Margaret Brennan: I spoke with Lindsey Graham a day before he died

Fierce Ukraine supporter Lindsey Graham passed away Saturday on the heels of his tenth trip to the warzone, and at a key moment for one of the South Carolina Republican senator's proudest accomplishments.

I spoke twice by phone on Friday with Graham while he was in Kyiv. He told me it was a big day, and he was excited to share the news that the Trump White House had finally given him the green light for Congress to move his long-sought bill to put significant financial penalties on Russia by punishing buyers of Russian oil.

I asked what had changed to make this possible, and he said Vladimir Putin's constant attacks made it very clear that the Russian president was "saying one thing and doing another." He had just met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and said that he thinks President Trump sees the Ukrainian leader as "more of a winner now." 

Graham told me that he didn't want to get ahead of Mr. Trump but he believed that this package of punishing financial measures would create leverage on China and India, the two biggest purchasers of Russian fuel. He believed this would get overwhelming support among his Republican colleagues, and bragged that past versions had gotten 85 signatories.

In an increasingly rare act of bipartisanship in these hyperpartisan times, Graham wanted me to know that Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, his Democratic colleague, deserves a lot of credit. Twice, he urged me to call Blumenthal and make sure we got him on record too. The gesture had shades of the type of across-the-aisle work Graham and Republican Sen. John McCain used to broker with another Connecticut lawmaker, Sen. Joe Lieberman.

It was almost exactly one year ago to the day that Graham and Blumenthal had joined us on "Face to Nation" to talk about their bipartisan effort to pressure Russia through sanctions and tariffs on buyers of their oil. Graham told us in that July 13, 2025, interview that he wanted to hand Mr. Trump "a sledgehammer to go after Putin's economy, and all those countries who prop up the Putin war machine."

The two senators had just traveled through Europe together, urging European countries to cut off their own purchases of Russian fuel and building support among European countries to try to mirror the sanctions.

Blumenthal told me Friday that he and Graham would get the votes to make sure this passed. Following Graham's passing, it falls to Republican leaders in the Senate and House to make the decision on whether to take it up.

When Graham and I spoke Friday, he said he wanted to come back on "Face the Nation" with Blumenthal once again. He'd just appeared with us three weeks ago to push another big goal: Turning the morass of the Iran war into an opportunity for normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel. He had worked with then-President Joe Biden to try to get that done, but the work was stymied by the horrific attack of Oct. 7, 2023.

That unfinished business also now lays waiting.