Report: Netanyahu talked Graham out of lobbying Trump to join war on Hezbollah; late senator doubted Kushner, Witkoff

By Lazar Berman

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26 July 2026, 5:10 pm

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Lazar Berman is The Times of Israel's diplomatic reporter

Sen. Lindsey Graham, left, gestures as US President Donald Trump speaks with reporters while in flight on Air Force One, on January 4, 2026, as they were returning to Joint Base Andrews, Maryland (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

US President Donald Trump was thrilled at the beginning of the Iran war, the late senator Lindsey Graham told a film crew in unaired footage seen by The Wall Street Journal.

“I talked to Trump this morning, he’s jacked, he said, ‘Best thing I have ever done.’ He loves blowing stuff up,” Graham said just after the war began, in footage obtained by The Journal.

Graham also seemed to suggest that top White House aides Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff couldn’t be trusted in diplomatic efforts in the Middle East.

“I can’t do it with Jared, and I can’t do it with Witkoff. They’re just too conflicted. It’s gotta be [US Secretary of State Marco] Rubio,” he told Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan, according to the report.

It was unclear whether Graham was referring to conflicts of interest the two had, or saying they were internally conflicted in some manner.

At one point in March, Graham planned to fly to Florida in order to convince US President Donald Trump to join Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu talked him out of it in a March 4 call.

“We’re concentrating right now on Iran,” Netanyahu said in the footage, according to The Journal. “If we tell Hezbollah that we’re going all the way, we threaten them, but if we actually do it, then they have no reason not to go all the way against us. And right now that’s not our interest.”

Graham also told Netanyahu that it would be time to normalize ties with Saudi Arabia once the Iranian regime falls, but the prime minister said to focus on Iran first.

Graham said he was fighting with “a lot of people inside” the Trump administration who were against the Iran war, and that Republicans weren’t backing the war firmly enough.

“Very few people are out selling this war from the administration. I’m shocked,” he said.

Graham also flew to Saudi Arabia to try to get Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman’s support for the Iran war.

Only weeks before he passed away in July, Graham worried that Trump was flubbing the war effort. “He’s letting this thing slip away,” the senator said. “I got to go talk to him.”