I met the late Sen. Lindsey Graham about 20 years ago, when I was coming up in conservative politics.
I had been part of the neoconservative wing that believed in the “benevolent hegemon” version of America, and the idea that “history can be pushed along with the right application of power and will,” as Francis Fukuyama once described it.
Like Fukuyama, many of us later came to question both the prudence and the righteousness of that theory as the Iraq War unraveled. But at the time, my hawkishness endeared me to people like Lindsey. Famously a hawk himself, he took to calling me “my little libertarian,” not because I was one, but as a playful dig at my occasional limitations on war — namely, the Constitution.
As recently as last summer, he charged into a room in the basement of the Capitol where I was and proclaimed, “There she is — my little libertarian.”
I enjoyed working with Graham in those early days, and later as I broke with the party over Trumpism, I enjoyed covering him as a journalist. But I also watched with some sadness as he morphed into a coward.
Donald Trump’s entry into Republican politics scrambled everything — it changed both the party and many of those who had led it, and Lindsey was no exception. In 2016, Graham would call Trump “a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot,” who “doesn’t represent my party.”
Just a short time later, he refashioned himself into one of Trump’s staunchest defenders.
After Jan. 6, conversations inside the party were swirling around whether Trump was still the best standard-bearer for Republicans, or if he was now a liability. It was a moment when leaders on the right could have attempted a realignment of sorts, a life after Trump.
There were good reasons to move on from one of the most destructive periods in modern American politics, including the original ones Lindsey gave for opposing Trump. After all, he was still a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot, but now we also knew he was an incompetent, corrupt, and self-dealing narcissist. Now was the time.
But when Lindsey was asked about this in May 2021, gone were the courage and confidence of his convictions. Instead, he was at best a reluctant realist, at worst, a subservient suck-up.
Graham said of Trump, “He’s the most popular Republican in the country by a lot. If you try to drive him out of the Republican Party, half the people will leave.”
He wasn’t concerned with good conservatives leaving the party — folks like Reps. Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney, and Sen. Mitt Romney and Jeff Flake were already being pushed out by Trump. He was talking about the people who showed up on Jan. 6, the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, the white nationalists and MAGA die-hards. They would have left if Trump had been pushed out. To which any good conservative should have said, “good riddance.”
But Lindsey, in his quest for power and relevance, decided to placate those ugly and odious elements, the very elements that his longtime friend John McCain had fought to marginalize and eliminate.
The sad irony in this is that Lindsey already had the kind of power and relevance that could have helped lead a movement to refocus the party on the ideals that once mattered to him. Instead, he squandered it to support Trump’s return, this time with a vengeance.
There’s a lot about Lindsey Graham that I’ll miss — his ability to work across the aisle, his fierce defense of the Syrians and the Ukrainians, his lifelong commitment to public service, and yes, his affectionate nickname for me. But what I’ll miss most is the man he never became, the man who could have led his party to the side of the right and the good. RIP to both men.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a“ Steel Across America” event ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11th attacks on the Ellipse near the White House on Sept. 8, 2026 in Washington, D.C. President Trump welcomed 9/ 11 first responders to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation’ s“ Steel Across America” event featuring a 16,900- pound, 21- foot steel beam recovered.
For Trump, even 9/11 is an opportunity
There was a reason organizers of the 9/11 ceremony in Manhattan told President Trump he could not speak at this year’s memorial service.
A good one, it turns out.
Because in a speech he gave on Tuesday in Washington, he did exactly what they were presumably worried about — he made it about himself.
According to The New York Times, Trump had wanted a speaking role at the service, but the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum, which oversees the site, said no, as they’ve maintained for the past decade-plus that the venue and event should be nonpartisan.
Trump has long used awful tragedies to either puff himself up, trash political opponents, or sell lies to the American people.
He blamed a deadly plane crash at Washington National Airport last year on diversity, equity and inclusion policies. He blamed Puerto Ricans for the devastation they endured after Hurricane Maria in 2017. He reportedly considered withholding disaster relief after the California wildfires based on the way affected regions voted. In an interview on Fox News meant to commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, he used the occasion to slam former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi…with graves of the dead behind him.
And now, as we approach the 25th anniversary of what many New Yorkers consider the darkest day in modern history, Trump has done it again.
He told a rambling, nonsensical story — one he’s told before — about going to Ground Zero just after terrorists flew two commercial jets into the twin towers. In the story, which no one has been able to verify, despite multiple attempts, he says firefighters had to carry him out of One Liberty Plaza, also known as the U.S. Steel Building, because they thought it was about to collapse.
As CNN fact checker Daniel Dale notes, there’s no evidence Trump went into this building, especially at a time when NYPD and NYFD had locked down the area. There’s no evidence that building was collapsing — in fact, it was deemed structurally sound and reopened within two months of the attacks. There’s no evidence he was carried out of it by firefighters.
But the lie isn’t even the worst part. Pretend it was all true — why would the leader of our country, and a New Yorker, decide to make that tragic day about himself?
Because that’s who Donald Trump is. He’s a malignant narcissist.
He’s also, incidentally, a terrible and ineffectual president, who’s made ill-fated decisions that he has to keep defending, and there’s nothing he won’t do to make himself look and feel better.
Within the first two minutes of his speech, he was cravenly using 9/11 to justify and promote his dumb war in Iran — two events separated by 25 years and 6,000 miles.
“And I will tell you, we’re right now fighting because we have a certain nation that wanted a nuclear weapon, they were very close to getting it, and now they have no chance at getting it. They will never have a nuclear weapon. Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. And they’ve been punished greatly. As you know, we’ve really taken it to them.”
As a New Yorker who lived through 9/11, still one of the worst days of my life, I’m utterly sickened by Trump’s crass, political, and self-promotional framing of that awful day.
And I’m relieved he won’t be given a platform to do it again on Friday’s anniversary in lower Manhattan.
Because for Trump, everything is his for the taking, and absolutely nothing is sacred.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.