Nancy Mace Might Run for Graham’s Seat; Trump, Netanyahu Mourn

News that GOP Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina died last night invited immediate speculation about his replacement.

While South Carolina’s GOP Governor Henry McMaster can name his replacement, state law also requires a special primary election.

One likely candidate is Representative Nancy Mace, a critic of Graham over his incessant warmongering but who nonetheless wrote some kind words about him on X.

This morning, U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to Kristen Welker, the hostess of Meet the Press.

FBI chief Kash Patel reported on X that the bureau is involved in the probe of Graham’s demise from an apparent heart attack.

Mace Might Run

Politico divulged today that Mace is considering a bid to replace Graham, 71 years old when he died after yet another trip abroad to push for more U.S. involvement in Ukraine’s war against Russia.

“The outgoing House member plans to begin polling for her exploratory bid this week,” anonymous sources told the website:

She still has money in her federal campaign account from her past runs for Congress.

Mace is set to vacate her coastal House seat early next year, having given up her post to unsuccessfully run for governor this year. Her political future was uncertain following her fifth-place finish in that primary, but the newly open seat offers her a lifeline to extend her tenure in Washington.

This would not be her first time running for Senate. Mace mounted a longshot primary bid against Graham in 2014, but came in a distant fifth place.

On X, Mace posted a short scene from The Godfather Part III in which Mafia chieftain Michael Corleone, thinking he had finally left his life as a mob boss, laments, “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.”

Not Always a Fan

While Mace hammered Graham about his Israel First foreign and military policies, she generously praised him today.

In March, when Graham foolishly suggested that U.S. Marines should attack Kharg Island, the center of Iran’s petroleum industry, Mace exploded in fury on X.

“Lindsey Graham needs to be removed from the Situation Room,” she exploded:

I don’t want to hear one word from a guy with no kids, desperately sending our sons and daughters into war on the ground in Iran.

Then she attacked again:

Lindsey Graham has one foreign policy: send someone else’s kids to war.

He was wrong about Iraq.

He was wrong about Afghanistan.

Now he’s wrong about Iran.

“Iwo Jima cost 6,821 American lives,” Mace, a Citadel graduate, continued.

Then, she wrote, “Lindsey Graham wants American troops on the ground in Iran”:

Not his kids. Yours. Not for freedom. But for the price of oil. 

Unless he’s suiting up for Kharg Island himself, he should sit down.

“Senator Graham, why don’t you deploy to Iran yourself if you’re so eager to send everyone else over there?” she then asked on X.

She also said Graham wants American kids to die “for the price of oil.”

Not today.

“South Carolina lost a giant last night,” she wrote:

For more than three decades, Lindsey Graham gave everything he had to this state and this country, from the Air Force to the United States Senate. 

We did not always agree, but no one ever questioned his love for South Carolina or the fight he brought to every room he walked into.

Mace added more a few hours later:

Today, South Carolina says goodbye to one of its own, Senator Lindsey Graham.

Whether you agreed with him or not, when he walked into a room, the gloves were off. He loved America and he loved South Carolina.

We didn’t always agree, but we watched his fighting spirit up close. 

He fought for President Trump the way he fought for South Carolina, with everything he had, until his very last breath.

She also recalled Graham’s role in confirming Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh for the U.S. Supreme Court after myriad women falsely accused him of sexual crimes.

As for Mace’s candidacy, The Washington Post noted that state law permits the governor to appoint someone to serve the rest of Graham’s term.

Still, state law requires a special election to replace him as a candidate in November’s general election. Filing opens in nine days, July 21, after which candidates have seven days to file. A new GOP primary will be held on August 4, with a runoff, if necessary, on August 18. 

Whoever wins that race will face Democrat Annie Andrews. A pediatrician, Andrews asked readers on X to thank Graham for his service.

Trump, Netanyahu Praise Graham

Graham was “one of the greatest people and Senators I have ever known” and “will be greatly missed,” Trump wrote on X.

Trump told Welker that he spoke with Graham early last night.

“He called and he said, ‘We’re all set for the SAVE America Act.’” Trump told Welker:

He was pushing the SAVE America Act like crazy. He got back, said he just landed from Ukraine. I said, “That’s a long trip to make.” He sounded a little tired, but perfect, but a little bit tired. He had a right to be. Man, he was a worker. He was really a worker. But he sounded great actually. But he actually said he was tired. But he wanted to pass the SAVE America Act. And I said, “Well, we’re going to get it done, Lindsey. We’re going to get it done. I’ll see you, like, soon.” We thought maybe we might even meet today. And then that was it. And that was, you know, very — around the time — It couldn’t have been much longer. It could have been his last call. I don’t know exactly.

Trump said Graham was like a member of his family, and that Graham helped him iron out problems with Democrats.

“There was nobody like him,” Trump continued:

He loved being a politician. … I said, “The reason I’m endorsing you is because I got to make sure you win. Because if you didn’t win, I don’t think you could handle life. I really don’t.” He was a man. You know, there are guys that can lose, and they go into something else. I can’t imagine him doing anything else. I said, “If you weren’t a U.S. senator, I don’t know if you could live very long.”

For his part, Graham was not a fervid Trump supporter until Trump began began saber-rattling on behalf of Israel.

“If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed…….and we will deserve it,” he wrote in 2016. He supported GOP Florida Governor Jeb Bush, and then GOP Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. Graham later revealed that he voted for laughable candidate Evan McMullin, whom Trump amusingly dubbed Evan “McMuffin.”

Pronouncing himself in a “state of shock” over Graham’s death, Netanyahu said America has lost a “great patriot.”

“Israel has lost one of the great champions of the American-Israeli alliance,” he continued:

And frankly, I’ve lost a beloved friend who I’ve had for many decades. There’s just no one like him.

Speaking about the global effect of Graham’s death, Netanyahu said Israel is grieving and Iran is celebrating “because Lindsey never confused good and evil”:

He knew exactly where the Iranian regime is. He thought it was a great danger not merely to Israel and to America’s allies in the Middle East, but to America itself. And he just never wavered.

In February, Graham said he visits Israel every two weeks.

“He had a way with him,” Netanyahu said on Fox News:

He was a wonderful, wonderful friend, a great American patriot, and a great champion of the Israel-American alliance, and I’ll miss him personally, a lot, a lot. I really, really thought the world of him, and I think the world has lost a great human being, America has lost a great senator, and we have lost a great friend.

Paramedics treated Graham last night for chest pains and rushed him to George Washington University Hospital.

The senator died after returning from Ukraine and promising more kinetic and economic war against Russia, causing some to wonder whether his death wasn’t natural.

“The FBI is assisting local authorities and has made every necessary resource available,” Patel wrote on X.