement he had been hospitalized after a fall. Little information had been released from his office about his condition, causing questions to swirl. “Just tell us what’s going on,” Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, urged Saturday on X.
In Maine, Democrats last week announced a July 25 convention where 601 county delegates and state party members will select a nominee to replace Platner.
“The circumstances are different between the two states,” said David Farmer, a Maine-based Democratic strategist, “but it’s certainly shaping up to be a strange midterm election with enormous stakes for the country.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham, the prominent Republican from South Carolina who served in the Senate for more than two decades, died after suffering an aortic dissection, his office said Sunday.
Graham died unexpectedly Saturday night, his office announced, shortly after he had returned to Washington after a trip to Ukraine.
In a statement, his spokesperson said a preliminary report from the medical examiner for the District of Columbia found that the 71-year-old senator died of aortic dissection due to arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease. With aortic dissection, a tear occurs in the wall of the aorta.
According to the Mayo Clinic, aortic dissection is not very common, and its symptoms may be mistakenly attributed to other health conditions. It usually affects men in their 60s and 70s. If the blood from the dissection travels outside the artery, the condition is often fatal.
A former military lawyer who reached the rank of colonel in the Air Force, Graham ran for the Republican nomination for president in 2016. Initially a cutting, vocal critic of then-candidate Donald Trump during the election, Graham became one of the president’s staunchest allies after Trump’s election.
“Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the greatest people and Senators I have ever known, is dead!” Trump posted on his social media platform, Truth, on Sunday. “He was always working, and was a true American Patriot.”
Graham was known as a C student in high school, and was the first member of his family to attend college. His mother died while he attended the University of South Carolina, and his father died of a heart attack during Graham’s first semester of law school.
He served as a judge advocate in the Air Force, eventually becoming the chief prosecutor for the Air Force in Europe.
He was first elected to serve as senator for South Carolina in November 2002.
In a social media post on X, Vice President JD Vance described Graham as one of the most powerful lawmakers, and recalled an incident where he and Graham got into a shouting match over a funding bill for the war in Ukraine.
Later the same day, he wrote in the post, Graham was advocating for rail legislation that Vance supported.
“That was Lindsey Graham,” he wrote. “He fought like hell for the things he believed in, and he was just as willing to go to bat for you when it counted.”
Graham had been scheduled to appear on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday to discuss his trip to Ukraine. Instead, President Trump appeared in his stead, where he said the senator had been “like a member of the family.”
Trump called into several Sunday news programs to discuss Graham’s death, and said he had spoken to Graham on Saturday evening.
Trump told CNN’s Jake Tapper that the South Carolina senator had said he was “tired.”
WASHINGTON — Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of President Trump’s closest allies in Congress who traveled the globe to advocate for a more aggressive U.S. foreign policy, has died after a “brief and sudden illness,” his office said. He was 71.
The statement posted on social media late Saturday did not provide any additional details about the South Carolina Republican, a former Air Force lawyer, and said his family “appreciates prayers at this time and asks for privacy during this incredibly difficult period.”
“Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the greatest people and Senators I have ever known, is dead!” Trump posted on social media early Sunday. “He was always working, and was a true American Patriot. Lindsey will be greatly missed!!! DETAILS AND ARRANGEMENTS TO FOLLOW. So sad!”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said, “My heart is heavy this morning to learn of the passing of my friend and colleague.”
Thune described Graham as “a strong advocate for the United States and a strong ally to freedom-loving countries across the globe. He believed in the might of America to achieve good in the world and dedicated his life to advancing that cause.”
Graham was one of the most influential figures in Washington on foreign policy, and he advised Trump on matters such as Iran and Russia. The senator had just returned from Ukraine and announced an agreement Friday with the Trump administration to move forward on a package of Russia sanctions. He had been scheduled to appear Sunday morning on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
As chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, Graham had a central role during Trump’s second term as Republicans pushed major legislation on party-line votes while holding a narrow 53-47 majority in the chamber.
Under South Carolina law, Republican Gov. Henry McMaster will appoint a temporary replacement for Graham, who was seeking a fifth term in November.
Graham, who was elected to the Senate in 2002 after serving in the House, long promoted a policy of robust U.S. military interventionism and strong national defense that in later years would put him at odds with the growing isolationist wing of the Republican Party.
More recently, Graham had become well-known for his close ties with Trump, whom the senator briefly ran against for the party’s presidential nomination in 2016.
Their relationship would begin on a rough note, with Graham calling the New York businessman and TV reality show figure “unfit for office.” Graham also used profanity to describe him after Trump made disparaging comments about Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, Graham’s best friend in the Senate and a Vietnam War veteran. McCain and Graham, along with Sen. Joe Lieberman, a Democrat turned independent from Connecticut, were known as the “Three Amigos” and frequently traveled together to push their hawkish foreign policy views around the globe.
During a campaign rally in South Carolina, Trump read out Graham’s personal cellphone number and continued to belittle him throughout the 2016 campaign as Graham made it clear he would not support Trump even though he was the GOP nominee.
But Graham shifted significantly once Trump won the White House. He emerged as one of Trump’s top allies — speaking with him frequently and becoming a regular presence on the golf course alongside the president — even as McCain remained a critic and foe of Trump.
In a 2018 interview with the Associated Press, Graham explained his pivot by saying McCain taught him that the country must move forward after elections and that meant “you have an obligation” to help the president. McCain ran twice for the White House.
“And I’ve tried to be helpful where I could because I think he needs all the help he can get,” Graham said of Trump. “You can be a better critic when people understand that you’re trying to help them be successful.”
Graham appeared to break with Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, saying before the delayed congressional vote to certify Joe Biden’s election victory over Trump, “Count me out. Enough is enough.” But the senator returned to the fold and remained close with the president during his second term.
Graham had been in Ukraine to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who said that the senator visited his country 10 times during the years since Russia’s full-scale invasion.
“Lindsey was a true defender of freedom and the values that make our world safer,” Zelensky said.
Graham’s travels made him a familiar face to dozens of world leaders.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mourned Graham’s death, calling him “a great friend of Israel” and “a cherished friend of mine.”
Netanyahu said Graham understood that the security of Israel and the United States was inseparable and devoted his life to defending America, strengthening the U.S.-Israel alliance and standing up for the free world.
“Israel has lost one of its greatest friends. America has lost a great patriot. I have lost a beloved friend,” Netanyahu said.
As chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, Graham oversaw a process called reconciliation, a Senate procedure that allowed Republicans to pass significant policies such as last year’s tax law without the threat of a Democratic filibuster.
He had previously led the Judiciary Committee when Republicans confirmed Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court in late 2020, and was in line to regain that gavel if the party kept control of the Senate after this year’s midterm elections.
“In 2027, I’ll be Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee once again,” Graham posted on X on June 30. “And I’ll wake up every single day with one goal: confirming as many conservative judges as possible.”
Graham was a key player in the Senate’s efforts to craft a massive immigration overhaul in 2013 as a member of a bipartisan group that wrote a sweeping measure that would have altered virtually every part of U.S. immigration law. It passed the Senate with 68 votes but was never taken up by the House, so it did not become law.
But Graham’s views on immigration, particularly an endorsement of a path to citizenship for people in the U.S. without legal status, put him at odds with some Republican factions.
He sometimes faced primary challenges in his home state of South Carolina, but he won the nomination outright in June.
The senator addressed the president in his victory speech last month, saying, “I’m going to help you change this world and change this country.”
Graham won 57% of the GOP vote in the primary and was up against Democrat Annie Andrews, a pediatrician, and several minor party and independent candidates in November.
After McMaster appoints a replacement, South Carolina law requires a special primary for voters to select a new nominee within weeks of a vacancy. The general election winner will take office January, beginning a full six-year term.
McMaster’s office did not immediately return messages seeking comment on who would take Graham’s seat or when the machinations for the primary would begin. State party officials said early Sunday they would release more information when they could.
The sparse statement by Graham’s office, which did not explain his death, comes during a stretch of concern about a lack of transparency about lawmakers’ health.
Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-N.J.) was absent without explanation for months before returning to Congress and disclosing that he had been diagnosed with depression.
Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, the former longtime Republican leader, was hospitalized weeks ago for undisclosed health reasons.
McMaster said in a statement that Graham was “irreplaceable.”
“The fiercest of fighters for South Carolina and America — and a loyal and steadfast friend,” McMaster said. He added: “We shall not see his likes again.”
Graham was not married and did not have children. His closest living relative is sister Darline Graham Nordone, whom he helped raise after both their parents died.
Weissert writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Mary Clare Jalonick and Christopher Megerian in Washington, Meg Kinnard in Columbia, S.C., Brian P. D. Hannon in Bangkok and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.
The US president suggests he is considering a potential candidate to fill the late senator’s seat in South Carolina.
The disadvantage that the Republican majority in the United States Senate has suffered from the death of Lindsey Graham is likely to be short-lived.
Currently, Republicans hold 52 seats in the 100-member chamber, after losing Graham to a “brief and sudden illness” late on Saturday, according to his office.
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But South Carolina’s election laws give Republican Governor Henry McMaster the authority to immediately appoint a replacement to fill Graham’s seat.
“In case of a vacancy in the office of United States Senator from death, resignation or otherwise, the Governor may fill the place by appointment,” the law says.
Graham’s term was set to expire in January. He was running for re-election in the November midterm vote.
A primary will be held next month to determine who will take his place as the Republican nominee. The first round of voting is set for August 11, and if no candidate wins a majority of the votes, a run-off would take place on August 25.
McMaster has released a brief statement mourning Graham, without mentioning plans to replace him. The law does not set a timeline for the appointment, but the governor is likely to fill the seat quickly to ensure that President Donald Trump’s agenda is not disrupted in the Senate.
Graham was one of Trump’s closest allies on Capitol Hill.
In his statement, McMaster called the late senator the “fiercest of fighters for South Carolina and America and a loyal and steadfast friend”.
“We grieve with Darline, his family and his devoted staff,” McMaster said, referring to Graham’s sister. “May God hold him gently in the palm of his hand. We shall not see his likes again.”
It is so far unclear who McMaster might select as Graham’s replacement. The governor might appoint a placeholder candidate who would fill the seat without seeking a full term in November’s midterms, to avoid influencing the election process.
He may also opt for someone who would run for the full term, which would give his pick the incumbent status that would boost their profile — and therefore, their chances at the ballot box.
Other governors have faced similar dilemmas. In California, for instance, Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom pursued both paths in separate appointments in recent years.
When Kamala Harris vacated her Senate seat to serve as US vice president in 2021, Newsom picked state legislator Alex Padilla to replace her. Padilla won a special election for the seat the following year.
But in 2023, when Senator Dianne Feinstein died, Newsom appointed political operative Laphonza Butler, who did not end up running in the 2024 election.
In Graham’s case, however, the White House might weigh in. Trump has suggested that he is considering backing a candidate to replace the senator.
“I have somebody that I think would be great, but I don’t want to say it now because it’s just too soon with Lindsey,” the US president told NBC News.
“I don’t want to even talk about anybody, but I do have somebody that I think is really good.”
South Carolina, a southern state on the US’s Atlantic coast, has been a Republican stronghold for decades. Trump won the state by nearly 18 percentage points in 2024.
But polls have suggested that Graham was not cruising to re-election. His Democratic opponent, paediatrician Annie Andrews, was closing the gap on him.
A June poll by Impact Research showed the late senator leading by only three percent.
Graham had become a polorising figure even within the Republican base, due to his staunch devotion to Israel and support for the US-Israeli war on Iran.
On Sunday, Andrews praised Graham without mentioning elections or politics.
“I hope that South Carolinians will join me in setting partisanship aside and offering gratitude to Senator Lindsey Graham for his service to the great state of South Carolina,” she said in a statement.
WASHINGTON — After the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, Sen. Lindsey Graham said he had finally had enough of the man who was championed by the mob that stormed the pillar of American democracy: President Trump.
“Trump and I, we’ve had a hell of a journey. I hate it to end this way. Oh, my God, I hate it. From my point of view, he’s been a consequential president,” an emotional Graham said once authorities cleared the rioters and allowed senators to reclaim their chamber to certify Joe Biden’s election win. “All I can say is count me out. Enough is enough.”
It wasn’t, of course.
Graham, the South Carolina Republican who died unexpectedly Saturday night at 71, realized that his party’s future was inextricably tied to Trump and quickly reverted back to being a staunch defender. The shift made what had once seemed like a final rupture into just another twist in the topsy-turvy relationship between the powerful senator and the president who came to dominate their party.
“Can we move forward without President Trump? The answer is no,” Graham said in May 2021, just four months after the Jan. 6 insurrection. “I’ve determined we can’t grow without him.”
Trump, who called Graham a “true American Patriot” in a social media post Sunday, appeared shocked by the senator’s sudden death.
“I just can’t believe it,” the president said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “He was like a member of the family.”
Graham often advised Trump on foreign affairs, particularly on matters pertaining to Israel, Ukraine and Iran. He was a frequent visitor at the White House.
“At the end of a particularly thrilling and rollicking meeting in the Oval Office, Lindsey Graham turned to the room and said: ‘I’ve never had this much fun in my life,’” Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller wrote on X. He said such gatherings “were filled with camaraderie, kinship and uproarious laughter.”
Trump recalled that during his last conversation with Graham, he told his friend, “We’ll see you soon, come over anytime you want.”
The senator and Trump first clashed while competing for the 2016 presidential nomination.
Graham described Trump as “unfit for office,” and was angered when Trump denigrated the military service of Graham’s close friend Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). Trump, while talking about McCain’s years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, said, “I like people that weren’t captured.”
Trump got mad enough at Graham to release the senator’s personal cellphone number. That prompted a viral video in which the senator dramatically destroyed a series of flip phones. He smashed one with a meat cleaver and another with a golf club, then used lighter fluid, a blender and toaster oven to pulverize others before tossing one off the roof.
Graham eventually likened Trump’s winning the nomination to “being shot in the head” and said he refused to vote for Trump that November. But the pair later bonded over golf and what Graham described as a mutual and irreverent sense of humor.
Trump and Graham began so frequently hitting the links together that the senator started seeing it as something of a career builder, leaning heavily into the kind of over-the-top flattery Trump relishes. In 2017, Graham joked that Trump had beaten him “like a drum” on the course, even worse than in the presidential primary.
“Their true friendship could only be seen behind the curtain,” Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) said on ABC’s “This Week.” Scott said that relationship was forged as political adversaries but was strengthened by spending 100-plus hours golfing together.
During Trump’s first term, Graham helped advance Trump’s nominees to the Supreme Court, lent credibility to the White House’s legislative agenda and even at times became part of the president’s inner circle. He frequently said Trump was maturing in politics and growing on the job.
Graham’s political divergence with McCain, who died in 2018, was never more clear than in 2017, when McCain voted against a Trump-backed plan to overturn the Affordable Care Act, former President Obama’s signature healthcare law. The effort had been co-sponsored by Graham.
In his floor speech after the Capitol attack, Graham said that “he’d never been so humiliated and embarrassed for the country.” But the break with Trump ended quickly.
Weeks later, Trump invited Graham for golf and dinner at the president’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, reigniting their alliance. During Trump’s 2024 campaign, Graham was a frequent Trump surrogate on television, promoting U.S. military strength that he said would advance “America first” policies.
Graham never shed his more traditional Republican foreign policy views, including outspoken support for Ukraine after the Russian invasion — even as Trump frequently wavered in supporting Kyiv, sometimes castigating Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky and praising Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
The senator was also a leading voice pushing the White House to more fully embrace Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and take a harder line against Iran, and he was a leading advocate of Trump’s ongoing war with Iran. After the U.S. and Israel attacked in February, Graham staunchly defended the action and working to counter many among Trump’s “Make America Great Again” base who supported the president’s longtime assertions that “America first” meant avoiding such military conflicts.
“To those who say Iran is stronger now than before, that is an insult to the American military and it is delusional thinking because the Iranian economy is in shambles,” Graham posted on social media June 19.
Graham’s admiration for Trump went far beyond Iran. When the senator clinched the South Carolina Republican primary last month, he suggested the president was just short of a deity.
“I want to start with a bunch of thank yous. I want to thank the big guy, God. Trump comes later,” Graham laughed. “Mr. President, you’re not far behind God, but we’re gonna start with him.”
Weissert writes for the Associated Press.
July 12 (UPI) — Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham died suddenly on Saturday night, two days after his 71st birthday, his office announced.
Graham had just returned from a trip to Ukraine, where he toured a drone factory and met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, CBS News and The Washington Post reported.
“On the evening of Saturday, July 11, U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham passed away from a brief and sudden illness,” his office said in a statement posted to X.
“Senator Graham’s family appreciates prayers at this time and asks for privacy during this incredibly difficult period,” the statement said.
Graham had been scheduled to appear on NBC’s “Meet The Press” on Sunday morning, which instead featured an interview with President Donald Trump, who said that he’d spoken with the senator on Saturday after he’d returned from Ukraine.
“Other than being tired, he was fine,” Trump said.
Graham, who was first elected to the Senate in 2002, had already won South Carolina’s Republican Senate primary and now will have to be replaced on the ticket.
The state is expected to hold a special primary in the next few weeks so that voters can choose a new candidate.
Bonnie Tyler
Singer Bonnie Tyler performs the song “Believe in Me” during the dress rehearsal for the Eurovision Song Contest in Malmo, Sweden, Sweden, on May 17, 2013. Tyler, best known for her hit songs “Total Eclipse of the Heart” and “Holding Out For a Hero,” died at the age of 75 on July 8. Photo by Jessica Gow/EPA
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a close ally of US President Donald Trump, has died at the age of 71. He died on Saturday evening following a “brief and sudden illness”, according to his office.
Elected to the Senate in 2002, the South Carolina politician was one of Washington’s most influential voices on foreign policy, often pushing for US military intervention overseas.
Donald Trump said Graham was a “true American Patriot” who would be “greatly missed”.
Graham had just returned from Kyiv, where he met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday. There were no known health concerns ahead of his trip.
Graham was a staunch supporter of arming Kyiv and applying sanctions against Moscow. Zelensky said in a post on X, external that he was “deeply saddened” by his death.
“America and the world have lost a determined leader,” he added.
Graham’s relationship with the US president had evolved since Trump first ran for office.
In a CNN interview during his campaign for the presidency in 2015, Graham called Trump “a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot”. The next year, he said: “If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed… and we will deserve it.”
After the US Capitol riots in 2021, Graham gave a speech on the Senate floor in which he said: “Trump and I, we’ve had a hell of a journey. I hate it to end this way.
“All I can say is a count me out. Enough is enough.”
Kyle Wehner/iStock via Getty Images
U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, a longtime Republican lawmaker from South Carolina and one of President Donald Trump’s closest allies on Capitol Hill, has died at the age of 71 following a brief and sudden illness, according to a statement from his office. No cause of death
Published On 12 Jul 202612 Jul 2026
Lindsey Graham, a prominent Senate member in the United States, has passed away.
He passed away on Saturday evening after a brief and sudden illness, the communications director for his office said in a post on X early on Sunday.
More to come…
She is concerned, however, that it will be difficult for voters to coalesce around any new candidate in just three months.
“The thing I’m the most worried about is we run somebody and he or she loses, and then we spend the next four years pointing fingers at whose fault that was,” she said.
In primary contests across the country this year, Democrats regularly opted for outsider congressional candidates offering a vivid vision for what the party should stand for and promising to fight for their beliefs in the face of Republican resistance.
Platner was one of the earliest and most prominent examples of this trend. With his gravelly voice, scruffy appearance and working-class back story, he gained a passionate following both in Maine and nationally.
He presented himself as a candidate who could advocate for liberal policies – like universal healthcare, wealth taxes, and low-cost housing – in a way that appealed to the kind of rural voters who have moved away from Democrats recently.
A win in November would have given Democratic progressives a chance to see blue-collar liberalism triumphing in battleground states like Maine.
And that, in turn, could have become a compelling argument for nominating a left-wing presidential candidate in 2028.
Now, that opportunity is likely dashed.
That Platner survived the series of scandals as long as he did was in part a testament to Democrats’ hunger for a different kind of candidate. It also, however, underlined the risks of opting for charismatic political neophytes who haven’t received close scrutiny before they run for higher office.
With Platner’s exit, a group of more traditional candidates are already expressing interest in stepping in – including a handful who unsuccessfully ran for governor and one of the state’s open House seats last month. They have recent campaign experience and some name recognition.
Troy Jackson, a former Maine Senate leader, campaigned side-by-side with Platner during his bid for governor, and came in third.
Nirav Shah, a state epidemiologist who gained prominence through regular public appearances during the Covid pandemic, finished a close second.
Shenna Bellows, the Maine secretary of state, is known for her lawsuit to block Trump administration attempts to gain access to state voter data. She was the party’s nominee in 2014 but was soundly beaten by Collins.
According to Melcher, many Platner supporters will be hit hard because of the connection they made with their unconventional candidate. He believes they will ultimately back his replacement, however, because of the high stakes in this race.
Many Maine Democrats supported Platner with some reluctance because of his past scandals, he added, and this latest twist might end up a blessing in disguise for the party.
“If they play their cards right, I think that they will be fine and, with some voters, even better than they would have been before,” he said, “as long as the party doesn’t handle this in a way they see as disrespectful or a cabal taking things over.”
The clock is ticking, however, and Collins awaits whoever emerges from whatever process Democrats ultimately follow. She has proven a formidable adversary for Democrats for 30 years, most recently defeating a better-funded opponent in 2020 despite polls showing her trailing right up to election day.
“It’s not as though it was going to be easy before, and now it’s hard,” said Melcher. “Beating Collins was always going to be hard.”
WASHINGTON — The campaign of U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner was buckling in Maine on Tuesday after he was accused of rape, injecting uncertainty into a contest that is central to determining which party wins Senate control in November’s midterms.
The situation set off swift debate about how state Democrats would choose Platner’s replacement if he were to withdraw, and which Maine figures might be best positioned to play off the progressive messaging he used to win over voters.
With Maine viewed by Democrats as a key seat to win in their long-shot bid for a Senate majority, the decision would be high stakes, analysts said. In the meantime, with uncertainty clouding the race, the shake-up could put additional pressure on the party to win Senate races in states seen as more difficult to flip.
Platner has denied the rape allegation, which came in a Politico report Monday from a woman who said Platner forced her to have sex with him when he was intoxicated. Platner said Monday that he would “reflect” on his candidacy but has not withdrawn.
“The calculation that almost everyone on the Democratic side is making is that with Platner in it, it is an unwinnable race,” said John Cluverius, director of survey research for the Center for Public Opinion at UMass Lowell, “and without Platner in it, they have a much better chance.”
An oyster farmer and Marine veteran, Platner had entered the race to challenge Republican Sen. Susan Collins as an outsider and was seen as riding an anti-establishment wave of support.
His candidacy highlighted the split within his party between progressives and establishment Democrats and represented a matchup between an older incumbent and a younger outsider candidate.
By Tuesday afternoon, Platner’s financial backing was disintegrating and prominent Democrats had withdrawn their support — including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a key endorser of Platner’s, who said Tuesday afternoon that he had told Platner to withdraw.
A spokesperson for Platner’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont), who had been one of Platner’s most visible backers, quickly withdrew his endorsement Monday.
“I’ve been very clear that sexual assault or violence against women is a red line. These allegations are very serious and credible,” Khanna, who has been a prominent supporter of victims of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, wrote on X.
The California congressman had been among progressives, including Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who previously stood by Platner. Khanna had rallied for Platner at a pre-primary event in June after a set of allegations about the candidate’s “unsettling” conduct from his exes reported by the New York Times and the revelation that he had sent sexually explicit messages to women outside his marriage.
Platner’s collapse comes after the fall of former California Rep. Eric Swalwell, whose ascendant campaign for governor was ended in April after he was accused of sexual assault.
As in Swalwell’s case, Platner’s support has unraveled quickly, leaving him with little path forward.
The Democrats’ formal Senate campaign arm and the Senate Majority PAC, which is aligned with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, both pulled investment from the race, their leaders said in statements. Swing Left, an organization working to flip seats for Democrats, removed Maine from its target Senate races for now.
“We continue to believe this seat is winnable if Platner is not on the ballot,” said Senate Majority PAC spokesperson Lauren French.
Under state law, Platner has until Monday to withdraw in order for the Maine Democratic Party to be able to nominate a replacement. The committee would have until July 27 to do so.
For Collins, facing a new candidate could make for a harder race than going up against Platner, analysts said.
The fifth-term senator has survived reelection repeatedly, including in 2020, when the state went blue in the presidential election, but drawn ire from some moderate and left-leaning voters who want her to push back more forcefully against President Trump.
Without Maine, Democrats would have to pick up an additional race in a state that went for Trump in 2024 in order to flip the four seats required to win a majority.
To get to four, the party needs to win some mix of Maine, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas and Iowa and must also retain its seats in Michigan, Georgia and New Hampshire.
That scenario could be within reach for Democrats but they face a steep climb, a New York Times/Siena poll released last week found.
“This does put enormous pressure on Democrats across the country with every viable race,” said David Niven, who teaches American politics at the University of Cincinnati. “The margin of error was already slim, and it’s approaching none.”
In Texas, a heated and expensive race has shaped up between Democrat James Talarico, a state representative who is facing Republican Ken Paxton, the state attorney general.
“I would suspect that Democrats are going to be relatively all-in on Texas simply because they can no longer rely on Maine in the way they thought they were going to be able to,” said Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University.
The Politico report came after a string of other controversies for Platner, who had successfully batted them away ahead of the state’s June primary.
His quick rise in the campaign excited Democrats looking for younger, non-establishment leaders. His primary opponent, Maine Gov. Janet Mills, suspended her campaign in late April, clearing his path.
But questions about the rushed vetting of Platner soon arose.
He faced scrutiny over a tattoo on his chest that was widely recognized as a Nazi symbol, which he then said he had covered up, and a tranche of deleted Reddit posts that he said were “stupid” comments from a time when he had post-traumatic stress disorder.
Ahead of the primary, the report of his extramarital texts and the allegations by exes about volatile behavior revived questions about his candidacy; Platner described them as politically motivated and privately assured Democratic leaders that nothing else was coming.
The situation “reinforce[s] the need for more careful vetting [of] first-time outsider candidates,” said Dan Schnur, who teaches political communications at USC, UC Berkeley and Pepperdine.
“Every political professional knows that the most important type of candidate research is not opposition research — it’s research on your own candidate,” Schnur said.
Progressive leaders on Monday sought to validate the success of Platner’s campaign in energizing Maine voters while disavowing Platner. They urged Democratic leaders to stick with a candidate who shares Platner’s working-class image if he withdraws — something Platner may hope to influence, the New York Times reported.
“To the Democratic establishment: this is not your opening,” Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of the progressive organization Our Revolution, said in a statement. “Whoever leads this movement forward must be someone who has actually lived the fight Graham Platner ran on.”
Some Democrats were already looking to the party’s gubernatorial primary candidates as possible replacements, including Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, former state Sen. Troy Jackson and former state health official Nirav D. Shah.
The July deadlines would leave enough time before November for Democrats to persuade voters of a new candidate, said Mark Brewer, a political science professor at the University of Maine, but how the party chose to select a replacement would probably be as important as whom it chose.
“Having a 100-person executive committee select it on their own would probably not sit well with Platner’s supporters,” Brewer said. “A caucus they could pull off; if they want to be as open and inclusive as possible, that’s probably their best option.”
McDaniel reported from Washington and Kwok from Los Angeles.
POP superstars Madonna and Kylie Minogue get into the groove as they film a comedy bar sketch for Madge’s special with Graham Norton.
Madonna, 67, invited Kylie, 58, to take part in the top-secret filming last month, having admired her career for over a decade, the Sun can reveal.
A source said: “Madonna and Kylie have long been fans of each other, so when Kylie got the call to make a cameo in the BBC special, it was a no-brainer. Rather than a performance, Kylie actually appears in the show in a light-hearted skit.
“She plays a barmaid, though, awkwardly, Madonna doesn’t like the drink Kylie gives her. It’s all very light-hearted.”
The Sun understands the pair have discussed hitting the studio together in the future.
The TV special, Madonna & Graham, airs tonight at 10.40pm on BBC One.
It was filmed in Camden at Koko, where Madonna performed for the first time in the UK for just 200 people in 1983 when it was called the Camden Palace.
Graham said: “As a lifelong fan it is always a thrill to interview Madonna. But to meet her on the dance floor where she first performed in London over 40 years ago felt incredibly special.”
Kylie made a surprise guest appearance at Madonna’s The Celebration Tour in LA in 2024.
They performed Gloria Gaynor’s 1978 hit I Will Survive in a nod to Kylie’s 2005 breast cancer battle.
“I’M still the same person as the 15-year-old me,” decides Blur guitarist Graham Coxon.
“Still a romantic idiot, still reasonably innocent — and I think that’s a healthy way to be,” he continues.
“I don’t want to be a cynical old bastard, so I’m lucky I still have a magical outlook on life.”
I’m talking to Coxon, 57, about his “lost” solo album, Castle Park, which is finally set to come blinking into the sunlight.
The product of sessions which took place in the winter of 2011, it is named after his teenage stomping ground in the centre of Colchester — an affirmation of that younger “same person” self.
In a wider sense, it serves as a nod to his Essex hometown — a city since 2022 — where he attended Stanway School, met Damon Albarn and where, in 1988, they formed Blur with Dave Rowntree and Alex James.
It was there, too, that his band leader and clarinet-playing dad introduced him to music, namely, “the Bs — Beethoven and The Beatles”.
The album cover resembles a classic picture postcard, divided into quarters and depicting scenes from the park with its vast Norman castle and an ornate Victorian bandstand.
Coxon says: “There were a few occasions when me and a group of friends would stay in the park rather too long, get locked in and have to climb over the fence.
“I remember being slightly inebriated and dancing around the bandstand — and then, of course, there was the statue.”
He’s referring to the imposing bronze Angel Of Victory which stands atop the Colchester War Memorial at the southern entrance to Castle Park.
“I had some dangerous moments when I climbed up and gave that statue a kiss,” he admits. “I used to do it regularly — she was very beautiful.”
If that fearless act of youthful exuberance was an example of Coxon’s romantic nature, it’s clear that he carried it forward to the album that was shelved until now.
“It comes through,” he agrees, “even though there are songs about getting dumped.
“There’s a lot of processing my own romanticism on that album, but not in a heavy way.
“It’s reasonably light-hearted for the first half at least, even if it takes a tumble down to the most depressing song I’ve ever written [album closer All The Rage]. But that’s life, isn’t it?”
Looking back at ten tracks of “romance, break-ups, heartache and alienation”, he says: “When I was writing them, I was in a very problematic situation emotionally. Somehow, songs have a way of describing your situation more succinctly than whatever is going through your mind.”
In 2026, I’m happy to report that Coxon is in a much better place. It’s 10am when I’m connected via video call to the home he shares with partner and bandmate in The Waeve, Rose Elinor Dougall, and their daughter.
“You’ve got me before my brains kick in,” he warns me, but he soon warms to the task of talking about his music outside of Blur.
Aside from the imminent release of Castle Park, this year sees reissues of Coxon’s back catalogue, beginning with his debut album The Sky Is Too High (1998) and its follow-up, The Golden D (2000).
He’s also working on the third Waeve album with Rose, which he describes as “a lot less hard-edged” than 2024’s City Lights.
“It’s more floaty and summery,” he reveals, before reaffirming his romantic credentials.
“Lyrically, there’s a lot more affection. Rose and I go through life together and, sometimes, saying things in lyrics is the nicest way to show affection away from our normal hectic lives.”
But it is his “lost” Castle Park, with lyricism and songcraft as assured as anything in his solo repertoire, that we are focusing on. So, how come the album joined a legendary list that includes The Who’s Lifehouse and The Beach Boys’ Smile by lying dormant for years?
Coxon casts his mind back to 2011 when he headed to The Pool studios in Bermondsey with Ben Hillier, co-producer of Blur’s 2003 album Think Tank (made without Graham except for one track) and engineer on The Golden D.
He says: “It was really odd because I recorded 20 songs and ten of them became A&E [released in 2012], which was based around improvised bass lines.
“The other ten were weirdly different — more trad indie, jingle-jangly, with a bit of Sixties influence.”
Those songs, you may have guessed, were earmarked for Castle Park.
Speaking of parks, Coxon had form thanks to Parklife, Blur’s immortal hit with lyrics by Damon Albarn and music by the whole band, not to mention a vocal masterclass from Phil Daniels.
Despite a widely held belief, the song wasn’t inspired by Castle Park but, as Albarn once explained, by London’s Hyde Park where he used “to watch people and pigeons”.
It seems as if the Britpop icons’ 2012 reunion, which included a momentous Hyde Park show to mark the end of the Olympics, is the chief reason why Coxon’s next album didn’t appear.
That rapturously received performance led to Blur’s run of festival shows in 2013 and a new album in 2015, The Magic Whip.
Then Coxon moved on to mastermind soundtracks for Channel Four comedy drama The End Of The F***ing World as well as embarking on a sci-fi music/graphic novel project in 2021 called Superstate.
He founded The Waeve with partner Rose and, of course, reunited with Blur for their 2023 album The Ballad Of Darren and a tour including two barnstorming nights at Wembley Stadium.
In other words, while Castle Park gathered dust, Coxon kept himself busy.
He says: “I’m really not sure what happened. Maybe it was lack of confidence. Maybe I thought these songs weren’t fashionable and who would give a s**t?”
Over the years, however, his theory didn’t stand up as fans would repeatedly ask him to release Castle Park. “They even knew the name of the album.”
The clamour heightened when Coxon broke out some of the songs during live shows.
These include opening track Billy Says, a spiky three-minute slice of mod-pop, which finds him channelling his heroes, The Kinks and The Jam.
He says: “Ray Davies is the best songwriter we ever had, followed closely by Paul McCartney, and The Jam was a huge band for me. I thought that being a Jam fan elevated me as a person.”
Other tracks to receive a live airing were Alright, with its pithy putdowns of a love rival, a playful duet with Lucy Parnell called There’s A Little House, and gorgeous acoustic guitar-led Easy.
Of all the Castle Park songs, there’s one which Coxon is most proud of, the poised, richly atmospheric Isn’t It Funny.
“It came to me in the dream,” he says. “I had the chords and half of the chorus, I heard some words — and then I woke up. I thought, ‘My gosh, I need to make a quick note of this.’”
Isn’t It Funny contains the lines: “The sun made black her hair and the river her eyes. She needs no man, no sea, nor heather. She’ll change your mind and slip away.”
By way of explanation, Coxon says: “I realise that there’s always been this elusive feminine spirit or a goddess of nature in my work.
“I don’t write songs about this entity for my own excitement. They just come out.”
Then there’s the sublime Mélodie Pour Christine, a lyric-free classical piece for harp and strings with Lucy Parnell’s vocals serving as another instrument.
“That piece was important to me,” he says. “I devoted it to a French friend of mine — a wonderful person who I loved very much and is no longer with us.”
Another song that hits the mark is bleak All The Rage, which, he says, “communicates one’s despondency around the creative life — and that has got even worse 15 years later!”
If most of Castle Park is filled with distinctly English sensibilities, American influences arrive with a cover of When You Find Out by short-lived Seventies punk-pop trio The Nerves.
“It’s a great song, even Blondie would go, ‘Hey, this is a good one’. I just made it slightly less than perfect,” laughs Coxon.
Then there’s “an attempt at soul” with Forget Today which finds him employing his considerable saxophone skills and Ben Hillier providing Hammond organ. (Worth noting that Coxon played sax on Parklife.)
Dripping Soul ventures into territory occupied by Ennio Morricone’s spaghetti western soundtracks, “so it’s not exclusively weird south-east of England s**t”.
“I love westerns, particularly Sergio Leone films. A Fistful Of Dollars and all that,” says Coxon.
In the song, he is peering “beyond the veil” at the “souls of those cowboys who came from a place where life is cheap and death is taken for granted”.
With its galloping guitars, Coxon realised he couldn’t turn Dripping Soul into “a hanging out in Camden sort of thing”.
But he does believe that the house he shares with Rose in London is populated by the souls of dead people.
“I don’t even believe in ghosts, but I’ve seen them,” he reports. “So that’s a bit of a quandary.”
Coxon says he still likes to talk to dear departed loved ones: His mum, Christine, drummer Graham Fox, the Irish journalist who first wrote about Blur, Leo Finlay, and the head of Food Records, Andy Ross.
“I don’t really see them as gone,” he says. “I can still talk to them — they may have disappeared but they’re still fully alive in my mind.”
With that said, we return to 1998 when all those people were still with us — to the making of Coxon’s debut solo album The Sky Is Too High.
It was an unvarnished, largely acoustic affair featuring his own artwork and, as he explains: “It was recorded through really good gear but approach was quite raw.”
Sandwiched between Blur’s self-titled fifth album and its follow-up, 13, “It was done in a bit of a hurry — I wasn’t f***ing about.”
The project had begun when a neighbour asked Coxon to write a couple of songs for a film about Victorian bare-knuckle fighter Tom Sayers — setting wheels in motion that are still spinning.
He says: “That request turned into an addiction to writing songs and releasing them.”
So, how did his solo endeavours affect his relationship with his Blur bandmates. “They didn’t talk about it,” replies Coxon, “Though I did once catch Damon singing R U Lonely? He said, ‘That’s quite a catchy little tune’.
“Attempting to develop as a songwriter when Damon Albarn is your best mate is hard work. I mean, he’d already written some bloody good songs by then.”
Released in 2000, Coxon’s second effort, The Golden D, is very different — heavier, more abrasive and driven by searing electric guitars.
The mood changes with the funky Oochy Woochy, which tapped into Coxon’s fascination with Nineties’ fusion of hip-hop and jazz — a style developed by American rapper Guru called Jazzmatazz.
He says: “I’ve always liked that skinny beat stuff with James Brown loops or similar. Stuff like Public Enemy and 3rd Bass. Oochy Woochy is not a mickey take but a go at that.”
With physical releases of Coxon’s other albums still to come this year, there’s plenty more scope to revisit his solo journey.
Then, in November, he’s hitting the road for a UK tour, bringing the songs back to life still further.
Looking back on his output, Coxon says: “I think it has had a lot to do with my development as a person.
“You know, that anxiety-ridden creative weirdo who puts all this stuff out there.
“I guess that’s why I like Castle Park coming out — because now there are no secrets. You’ve got it all.”
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PORTLAND, Maine — Graham Platner, the insurgent Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Maine, will hold his first major campaign rally Friday night as reports continue emerging about his history with women.
Last weekend, his campaign wrestled with stories about sexually explicit messages that Platner sent to several women while he was married. Then on Thursday, The New York Times reported about his relationships with previous girlfriends. Some viewed him positively but others described him as volatile and insulting.
One woman said Platner twisted her arm during an argument and locked her in a room. Platner called that allegation untrue.
But with Maine’s primary around the corner Tuesday and Democrats desperate to rally behind a candidate who can defeat Republican Sen. Susan Collins in November, there’s been little sign of voters or political allies backing away from Platner, who has pitched himself as an imperfect person who has redeemed himself.
Some dismissed news of the text messages as a private matter, one that should be addressed solely by the married couple. Others argue that the need for Democrats to take back control of the U.S. Senate from Republicans is too important to cast aside imperfect candidates.
Yet they’re also wrestling with the question of whether more controversial information surrounding Platner could come out ahead of the November election.
“I think a lot of people are afraid,” said Deb Dagnan, chair of Maine’s Piscataquis County Democrats. “They’re waiting for the other shoe to drop after he gets the nomination. Then what do we do?”
Platner is key to Democrats hopes’ to take back the U.S. Senate this year. Yet he’s been bedeviled by near-constant controversies involving his disclosure of a since-covered tattoo of a Nazi symbol, his history of inflammatory online comments and the texting revelations.
Nevertheless, Platner’s most prominent supporters have continued to back the candidate, including Sens. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Ruben Gallego. Platner is scheduled to appear in Bar Harbor Friday evening with progressive Rep. Ro Khanna of California, as well as Democratic candidates for U.S. House and governor, as a part of a “get out the vote” rally in the coastal resort town.
The event is taking place just days ahead of the state’s June 9 primary election, where Platner is expected to secure the Democratic nomination. His top opponent, Gov. Janet Mills, suspended her campaign in late April.
He’ll do so under reignited scrutiny amid reports that he and his wife, Amy Gertner, have had marital difficulties and sought counseling after he allegedly sent sexually explicit text messages to other women.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Gertner had told the campaign in August about the messages, which she had discovered on his phone last year, to make sure they weren’t a liability to the campaign. Platner’s campaign team reportedly decided that the texts were private and being handled by the couple, who were married in 2023.
Genevieve McDonald, a former campaign staffer for Platner, told The Associated Press that the candidate was “sexting multiple women while married” and that “the campaign tried to assess that as an election vulnerability.”
Shortly after the news came out, Platner posted a five-minute video taken by Gertner, who avoided speaking directly about her husband’s reported texts but dubbed the broader coverage as “gossip” and said “being married is hard.”
Gertner’s emotional comments about working on her marriage have resonated with some women, who say they are shocked that a former campaign aide would betray someone’s trust and the issue should remain between the couple.
“It’s none of my business as far as I’m concerned,” said Joanne Mason, a local Democratic leader from south-central Maine. “And I would hope that people wouldn’t judge any one person on their own private marriage.”
Valerie Tate, a Democrat from Belfast, described Gertner’s honesty about trying to work on their mental health and marriage as admirable.
“That is not a scandal,” Tate wrote in an email. “That is integrity. Personal growth is not a disqualification from public life. For many of us, it is precisely what made us worthy of it.”
However, Tate conceded that her mind wasn’t fully at ease. With the public still learning about Platner’s past, there is a chance something could emerge as a dealbreaker for voters.
“Of course, there is that concern as there would be in any race with somebody we don’t know all the dramas and the journeys they’ve been on,” she wrote. “Something could come out that would be disqualifying.”
This isn’t the first time Platner has faced questions about his past. He had a tattoo recognized as a Nazi symbol, which he had covered up after starting his campaign.
Platner has said he didn’t realize the meaning of the tattoo. However, a former girlfriend told the Times he joked about it being a Nazi symbol and called it “my Totenkopf.”
There’s also been much attention on Platner’s former Reddit posts, which were dismissive of military sexual assaults and used homophobic slurs, for which he has apologized.
Platner has never held elected office and has fashioned a straight-talking, progressive, populist-style campaign focusing on issues such as income inequality, lack of health care accessibility and the rising cost of housing. In return, he’s attracted thousands at his rallies and campaign events and collected millions in campaign funds to further boost his messaging.
“People want somebody new,” said Paige Zeigler, a former Maine Democratic lawmaker and head of the Waldo County Democrats, on why Platner’s staying power has remained strong. “They want somebody that they feel that they can embrace. And Platner is riding that wave.”
Whittle and Kruesi write for the Associated Press. Kruesi reported from Providence, R.I.
Goalkeepers: Pierce Charles (Sheffield Wednesday), Luke Southwood (Bristol Rovers), Josh Clarke (Partick Thistle – on loan from Celtic)
Defenders: Tom Atcheson (Blackburn Rovers), Ruairi McConville (Norwich City), Trai Hume (Sunderland), Ciaron Brown (Oxford United), Brodie Spencer (Oxford United), Justin Devenny (Crystal Palace).
Midfielders: Ali McCann (Preston North End), Shea Charles (Southampton), Jamie McDonnell (Oxford United), Paul Smyth (Queen’s Park Rangers), Isaac Price (West Brom), Patrick Kelly (Barnsley), Ethan Galbraith (Swansea), Kieran Morrison (Liverpool).
Forwards: Josh Magennis (Exeter City), Jamie Donley (Oxford United), Jamie Reid (Stevenage), Callum Marshall (West Ham), Ceadach O’Neill (Arsenal), Braiden Graham (Everton).
Irish activist Caitriona Graham, who was filmed being dragged by her hair and forced to the ground by Israeli forces, recounted the violent interception of a Gaza-bound aid flotilla in an interview with Al Jazeera after being deported to Istanbul.
Published On 22 May 202622 May 2026
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TALLINN, Estonia — Belarus’ authoritarian leader on Friday greeted U.S. Rev. Franklin Graham, who arrived in the tightly controlled country to hold the largest evangelical Christian gathering in its history.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko asked Graham to convey warm greetings to President Trump and tell him that he has “reliable friends and supporters in Belarus.”
Since Trump returned to the White House, Lukashenko has released hundreds of political prisoners as part of U.S.-brokered deals that lifted some U.S. sanctions, part of the isolated leader’s efforts to improve ties with the West.
“Without the U.S. president, it might have been more difficult for us to establish our relations,” Lukashenko told Graham, president of Samaritan’s Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Assn. Graham was accompanied by Greta Van Susteren, the anchor for Newsmax TV who is married to Trump’s special envoy for Belarus, John Coale.
Lukashenko has ruled the nation of 9.5 million with an iron fist for more than three decades, and the country has been sanctioned repeatedly by Western countries — both for its crackdown on human rights and for allowing Moscow to use its territory in the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Graham is set to hold the largest gathering of evangelicals ever in Belarus’ history, with thousands expected to attend what the organizers called the Festival of Hope at an indoor sports arena in Minsk, the capital.
Lukashenko’s rule was challenged after a 2020 presidential election, when hundreds of thousands took to the streets to protest a vote they viewed as rigged. In an ensuing crackdown, tens of thousands were detained, with many beaten by police. Prominent opposition figures fled the country or were imprisoned.
Five years after the mass demonstrations, Lukashenko won a seventh term last year in an election that the opposition called a farce.
As part of a deal in March that Washington helped broker, Lukashenko ordered the release of 250 political prisoners, while the U.S. agreed to lift sanctions from two Belarusian state banks and the country’s Finance Ministry, and to remove the top Belarusian potash producers from a sanctions list.
Another deal in April released prominent journalist Andrzej Poczobut in a swap with Poland that saw a total of 10 people freed.
However, Belarus still has 845 political prisoners, including 22 journalists, according to the Viasna human rights center.
Belarus opposition leader-in-exile Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya voiced hope that Graham’s visit will help the release of all political prisoners. “We continue to push for a complete end to the harsh political repressions in Belarus,” Tsikhanouskaya told the Associated Press.
Belarusian authorities’ permission for the massive gathering of evangelicals marks a shift, following years of crackdown on clergy — Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant — which saw dozens jailed, silenced or forced into exile for protesting the 2020 election. In the country of 9.5 million, about 80% are Orthodox Christians; nearly 14% are Catholics, residing mostly in western, northern and central parts of the country; and about 2% belong to Protestant churches.
A 2024 law required all religious organizations to reregister with authorities or face being outlawed if their loyalty to the state is in doubt.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has listed Belarus among countries with religious freedom violations, particularly noting its restrictive legislation.
Natallia Vasilevich, coordinator of the Christian Vision monitoring group, noted that even as Graham’s visit to Belarus was a “mega-important event” for evangelicals in the country, they continue to face a repressive environment.
“Some believers view Graham’s visit as a miracle and a window of opportunity, while others see a risk that they will have to turn a blind eye to repression and take part in something that makes the regime look nice,” Vasilevich said.
Karmanau writes for the Associated Press.
US president lauds Islamabad, but his Republican ally says he does not trust Pakistan to facilitate Iran diplomacy.
Published On 12 May 202612 May 2026
Donald Trump has reasserted his support for Pakistan to serve as a mediator between Iran and the United States after Senator Lindsey Graham, a close ally of the US president, disparaged Islamabad’s diplomacy.
In remarks on Tuesday, the US president lauded Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and its army chief Asim Munir, who helped negotiate a fragile ceasefire in Iran that came into effect last month.
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Trump added he is not reconsidering Pakistan as a mediator.
“They’re great. I think the Pakistanis have been great. The field marshal and the prime minister of Pakistan have been absolutely great,” Trump told reporters.
Hours earlier, Graham had pressed Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth and top US general Dan Caine about a CBS News report claiming that Pakistan is allowing Iran to park military assets on its airfields, in order to shield them from potential US and Israeli attacks.
Both officials declined to comment on the veracity of the report, citing the sensitive nature of the talks between the US and Iran.
Asked by Graham whether it would be “consistent” for Pakistan to act as a fair mediator if the CBS report is confirmed, Hegseth said, “I wouldn’t want to get into the middle of these negotiations.”
The Republican senator quickly interrupted the defence secretary.
“I do. I want to get in the middle of those negotiations,” Graham said.
“I don’t trust Pakistan as far as I can throw them. If they actually have Iranian aircraft parked in Pakistan bases to protect Iranian military assets, that tells me maybe we should be looking for somebody else to mediate. No wonder this damn thing is going nowhere.”
The senator — an outspoken foreign policy hawk who has been calling for regime change in Iran — is seen as one of the most influential figures in Trump’s circle.
Graham has also been one of the most vocal supporters of the war with Iran, repeatedly cautioning Trump against agreeing to a deal that would include concessions to Tehran.
Weeks before the war broke out on February 28, Graham met the US president in Florida, where he handed Trump a hat that says, “Make Iran Great Again.”
Pakistan has been pushing to revive the stalled diplomacy between Iran and the US, following the April 8 ceasefire agreement.
On Sunday, Trump said Tehran’s latest proposal to end the war was “unacceptable”.
In late April, the US president announced he was sending his envoys to Pakistan to meet Iranian officials, but he called off the trip after Iran pushed the US to lift the naval blockade against its ports as a condition for resuming the talks.
16:41, 06 May 2026Updated 16:41, 06 May 2026
Graham Norton’s ITV series The Neighbourhood has been pulled from its primetime slot less than a fortnight since its launch
Graham Norton’s ITV series The Neighbourhood has been pulled from its primetime slot less than a fortnight since its launch. The presenter, 63, is front and centre on the broadcaster’s new gameshow format in which real-life households have gathered in a purpose-built neighbourhood to be in with a chance of winning a £250,000 cash prize.
There were clearly high hopes for the series as it premiered in between both segments of the explosive I’m A Celebrity…South Africa final on April 24, and has been airing at 9pm on Thursdays and Fridays ever since, where it has managed to pull in just half a million viewers.
But now, new schedules have revealed that, going forward, the programme will air at 10.45pm which takes it away from the coveted slot it was initially given, implying that it has not lived up to expectations in terms of viewing figures.
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This Thursday, viewers tuning in at 9pm will instead see a repeat of Davina McCall’s Long Lost Family, and an episode of Beat The Chasers: Celebrity Special, which was initially aired in 2021, will be shown instead. A spokesperson for ITV confirmed the schedule shift as they said said: “The full box set of The Neighbourhood is now available to stream on ITVX. Additionally, the show will continue to air in an evening slot on ITV.”
But sources have claimed that whilst the broadcaster pulled out all the stops to make the programme into a hit, it just hasn’t gone that way in the end. An insider told The Sun: “They threw everything at The Neighbourhood to make it a big success, but it’s ended up a bit of a damp squib.”
The six households competing are The Bradons, The Kandolas & Samra, The Lozman-Sturrocks, The Pescuds, The Scouse Haus and The Uni Boys. Challenges put every neighbour to the limit as they try and eliminate one another without becoming unpopular enough to get the axe themselves.
Opening up on his first reaction when he saw the entirety of the set, Graham said: “Arriving in Derbyshire and seeing the set, I’d seen pictures but I didn’t quite understand the scale of it. It really is like being on a movie set, except it’s 360 – everywhere you look, it’s real.
“The art department did an extraordinary job of building up that town square where we do the removals, the pub, the cafe, the interiors of the houses. It really took my breath away!
“It made it even more exciting. I thought – this is serious! We’re making a big show. Then add on top of that, what Derbyshire does when the drone goes up and we see the Neighbourhood and the nature and the rest of it, it’s so beautiful, those big driving shots. It’s just gorgeous.
BAFTA award-winning broadcaster Graham continued: “One of the loveliest things about the show is seeing households who would never meet in real life, not only meeting but forming proper bonds of friendship. There are a few moments in the show that really do bring a tear to my eye because it’s just so genuine, so lovely and properly heartwarming.
“It’s such an odd word to describe a show like this but it’s properly wholesome. There’s something about the bright colours, being out in the countryside and the genuine bonds that you see created.”
The Neighbourhood is available to watch on ITVX
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“All the President’s Men” was released 50 years ago this month, an anniversary that’s been greeted with equal parts rue and reverence by the journalists, political junkies and discerning cinephiles who have worshiped the film for five decades.
As a member of all three of those constituencies, I’ve done my share of genuflecting, most recently as chief film critic at the Washington Post, whose city room was as vivid and fully realized in the movie as Robert Redford’s Bob Woodward and Dustin Hoffman’s Carl Bernstein.
Like so many Posties of my generation, I’ll never forget the so-real-it’s-surreal experience of walking into the fifth-floor newsroom for the first time in 2002. By then, standard-issue electric typewriters and six-ply carbon paper had been replaced by far less visually interesting computers. But the office’s pervading atmosphere of hard work and quiet focus felt uncannily similar to its big-screen analog.
For the last two years, I have been researching a book about the making of “All the President’s Men,” whose production involved almost as many contingencies and unresolved questions as Watergate itself. Among the film’s many mysteries, one I’ve found particularly intriguing has to do with Katharine Graham, publisher of the Washington Post and CEO of its parent company during the Watergate investigations. As the movie amply demonstrates, it took guts for Woodward and Bernstein to persevere with their reporting in the face of terrified sources and their own growing paranoia. But, unbeknownst to many observers at the time, Graham was enduring even more withering pressures, with determination that was all the more impressive for being almost entirely invisible.
I’m still in the process of discovering why she remained invisible in “All the President’s Men.” For now, it’s clear that the backstory is more nuanced than mere oversight or, as many are quick to assume, simple sexism.
In fact, William Goldman’s first script of the film featured a sequence with Graham and Woodward, a scene that appeared in every subsequent draft. Based on an actual meeting between the two, it’s a cagey game of cat-and-mouse, with the publisher taking the measure of a nervous, still-inexperienced journalist, looking for reassurance that his reporting will prove out.
Earlier this year, at a January staged reading of “All the President’s Men” at Harmony Gold Theater in Hollywood — a fundraiser for the Stella Adler Academy — it was possible for fans to conjure what might have been. Mark Ruffalo played Woodward and Ethan Hawke played Bernstein in a version of the movie assembled from different Goldman drafts.
A high point of the evening was when Ruffalo and actor Susan Traylor brought the Graham-Woodward scene to tentative, tense and teasingly playful life. After grilling Woodward about his sources and coyly asking him about Deep Throat’s identity, Traylor’s Graham asked him if the truth about Watergate would ever be revealed. “It may never come out,” Ruffalo’s Woodward replied. “Don’t tell me ‘never,’” Graham laments, before bringing the meeting to a close with a gently peremptory “Do better.”
In poring over director Alan J. Pakula and Goldman’s papers, I’ve probably read that scene dozens of times. But when I heard it play out in real time, I was ambushed by the emotions it stirred — a mixture of pride in Graham’s legacy and deep sadness at how that legacy has been so inexplicably ignored in recent years.
I was also sad that Redford, who died in September, wasn’t there. He often expressed regret that Graham wasn’t a featured character in “All the President’s Men.” Keenly aware of how her spine and steadfastness made Woodward and Bernstein’s work possible, he wanted to honor that crucial support. When I interviewed him for the first time in 2005, he insisted that fearless owners were every bit as important in preserving democracy as the reporters he and Hoffman helped glamorize.
Over the next two decades, every time I saw Redford, he bemoaned the “downward slide of this thing,” by which he meant the constellation of institutions “All the President’s Men” celebrates: not just journalism and a robust First Amendment but a Washington where investigators, prosecutors, judges, the Senate and Congress did their jobs regardless of partisan loyalties, and a Hollywood where a studio as mainstream as Warner Bros. would agree to finance a tough-minded film about a contentious and still-raw period in recent history.
Granted, that film was based on a bestselling book and anchored by two huge stars. But today, with political and corporate leaders — including media companies — falling over each other to curry favor with President Trump, “All the President’s Men” feels like an artifact from a vanished age.
Nowhere is this more distressingly true than at the Post itself, where the newsroom immortalized by the movie has been slashed by more than a third, and where Jeff Bezos, who bought the paper in 2013, seems intent on erasing Katharine Graham’s legacy until it vanishes completely. During the first Trump administration, Bezos stood up to threats against the Post and the press at large that would make Nixon blush, or at least pea-green with envy.
Now, Bezos has become a one-man meme of what author Timothy Snyder calls “obedience in advance,” quashing an endorsement of Kamala Harris, ostentatiously grinning his way through Trump’s second inauguration, vastly overpaying for a promotional film about First Lady Melania Trump and staying conspicuously mum (at least publicly) when a Post reporter’s home was raided by the FBI in January.
All of this has come at an enormous moral and material cost, with thousands of readers canceling their subscriptions and an alarming number of the Post’s finest reporters and writers leaving for other publications and platforms. As my former boss Marty Baron told my former colleague Ruth Marcus in the New Yorker in February, Bezos’ turnaround has been “sickening” to witness: “a case study in near-instant, self-inflicted brand destruction.”
Of course, that brand was built, in no small part, by “All the President’s Men,” which taught a generation how to walk, talk, dress and act like real reporters. (Hint: A good corduroy jacket and a pen in your mouth can’t hurt.)
In 1976, Pakula was interviewed about his dealings with Graham, whom he admired tremendously and with whom he would become close friends. “I could do a film about the Katharine Graham story,” he enthused. “It’s a superb story.”
Thirty years later, Steven Spielberg would bring Pakula’s idea to fruition with “The Post,” about Graham’s decision to publish the Pentagon Papers, a dress rehearsal for the even higher stakes of Watergate a year later.
“The Post,” which starred Meryl Streep in a shrewdly judged performance of aristocratic assurance and creeping insecurity, premiered in Washington less than a year into Trump’s first administration. Bezos attended that screening, which many of us saw as tacit acknowledgment that he was taking her lessons in character, comportment and competence to heart.
That was clearly wishful thinking. Graham may have finally assumed her rightful place in the newspaper-movie canon, but we’re still left to ponder her absence from the most iconic journalism movie of the 20th century.
It’s no longer the shoe-leather reporters who need a big-screen tutorial in how to do their jobs. It’s their bosses. A simple place to start would be to memorize the best two-word speech to never appear in a major motion picture: Do better.
Ann Hornaday was a film critic at the Washington Post from 2002 to 2025, when she retired. “All the President’s Men” plays at TCM Classic Film Festival Saturday at 2:45 p.m.
