Tamara Keith and Amy Walter on Lindsey Graham's passing

[0:00] For more on Senator Lindsey Graham's impact and what his passing means for South Carolina and the Senate, [0:06] we're joined now by our Politics Monday duo, Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter and Tamara Keith of NPR. [0:13] It's good to see you both. [0:14] Hello, it's good to be here. [0:15] So Lindsey Graham held the South Carolina Senate seat for some 25 years. [0:19] Strom Thurmond before him held it for nearly half a century. [0:23] To what degree does Graham's death mark a real generational turning point for South Carolina politics? [0:29] Yes, and he was a generational turning point when he was elected in 2002, [0:34] not just to represent South Carolina after the Senator Thurmond passed, [0:41] but, you know, this was still a state that was transitioning from one that was a Democratic state [0:46] into one that was going to become a Republican stronghold. [0:51] So he was on the front end of that when he was elected in 1994 to the House. [0:55] And then during his tenure, especially in these last 10 years, [0:58] he really served as a bridge between the two wings of the Republican Party, [1:03] between the Trump wing and the sort of traditional wing. [1:06] I think when people saw the rift between Senator McCain and Donald Trump in Donald Trump's first term, [1:13] the assumption was that Lindsey Graham was going to fall into that same camp, right? [1:16] These were both interventionists. [1:18] They had a very strong belief about the role of America's military and strategic role in the world [1:25] and that Graham would join with McCain and being sort of horrified at the direction [1:33] that the president was taking the party and potentially the country. [1:37] But instead, what Lindsey Graham saw was an opportunity. [1:40] And you could make the argument that, in some ways, he was able to actually make that case, [1:46] especially on the issue of Ukraine, which, without his voice, [1:49] it's unclear if this administration would have continued to push money and aid to Ukraine. [1:58] So I think what his passing suggests is he's one of the last of the generation of Republicans left in Congress [2:07] that were there in an era before Donald Trump. [2:10] And now at this point, Tam, there will be a temporary successor [2:14] and then there will be an election, as Lisa walked us through the process. [2:18] Given Trump's dominance over the Republican Party and South Carolina politics in particular, [2:22] I think the real question now is not will Graham's successor align with Trump, [2:26] but what kind of Trump-aligned Republican emerges from this race? [2:30] Yeah, and I think the answer is whoever it is is going to be a reliable vote for Donald Trump and his agenda. [2:37] Lindsey Graham has been a reliable vote for President Trump. [2:41] And President Trump has a lot of sway when it comes to determining who wins Republican primaries. [2:49] Though I will note that in the governor's race in South Carolina, there was a runoff. [2:54] The candidate that President Trump had initially endorsed was looking like she was losing, [3:01] so he went and endorsed both of them. [3:03] So sometimes his power in primaries is more based on his ability to read the room. [3:08] Yeah, but I would absolutely expect that the president's going to weigh in on who the successor will be. [3:13] It's not just going to play out in sort of an open environment. [3:17] He weighed in on who the temporary successor would be. [3:19] That's right. That's right. [3:20] Well, look, after a month of uncertainty about Mitch McConnell's health, the Kentucky senator said Sunday that another fall had sent him to the hospital. [3:28] He issued his office, issued a statement, and there was this photo of him sitting alongside his wife, [3:33] the former transportation secretary, with what appears to be the Sunday edition of the Washington Post. [3:39] How should politicians balance the legitimate right to medical privacy with the public's right to know whether they're capable of doing the job? [3:47] Yeah, so there is no law that says that politicians have to disclose their health issues. [3:53] That is also true for the president of the United States, and there's been a lot of focus on that, [3:58] but that's true in the Senate and the House as well. [4:01] And we just had a House member who was gone for three months, four months, without any explanation until he was back. [4:09] While there isn't a legal obligation, I think arguably there is a moral obligation. [4:15] You're there to represent your voters, and if they don't know where you are, that's pretty significant. [4:21] And there's another thing here. [4:24] You know, these are public figures. [4:28] They, in some ways, surrender their right to be private citizens when they become public figures representing the public. [4:36] Yeah, it feels a little bit like the argument would be similar to one you would make at your own place of business. [4:43] If you just disappeared, Jeff, for three months and didn't tell anybody why you were gone... [4:48] I hope somebody would ask a couple questions. [4:49] First of all, I hope we would be very worried. [4:52] But we would also hope that you told someone, maybe in HR, what was going on. [4:56] Now, HR shouldn't tell everybody in the office what exactly is happening, [5:02] but you should at least be transparent, and I think that's where people get really frustrated. [5:07] It's not so much that, oh, my gosh, somebody is taking time and spending it in the hospital [5:11] and not telling us exactly what's going on with them physically. [5:15] It's that we didn't get any reason to understand that you were gone in the first place, [5:20] and that, I think, becomes a bigger challenge. [5:24] And it foments conspiracy theories, which we have seen in spades, [5:28] both with McConnell and then with Lindsey Graham. [5:32] I think it is notable how quickly his office put out word of the reason, [5:36] the cause of his death for this very reason, [5:38] because in the absence of information, when there's a vacuum in this current political climate, [5:44] things really spin up quickly. [5:46] We've got a couple of minutes left. [5:48] You were in Maine this past weekend covering the Maine Senate race. [5:51] We've covered the Graham-Plattner implosion a lot on this program this past week. [5:55] What were Democrats in Maine telling you? [5:57] I got a lot from Democrats in Maine, very mixed feelings, mixed... [6:03] Some of them are mad at the Democratic establishment for the fact that Graham-Plattner is out of the race. [6:09] Many of them are worried that this process may not lead to a candidate who can sort of recapture that energy [6:18] or keep that momentum going. [6:19] But others remain optimistic that somehow this wasn't about one man. [6:25] It was about a movement and about progressive policies and about shaking things up. [6:29] I think that we'll know in the next two weeks whether the state Democratic Party process is open and transparent enough [6:37] and exciting enough to get voters motivated in Maine. [6:41] You just answered the question I was going to put to Amy. [6:43] Are they motivated? [6:44] Well, I was going to ask if Democrats are hampered by all of this or is there time to reset? [6:49] I think there is. [6:49] I mean, I think there's been so much focus on Plattner and this idea of building a movement [6:54] that we've moved away from the central issue here for the 2026 midterm elections, [7:00] which is Democrats are fired up. [7:01] They've been showing up in all kinds of states to show up and vote really as a rebuke of Donald Trump. [7:07] Maine is a blue state. [7:08] It is even bluer now in an anti-Trump moment that we're living through. [7:14] They don't need a movement. [7:15] They need people to focus this election less about making the conversation less about Plattner [7:21] and much more about Trump. [7:23] Amy Walter, Tamara Keith, thanks as always. [7:25] You're welcome. [7:25] Support journalism you trust. [7:36] Support PBS News. [7:39] Donate now or even better, start a monthly contribution today.