Lindsey Graham, the senator from South Carolina, died at the age of 71 on Saturday. His office noted that the Republican had passed away from a heart ailment caused by the hardening of the arteries. As tributes have poured in for the Donald Trump critic-turned-staunch supporter, an old video of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk has resurfaced where he brutally criticized Graham's political stance.
Graham, a defense hawk, was a staunch supporter of Ukraine and Israel, and an opponent of Iran. Even before Trump's Operation Epic Fury with Israel which saw Ayatollah Ali Khamenei being killed, Graham had called for a regime change in Iran. Kirk had slammed this point of view on The Charlie Kirk Show back in June 2025, months before he was assassinated when attending an event at the Utah Valley University.
Kirk's old video was reported on by Newsweek as well during Operation Epic Fury.
What Charlie Kirk said about Lindsey Graham
{{/usCountry}}Kirk's old video was reported on by Newsweek as well during Operation Epic Fury.
What Charlie Kirk said about Lindsey Graham
{{/usCountry}}Kirk, on the show, pointed to the likes of Graham ‘actively calling for regime change’, saying it was just ‘lunacy’.
Reading out Graham's lines about ‘closing the chapter on the Ayatollah and his henchmen’ and ‘starting a new chapter’ in the Middle East, Kirk remarked that it sounded ‘good’, but noted that people had learnt about ‘wars’, especially those in the region, that what is ‘drawn up on the whiteboard, rarely happens.'
Going into the specifics of Iran, Kirk had spoken about unpredictability when it came to the outcome, given the country was two and a half times the size of Texas and was an ancient seat of power with numerous ethnic groups. “Who's going to run the country exactly, Lindsey Graham?”, Kirk had asked.
Playing a clip of Graham on Fox News speaking about supporting Trump to send troops to Iran to force a regime change, Kirk remarked ‘that sounds good, but that’s pathologically insane'. He added, “I'm sorry, it is. Yeah, the Ayatollah is awful, but maybe he's one of the few guys that can keep that country together and have a ninety-million person civil war.”
Doubling down on his attack on Graham, Kirk said he was ‘so consistently out of his mind, it is hard to even comprehend’.
“Iran is hugely diverse, it is a massive country,” Kirk further said. He added that a regime change was not like a ‘clean transfer’. Kirk went on to say that any conflict there would also cause an influx of refugees from Iran to Europe and America, which was not something he could get behind.