Sen. Lindsey Graham is openly boasting that he worked behind the scenes with foreign leaders — including Israel and Saudi Arabia — to push President Donald Trump into launch military strikes against Iran.
In a revealing interview with the The Wall Street Journal, the South Carolina Republican described months of lobbying, private conversations with foreign officials, and a coordinated media push designed to nudge Trump toward war.
Graham said his campaign to persuade Trump began shortly after the 2024 election — during a round of golf with the president.
The senator reminded Trump that he had already scrapped the Obama-era nuclear agreement with Iran and suggested the moment had arrived for Trump to take even more dramatic action.
But Graham didn’t stop there.
The senator acknowledged that he also consulted directly with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman while pushing the United States toward military action.
“I went to MBS to say, ‘OK, I think this is going down,’” Graham admitted, referring to the Saudi leader by his widely used initials.
Graham also traveled repeatedly to Israel, where he met with members of the country’s intelligence community — conversations he said were sometimes more revealing than what he heard from U.S. officials.
“They’ll tell me things our own government won’t tell me,” Graham said.
The Republican senator even described advising Netanyahu on how to frame the argument in a way that would persuade Trump — who has frequently branded himself the “Peace President” — to support strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Behind the scenes, Graham said he was also working closely with retired Army Gen. Jack Keane and conservative columnist Marc Thiessen.
The trio coordinated opinion columns and television appearances designed to get Trump’s attention. Trump even shared some of Thiessen’s columns on his Truth Social platform as the drumbeat for military action intensified.
“When we compared notes,” Graham said, “there were not a lot of other voices” pushing for war the way they were.
Not everyone in Trump’s orbit was thrilled.
Some members of the MAGA movement — which has long criticized the foreign-policy “neocons” of the George W. Bush era — were furious that Graham appeared to be steering the administration toward another Middle East conflict.
One senior White House aide reportedly mocked the senator as an “annoying crazy uncle” who kept showing up at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago to push the war effort.
Rep. Tim Burchett put it even more bluntly.
“Lindsey hasn’t seen a fist fight he hasn’t wanted to turn into a bombing raid,” Burchett said.
Graham, however, appeared completely unfazed by the backlash.
“What are they going to do to me?” he said of his critics, adding that he believes Trump’s supporters will eventually embrace the conflict.
Meanwhile, the war itself has already begun taking a toll. Since Trump launched the strikes against Iran last week, six U.S. service members have reportedly been killed, while more than 1,300 people in Iran have died.
Trump announced the start of the military campaign in a video posted online, standing behind a lectern bearing the presidential seal while wearing a white “USA” trucker hat.
The president has since acknowledged that the conflict could bring more casualties — even on American soil.
When asked by Time whether Americans should be worried about potential attacks at home, Trump offered a grim response.
“I guess.”
