A threat of punitive US sanctions rarely begins with a single policy announcement. It begins with a politician. In this case, the push for tariffs of up to 500 per cent on countries that continue purchasing
Russian oil, a move that directly affects India, comes from Republican Senator Lindsey Graham.
Graham is one of the most influential voices in Washington’s foreign-policy arena, and the architect of the hard-hitting Russia sanctions bill that US President Donald Trump has now “greenlit”.
Understanding why Graham is driving this push requires understanding who he was, who he became, and why his political journey matters far beyond Washington.
Who Is Lindsey Graham?
Lindsey Graham has represented South Carolina in the US Senate since 2003. Before that, he was a military lawyer, a House member, and one of the managers of President Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial in 1998.
Traditionally, Graham built his reputation as a foreign-policy hawk, closely aligned with his political mentor, the late Senator John McCain. Together, they took consistently interventionist positions, backed US military action overseas and championed a muscular American presence in global geopolitics.
He was also known for a bipartisan streak. Graham negotiated major deals on immigration reform and climate policy, often working with Democrats even when it angered conservatives in his home state. He developed a reputation as someone who could drift across ideological lines in pursuit of policy outcomes, combining hawkish national security instincts with occasional centrism on domestic issues.
All of that made Graham a prominent figure in Washington long before the Trump era. But it also made his later transformation far more striking.
When Graham Called Trump A ‘Jackass’: The Early Hostility
Few Republican lawmakers opposed Donald Trump as vocally as Graham during the 2015 presidential primary. Graham called Trump “crazy”, “a jackass” and “one of the dumbest human beings” he had ever met. Trump retaliated by publicly revealing Graham’s private phone number at a rally, encouraging supporters to call him.
The two men clashed repeatedly, and Graham refused to support Trump even after he won the party’s nomination; he wrote in independent candidate Evan McMullin during the 2016 election instead of voting for Trump.
Their hostility was also shaped by Graham’s loyalty to McCain, whom Trump repeatedly mocked, including for being captured during the Vietnam War. Graham called those attacks “disturbing”. At that moment, nothing suggested he would later become one of Trump’s closest Senate allies.
Yet within three years, Graham’s posture shifted dramatically.
How Political Survival Drove A Sudden Pivot
When Graham first entered the Trump era, he was not politically aligned with the President at all. But as he looked ahead to his 2020 re-election campaign, the political landscape in his home state of South Carolina forced him to reassess his position.
South Carolina is a deeply conservative state where, by 2018–19, Republican voters increasingly expected their elected officials to support Trump without hesitation. Graham’s history of working with Democrats and taking centrist positions made him vulnerable within his own party. Early polling suggested he could face a revolt from conservative voters, and several right-leaning politicians were preparing to challenge him for the Republican nomination, a battle that could have ended his Senate career.
Before this danger fully materialised, a national political confrontation in 2018 provided Graham with an unexpected opportunity to reconnect with the conservative base. That year, the US was consumed by a fierce political fight over the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh, a judge nominated to the Supreme Court who faced allegations of sexual assault dating back to his youth, allegations he denied. The confirmation hearings were televised across the country and had become a symbol of the highly polarised political climate.
During one of these hearings, Graham delivered an explosive and emotional defence of Kavanaugh, accusing Democrats of attempting to destroy the nominee’s reputation for political gain. His speech, which was widely aired on conservative media, was seen as a passionate stand against what many Republican voters viewed as an unfair, partisan attack. The response was immediate: Graham’s approval ratings in South Carolina surged, rising by more than 20 percentage points. The conservative challengers who had been considering a primary battle against him quietly backed off.
This moment marked a turning point. Graham appeared to recognise that, in the Trump era, political survival in a conservative state required not just occasional agreement with the President but unmistakable loyalty and public alignment. From that point on — moving into 2019, the year before his re-election — Graham’s political posture shifted sharply.
He began appearing regularly with Trump, golfing with him on weekends, defending him on television and assuming the role of one of the President’s most consistent political allies in the Senate.
The Transformation Deepens: Impeachment, Ukraine And Blind Loyalty
By late 2019, Graham’s shift towards Trump was visible in every major political confrontation in Washington. That year, Trump faced a serious congressional investigation in the US after a government whistleblower alleged that the President had pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to open an inquiry into Joe Biden, who had recently entered the race for the Democratic nomination for the 2020 election, and his son.
The allegation triggered a formal process in the US Congress to examine whether Trump had abused his power, a process that could lead to impeachment, the possible removal of a sitting president from office.
Graham quickly positioned himself on Trump’s side. He dismissed the whistleblower’s account as “hearsay,” said the entire process was a “sham,” and later used an even stronger phrase by calling it a “lynching in every sense,” repeating Trump’s own characterisation. Although the US Constitution requires senators to act as jurors in an impeachment trial, Graham said he would not read the witness transcripts produced by the investigation.
At the same time, he initiated inquiries into unproven accusations involving Biden’s past dealings in Ukraine, despite a widely shared video from 2016 in which Graham had praised Biden as “as good a man as God ever created.” The contrast between his earlier views and his Trump-era actions drew widespread attention in Washington.
Colleagues from both parties described this phase not as a change in ideology but as a strategic choice. With McCain gone and Trump commanding the loyalty of Republican voters, Graham appeared to embrace the role of one of the President’s closest defenders.
Why Graham Embraced Trump Despite Deep Policy Differences
Although Graham defended Trump politically, he disagreed with him on multiple foreign-policy issues, including Iran, Afghanistan and Syria. He criticised Trump for not striking Iran after a US drone was shot down, calling the restraint “a sign of weakness”. Trump publicly rebuked him in return.
Yet the disagreements never escalated. Graham picked his battles carefully. He maintained warm personal access to Trump, visiting the Oval Office frequently and positioning himself as a bridge between the White House and Republican senators. For Graham, influence required loyalty. And proximity to power offered something else: relevance, visibility and political longevity.
In accounts given to Rolling Stone, several people who have worked closely with Graham offered similar explanations for his transformation. Former senator Al Franken told the magazine that Graham frequently joked about political cynicism, saying things that hinted at a willingness to adapt to whatever the political moment required.
By the time the 2020 impeachment trial began, Graham had become one of Trump’s most forceful defenders in the Senate. He secured re-election later that year, aided by strong fundraising from Trump’s national base. The transformation was complete.
From Loyalist To Enforcer: Graham’s Russia Sanctions Push
This evolution reveals how Graham positioned himself to influence major foreign-policy decisions in Trump’s second administration, including the new Russia sanctions proposal.
On Thursday, Graham announced that Trump had “greenlit” a bipartisan Russia sanctions bill that would allow the US President to impose tariffs of up to 500 per cent on countries purchasing Russian oil, gas, uranium or other exports. The bill targets Russia’s revenue streams, but it also significantly impacts countries that have expanded purchases of discounted Russian crude, including India, China and Brazil.
Graham met Trump at the White House on Wednesday to secure backing for the legislation. “This will be well-timed, as Ukraine is making concessions for peace and Putin is all talk, continuing to kill the innocent,” Graham said in a statement.
The proposal includes secondary sanctions, placing countries in direct jeopardy if they continue buying Russian energy. Graham suggested the Senate could hold a vote soon, although the timing remains uncertain.
