WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump and Senate Democrats have a deal to fund most of the government for the rest of the year. But for the past 24 hours, one of Trump’s closest allies, Sen. Lindsey Graham, had been blocking the Senate from quickly voting on the spending package.
Graham, R-S.C., dismissed the bipartisan agreement as a “bad deal” for Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and other Department of Homeland Security personnel. He’s also furious about language in the deal that would repeal a provision allowing him and other Republican senators to sue the Department of Justice for potentially millions of dollars.
Graham was among eight Senate Republicans who would uniquely benefit from the provision, which allows senators to sue if their phone records were subpoenaed in a probe of Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election without their knowledge. The probe sought records of phone calls, not the contents of the calls or messages.
“I want notification. What senator wouldn’t want notification that they’re looking at your phone?” Graham told reporters Thursday night after he said he would not agree to a speedy vote on the funding deal.
“If you were abused, you think you were abused, your phone records were illegally seized, you should have your day in court. It’s up to you to prove it,” Graham added. “Every senator should want to make sure this never happens again.”
Last fall, as part of the deal to reopen the government following the longest shutdown in U.S. history, Graham successfully tucked a provision into the package allowing senators to sue the federal government if their data is obtained without notifying them.
That provision sparked bipartisan outrage in the House, not least because it only applies to senators. Like Graham, Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., also had his phone records accessed as part of former special counsel Jack Smith’s “Arctic Frost” investigation.
House leaders and negotiators repealed the Graham provision in their sweeping six-bill funding package that cleared the lower chamber last week. And Senate negotiators kept the repeal provision in their stopgap bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security for the next two weeks.
In the deal, senators have agreed to split DHS from a longer-term funding package to buy time to negotiate reforms to the agency. Graham thinks that’s not needed and said there’s already an investigation underway into the death of Alex Pretti, a Minnesota man who was shot by federal agents.
“I’ve never felt better that we can find a way forward, but not this way. ICE agents are not infallible, but I appreciate what they’re doing. I’ve never been more offended than I am right now by what’s being said about these folks. … They’re being demonized. They’re being spat upon. They can’t sleep at night,” Graham told reporters Thursday night. “So let’s have a debate. Is this a Stephen Miller problem? Is it a Kristi Noem problem? Or is it a problem that is a result of four years of out-of-control, open borders, ruining the country?”
Graham, 70, is seeking a fifth six-year term in the Senate this year, and is facing a primary challenge from the right from Paul Dans, a former official in Trump’s first term who later led the conservative policy initiative known as Project 2025, as well as self-funding businessman Mark Lynch. Trump endorsed Graham for re-election last year.
Early in his Senate career, Graham worked closely with Democrats on immigration reform, but he has shifted right on the issue during the Trump era.
By Friday morning, there appeared to be a thaw. Graham took to the Senate floor and said he was lifting his hold on the funding package, so long as he is promised a vote on his sanctuary cities bill during the next two weeks as the two sides negotiate reforms to DHS. Graham also said he wants a vote within a reasonable time on his revised Arctic Frost provision, which he said he changed so there is “no enrichment by me or anybody else.”
But he had harsh words for House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who he said repealed his provision in the House without consulting with him. “Speaker Johnson, I won’t forget this. I got a lot of good friends in the House,” Graham said in his floor speech. “If you think I’m going to give up on this, you really don’t know me.”
Just before 4 p.m. ET Friday, senators locked in an agreement to vote on the funding package. In addition to taking aim at Johnson, Graham also expressed frustration with Trump, who cut the deal with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and the Democrats.
“I’m an ally of the White House; I’m not owned by them,” Graham told NBC News after his floor speech.
Later, he told a group of reporters: “The White House is talking to Schumer, great. Well, somebody needs to talk to me. I worked too hard to get here."
“I’m a senator. I like President Trump a lot — he didn’t negotiate with me," he continued. "When we have this debate two weeks from now about what’s the answer to DHS, I want a seat at the table, I want a vote.”
