{"id":19582,"date":"2026-03-04T09:46:52","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T09:46:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/how-lindsey-graham-got-trump-to-yes-on-iran\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T09:46:52","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T09:46:52","slug":"how-lindsey-graham-got-trump-to-yes-on-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/how-lindsey-graham-got-trump-to-yes-on-iran\/","title":{"rendered":"How Lindsey Graham got Trump to yes on Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Lindsey Graham\u2019s effort to convince Donald Trump to attack Iran began \u2014 to the surprise of no one familiar with the relationship between the South Carolina senator and the president \u2014 on the golf course.<\/p>\n

After the 2024 election, the pair hit the links to discuss a second-term agenda for the resurgent president, and Graham had lots of advice.<\/p>\n

In an extensive interview Tuesday in his Capitol Hill office, Graham<\/a> recalled pushing Trump to \u201cblow some shit up\u201d to combat drug trafficking. He talked about taking on Big Tech by challenging the legal underpinnings of their industry dominance. And he counseled Trump to build on agreements he\u2019d brokered between Israel and U.S. allies in the Middle East. <\/p>\n

That last part, Graham emphasized, would require confronting the elephant in the region.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were thinking about this early, early on about how Iran is a spoiler for expanding the Abraham Accords<\/a> and stability in the Mideast,\u201d he said. \u201cI told him before he took office \u2026 if you can collapse this terrorist regime, that’s Berlin Wall stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

That launched an ongoing conversation that continued for months, culminating in a flurry of one-on-one lobbying \u201cin the last several weeks,\u201d Graham said. The two also talked about Iran during a Thursday White House meeting that wrapped less than 48 hours before the beginning of the vast joint U.S.-Israeli operation aimed at Iran\u2019s missile and nuclear programs, its civilian and military leaders, as well as other key targets.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s decision to go to war was the latest indication that hawkish voices he once publicly resisted<\/a> \u2014 none louder than Graham\u2019s \u2014 have dominated his second-term decisionmaking. It was also a full-circle moment for the veteran GOP senator, who has spent decades pushing administration after administration to take military action against Iran with no success until now.<\/p>\n

Graham\u2019s triumph was never a given. He described a \u201creal contest\u201d within the administration about whether or not Trump should take military action to end a geopolitical rivalry 47 years in the making.<\/p>\n

Another person with knowledge of the internal debate said that, within the administration, the idea of striking Iran had very few vocal backers other than U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee. That left Graham among those leading the charge from outside and inside.<\/p>\n

\"Graham<\/p>\n

In public, Graham used frequent cable news hits and hallway interviews in the Capitol to play up the threat posed by the Iranian nuclear and missile programs \u2014 even after Trump ordered a June strike to destroy its most sensitive nuclear facilities. He also used Trump\u2019s preferred medium \u2014 TV hits \u2014 to lavishly praise him, frequently referring to him as \u201cReagan Plus\u201d for his dramatic impact.<\/p>\n

Privately, he appealed to Trump\u2019s attraction to swaggering action and risk-taking over quieter moves \u2014 not to mention the term-limited president\u2019s growing concern with his legacy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a real fight not to do it,\u201d Graham said. \u201cLet Israel do it by itself or just not do much. So we talked a lot about this: \u2018Mr. President, you want to have your fingerprints on this. You want them to know America will fight.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

A White House spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Graham said the successful January capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro put Trump \u201cin the mindset to follow through.\u201d But he wasn’t certain until late last month when Trump sent a second aircraft carrier near the region that Trump would ultimately take action.<\/p>\n

The strikes have opened Trump up to criticism from Democrats, key European and Middle Eastern allies and even some members of his own party<\/a>, who have questioned the rationale for the sweeping operation and what the endgame will look like. Polling indicates the American public remains wary<\/a> of sliding into another \u201cforever war\u201d in the wake of Iraq and Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

As he makes the rounds defending Trump \u2014 both publicly to TV cameras and privately to Middle Eastern allies \u2014 Graham has tried to hammer home that the U.S. is not nation-building in Iran. Where the country goes next, he said, remains up to the Iranian people.<\/p>\n

“If they want to reconstitute their country, to build more nuclear weapons and more missiles to hit us, we’ll treat the new people like we did the old people,\u201d he said. \u201cI just don’t believe it. I think they’re going to find a way to … be a different country.\u201d<\/p>\n

He went on to dismiss the famous \u201cPottery Barn rule\u201d articulated by former Secretary of State Colin Powell before the Iraq War more than two decades ago.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018You break it. You own it.\u2019 That may be true for a consignment shop, but it’s not true for foreign policy,\u2019\u201d Graham said. \u201cIf there’s a threat, break it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Graham,<\/p>\n

But Trump\u2019s strategy has opened him up to questioning from some of his own supporters, who believe it’s a far cry from the \u201cAmerica First\u201d approach he preaches. The president and some of his top advisers pledged during the 2024 campaign that his second administration wouldn\u2019t rush into foreign entanglements. And Trump during his 2025 inauguration speech said his administration\u2019s success would be measured in part by \u201cthe wars we never get into<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many of those statements have resurfaced online since this weekend\u2019s strikes, but Trump is now singing consistently from Graham\u2019s interventionist hymnal, and the senator said he\u2019s not concerned Trump will back down amid the criticism and that he\u2019s \u201cin it to win it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe’s a hard sell, but when you sell him, he’s all in,\u201d said Graham, who argued that \u201cAmerica First is not \u2018head in the sand.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The strikes have sparked a bipartisan push in Congress to block Trump from taking additional military action without congressional signoff. That effort is expected to fall short, but it inspired a lively debate during Senate Republicans\u2019 closed-door lunch on Tuesday \u2014 and Graham was in the middle of it.<\/p>\n

He pushed back after Sen. Todd Young<\/a> (R-Ind.) criticized the lack of consultation with Congress and GOP leaders for not holding hearings, according to two people with knowledge of his comments who were granted anonymity to disclose the private moment.<\/p>\n

While Graham\u2019s defense of aggressive military action is nothing new, Trump\u2019s outright embrace of it is. The idea that the pair would be working in tandem on a new Middle East war would have been unthinkable a decade ago, when Graham was running for president himself and roundly criticizing the outsider candidate\u2019s isolationism.<\/p>\n

As recently as 2019, Trump publicly criticized Graham\u2019s history of advocating for military intervention in the Middle East after Graham urged him to be more aggressive after Iran bombed Saudi oil production facilities.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very easy to attack, but if you ask Lindsey, ask him how did going into the Middle East, how did that work out? And how did going into Iraq work out?\u201d Trump said at the time<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Kentucky<\/p>\n

Graham said one of his rules is to not \u201ctake yourself out of the game\u201d just because of a past disagreement and that it paid off with a now-trusting relationship with a two-term president.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you had told me in 2016, I’d wind up being one of his better friends, closest adviser and admire him as commander-in-chief, I wouldn\u2019t have believed it,\u201d Graham said, adding that \u201cwhat the president sees in me is somebody that can deliver.\u201d<\/p>\n

One person close to the White House, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said that if anyone had an outsize influence on Trump\u2019s decision to attack Iran it was Graham. Sen. Rand Paul<\/a> (R-Ky.), who favors a hands-off foreign policy approach, made a similar observation about Graham\u2019s impact on Trump\u2019s Venezuela strategy, telling reporters that his GOP colleague should be \u201cbanned from going to the White House.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat’s sarcasm,\u201d Paul clarified.<\/p>\n

Other corners of the party\u2019s libertarian-leaning wing have been more blunt. Doug Stafford, Paul\u2019s chief political adviser, called<\/a> Graham a \u201cwarmongering fool.\u201d And Rep. Tim Burchett<\/a> (R-Tenn.) told reporters after a closed-door Iran briefing Tuesday that “Lindsey Graham hasn’t seen a fistfight he hasn’t wanted to turn into a bombing raid.”<\/p>\n

Graham, meanwhile, is looking ahead as he back-channels with Trump and allies in the Middle East. He wants to put together a bipartisan coalition in the Senate to finish the job he talked about with Trump on the golf course \u2014 enshrining the full normalization of Israel-Arab relations with a Senate-ratified treaty.<\/p>\n

And he is coordinating closely with Trump. The two spoke Tuesday morning, and the president has indicated he\u2019s closely watching Graham\u2019s TV sales pitch for the war, including declarations that the \u201cmothership of terrorism is sinking\u201d and the \u201ccaptain is dead.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe called me and said \u2026 \u2018I like that \u2014 stay on TV,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cSomething tells me I will.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dasha Burns and Jack Detsch contributed to this report.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lindsey Graham\u2019s effort to convince Donald Trump to attack Iran began \u2014 to the surprise of no one familiar with the relationship between the South Carolina senator and the president \u2014 on the golf course. After the 2024 election, the pair hit the links to discuss a second-term agenda for the resurgent president, and Graham […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19583,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19582\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}