Sen. Lindsey Graham recalls his friend John McCain as ideal American

If aliens from space landed on Earth and wanted an example of what it meant to be American, Sen. John McCain of Arizona would be the choice of his friend Sen. Lindsay Graham.

“If I had to pick one person in this great land to explain to someone from a different planet, ‘Who are these Americans?’ it would be John McCain with an assist from (speechwriter and friend) Mark Salter,” Graham (R-S.C.) said Tuesday on NBC’s “Today” show.

“He had a romantic view of our nation to his last breath,” Graham said.

McCain, 81, died Saturday at his Sedona-area ranch of brain cancer, which he had been fighting for a year. The six-term Republican senator would have turned 82 on Wednesday.

“John has shown that it’s not about you. Country first means that even if it’s inconvenient for you & it makes you uncomfortable, you do it anyway."

Watch @LindseyGrahamSC's full interview with @savannahguthrie & @craigmelvin about his beloved friend, John McCain. pic.twitter.com/brzR3vzH7J

— TODAY (@TODAYshow) August 28, 2018

The two sat next to each on the Senate floor. “That’s where I can’t look,” Graham said of the desk to his side.

The close friends did have differences, including Graham’s growing public support of President Donald Trump, whose feud with McCain began in 2015 during the campaign for the White House.

Graham, too, had been critical of Trump during the president’s first year in office.

That swing did not have an affect of his relationship with McCain.

“John has shown that it’s not about you. Country first means that even if it’s inconvenient for you, and it makes you uncomfortable, yo do it, anyway,” Graham said.

“Country first hurts, but it’s the right way to go.”

He called his friend, a Vietnam War veteran, “the conscience of the Senate, and he was, at times, the conscience of our nation.”

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