The body of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) arrived at the Capitol in Washington on Tuesday morning following his sudden death on July 11, as lawmakers from both parties gathered to commemorate his life.
The ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda kicks off two days of mourning for Graham, who died at 71 after three decades in Congress, including more than 23 years in the Senate. A team of military body bearers brought his body into the Capitol in recognition of Graham’s service in the Air Force.
A funeral service at which President Donald Trump is set to speak is scheduled Tuesday afternoon at Washington National Cathedral.
Fox News host Sean Hannity and Emillie Roberts, one of Graham’s nieces, are also expected to speak at the funeral. Tony Perkins, a politically involved pastor who leads the Family Research Council; Marjorie Dannenfelser, a prominent antiabortion activist; and the Rev. Franklin Graham are scheduled to give readings.
A second funeral service will be held Wednesday in Columbia, South Carolina, with a procession from the State House to First Baptist Church. Graham will be buried in a private ceremony in Pickens County.
The Senate is preparing to take up legislation that Graham had championed to impose new sanctions on Russia and its allies to help Ukraine in its war effort. Graham worked for more than a year to pass the bill and announced the day before he died that the White House had agreed to support it.
Sen. Darline Graham (R-South Carolina), Graham’s sister, whom South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster (R) appointed to replace Graham in the Senate, introduced a revised version of the bill with Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) days after taking office. The Senate is set Tuesday evening to take the first procedural vote on the legislation, renamed the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia Act of 2026.
Graham’s funeral also coincides with Tuesday’s filing deadline in the Republican primary for his Senate seat.
Darline Graham, whom Trump has endorsed, is running for the seat, along with Reps. Ralph Norman and Russell Fry; former South Carolina governor Mark Sanford; and Mark Lynch, a businessman whom Graham defeated in the Republican primary in June, among others.
Graham was the first sitting senator to die to since Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who died in 2023. Feinstein was 90 and had been ailing.
Graham was a singular figure in the Senate. He was willing to work with Democrats even as he forged a close relationship with Trump. He was the Senate’s most aggressive foreign policy hawk, pushing Trump to take a harder line on Iran and Russia – but he won the respect of Democrats who vehemently disagreed with him.
“I had a million disagreements with Lindsey on these very issues, but I kind of valued the fact that he always placed a real importance on the role of America in the world,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Virginia), a leading critic of the war in Iran that Graham strongly supported, told reporters Monday. “Fewer and fewer senators take that on as part of their job description.”
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