Once upon a time, Lindsey Graham called Donald Trump a "jackass." Never to be outdone in the put-down department, Trump labeled the South Carolina senator a "lightweight" and an "idiot" who “seems to me not as bright as Rick Perry.”

Two years after that campaign smackdown, Trump and Graham act like longtime friends, hitting the links and plotting legislative strategy together. The two have formed a surprising kinship even as Graham's best friend, John McCain, is chilly toward a president who once mocked his capture in Vietnam.


In a sign of the dramatic turn in their relationship, during a flight back from South Carolina last week, the president turned to the South Carolina senator and asked if he’d like to take a helicopter back to the White House with him, offering Graham a guided tour.

“How can you not like that?” Graham said in a lengthy interview. “I mean I grew up in the back of a liquor store, first in my family to go to college. I never thought I’d be on Marine One with the president.”

Graham is transforming himself from one of Trump’s fiercest critics to his chief congressional translator, talking to the president sometimes multiple times in a day. He insists Trump is “growing into the job” and becoming more somber, a far different figure than who Graham once railed against as a long-shot presidential candidate. A White House official said that Graham’s alliance with Trump “is one of the best we have on the Hill.”

How long this will last is anyone's guess: Graham is known as one of the more blunt-spoken senators, and it might just be a matter of time before he whacks the president and Trump hits back.

But to hear Graham tell it now, what started as a mutual political marriage of convenience has evolved into a friendship defined by backslapping and a shared sense of humor between “two BS artists.” As Trump wavers on whether to support a bipartisan health care deal, Graham has been working to convince Trump to back it — and telling reporters all about their conversations.

And when Trump seeks validation and support from the establishment wing of the GOP, Graham is exactly the type of Republican he needs. This despite Graham once interrupting a roast of other Republicans to issue a dire warning about Trump: “I don’t think he understands what makes America great. And I know I’m supposed to be funny, but I’m not really happy about where the country is right now.”

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But now Graham says Trump's assembled the best national security team in 20 years and is “good for the Republican Party.”

“Part of it’s just getting to know each other better. And need. I do better in South Carolina when I’m seen as helping him, ‘cause he’s popular. When I’m helping him, he’s seen as being able to reach out to an old critic,” Graham said.

Others in his party are moving in the opposite direction. Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), once one of Trump’s strongest backers on Capitol Hill, has become exasperated with Trump’s erratic style. Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), siding with Corker in an interview this month, is staking his reelection campaign on offering a conservative cure to Trumpism.

And McCain (R-Ariz.) just launched a barely veiled attack on Trump’s brand of “half-baked, spurious nationalism.” That came after more than a year of attacks by the president on McCain’s service record and more recently, his votes against Obamacare repeal that crippled the party’s agenda on Capitol Hill.

“He’s very result-oriented,” McCain said of the sudden turn by Graham. “I think he wants to be effective for the people of South Carolina and he’s found a way to do that.”

Ironically, Graham’s improving relationship with Trump is directly related to the president’s disdain for McCain. After McCain ignored Trump’s entreaties and killed the GOP’s repeal effort in July, Graham teamed with Trump and Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) on a proposal that would turn some of Obamacare’s federal funding into block grants to states.

Perplexing party leaders who were ready to move on, Graham began publicly urging his leadership to hold a vote on the bill even though it was being constantly rewritten and never had the support to become law. That didn’t matter to Trump, who was instead seeking an indefatigable ally who understood how badly the White House needed a win.

“One thing he likes, I think, about me, is I don’t quit. It wasn’t enough to just move on after health care. I said: 'BS,'” Graham said. “He saw in me a guy that had an idea that made sense and was willing to fight. So that’s created sort of a bond.”

That bond has formed literally from nothing. Trump and Graham’s only real interaction during the presidential primary was when Trump called Graham an “idiot,” gave out Graham’s personal phone number and encouraged his supporters to dial up Graham.

“His phone was ringing nonstop. People were yelling at him. We said, ‘Senator, you have to stop answering it.’ He was just answering,” recalled Christian Ferry, Graham's former campaign manager. Graham then made a video of himself smashing his phone. “That's one of the few things people remember about our campaign,” Ferry noted.

Now, Graham is so entrenched in the White House’s orbit that he talks with administration staff before and after his meetings with Trump to coordinate how to work with the president. Trump and the White House have sought Graham’s input on health care, Iran and even whip counts, even though Graham is not a committee chairman and isn’t in elected leadership.

“We'll share things with him before he sees the president, he'll share things with us afterwards,” the White House official said.

Graham has some competition in the Senate for Trump's affections. One of Graham’s sharpest political foils, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), golfed with Trump the same weekend that Graham did and sharply attacked Graham as a big spender on budgetary issues afterward. Paul speaks with Trump about as often as Graham does.

But Paul voted against the budget and opposed several Obamacare replacement proposals despite Trump’s support, while Graham is a leading sponsor of the block grant bill and advocate for the budget. Asked whether he’s worried about the libertarian-leaning Paul being closer to Trump, Graham responded: “Uh, no. Everybody’s on my side and Rand’s just Rand.”

Sergio Gor, a spokesman for Paul, lumped in Graham “with establishment types who are always looking to compromise and dilute conservative values” and called him one of D.C.’s “leading swamp creatures.”

Even so, Graham’s influence is indisputable. GOP Senate sources credited him with persuading Trump to publicly urge Congress to enshrine protections for young immigrants protected by President Barack Obama’s executive actions. And the White House expects Graham to be on the front lines of the next attempt to repeal Obamacare.

People who know Graham said the real test of the relationship will be when Trump ends up on the opposite side of his newfound ally.

“The president does not have a track record of disagreeing agreeably,” said Joel Sawyer, a South Carolina political consultant who knows Graham. “The interesting part to see: After the golf trips, the next time Sen. Graham decides he cannot back the president on something, what the president's reaction is going to be."

Graham says he's no pushover. He’s consistently opposed Trump’s call to kill the Senate’s filibuster and has defended McCain in conversations with the president.

After all, Graham says, it wouldn’t be a real relationship with the president if he just agreed with everything Trump does.

“Sometimes he drives divisions, he’s very divisive with his rhetoric and we’ve got to grow the party with minorities,” Graham said. "It’s a business. I work for the people of South Carolina and the country to help him where I can — and say no to him when I must.”