Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, the Republican chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, reportedly offered an unambiguous endorsement Tuesday for extending Donald J. Trump’s tenure in the White House, signaling his support for a potential third term.
“Trump 2028. I hope this never ends,” Graham told Fox News host Sean Hannity during a wide-ranging interview on foreign policy and the administration’s handling of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
The exchange began with Hannity noting that Graham had secured 85 co-sponsors for legislation to sanction countries bankrolling Vladimir Putin’s war machine. “Look, it’s a nuclear armed country. We don’t want a conflict with Putin,” Hannity said. “I don’t like that Biden got us into a proxy war and he was giving all of these weapons. Trump is selling the weapons and he’s basically saying, ‘Maybe Putin is a paper tiger. He should have won that war in seven days, it didn’t happen.’”
Graham seized on that point to draw a sharp contrast between Trump’s posture and President Biden’s. “When he asks what should you do if a Russian jet flies into your country, shoot it down,” Graham said of Trump. “He’s tried to go out of his way to get Putin to the table. We don’t want to humiliate Russia, we just want to end the war.”
In Graham’s telling, Trump’s approach blends deterrence with pragmatism—signaling strength without escalating recklessly. “Here’s what Trump did today,” Graham continued. “He told NATO, ‘I’ll sell you all the weapons you want to, you can provide them to Ukraine, and as to Ukraine, you can use them anyway you want.’”
That message, Graham argued, was intended as a direct warning to Moscow. “So to the Russian military, you’re going to be against the high-end American weapons that will be sold to NATO for the benefit of Ukraine and this war is coming to your backyard here with no limitations like Biden. He’s everything Biden wasn’t.”
The senator praised Trump for his candor before global institutions, noting his willingness to confront international bodies. “He stood up to the U.N. in the U.N. and called them out for who they are,” Graham said.
Graham also highlighted Trump’s blunt economic warnings to Europe, where several nations have continued importing Russian oil and gas despite the war. “He told the Europeans if you don’t stop buying Russian oil and gas you got nobody to blame but yourself,” Graham said. “Hungary, Slovakia, and Turkey are buying a billion dollars of Russian oil and gas a month.”
The South Carolina Republican closed with a full-throated endorsement of Trump’s leadership on the world stage. “So God bless President Trump. I think he gave the right message on the world stage and, you know, he told the world what they needed to hear – up your game.”
This is not Graham’s first expression of support for a Trump 2028 campaign. In March, after one of the president’s speeches, Graham wrote on social media: “Inspiring, funny, compelling and the Democrats’ worst nightmare. Trump 2028!”
[READ MORE: Trump Backs Away From Talks As Dems Make Big Budget Demands]
