Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was the loudest voice on Capitol Hill calling for President Donald Trump to strike Iran. But Graham’s longtime championing of a now-shuttered government agency might have doomed the strikes’ ultimate aims – possibly dragging down Trump and Republicans with them.
Graham remained the self-proclaimed “big champion” of the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, even as evidence mounted that the agency was misspending hoards of taxpayer cash on ill-advised foreign misadventures.
Trump effectively shut down the agency in 2025, with most sometimes-reluctant Republicans senators, including Graham, acknowledging the agency could use reform.
But before Trump’s decisive action, tens of millions of taxpayer dollars appropriated by Congress to USAID landed inside the pockets of terrorist organizations – willfully or intentionally, it isn’t clear – including Al Qaeda.
That shocking sum includes millions of dollars funneled to the coffers of Hamas, the terror organization that plays a central role in the instability and chaos in the Middle East region and whose threats of terror were used by the U.S. to justify the Iran strikes of February 28.
USAID-Funded Hamas Threatening American War Aims
Flush with American cash, Hamas is now a growing factor in Iranian resistance to American dominance, threatening to prolong and escalate the war.
Hamas encouraged Iran to “activate all fronts” against American-led resistance in a letter sent to the regime’s new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei.
And the notorious terrorist organization is now secretly urging Iran to target neighboring states as threats from Iran and its network of terror groups have created a tanker bottleneck at the critical Strait of Hormuz, a geopolitical crisis that has sent oil prices skyrocketing and threatens not only the war and global economy but Republicans’ midterm electoral prospects – as well as Trump’s legacy.
The standoff, which could last months or longer, at best showcases the ineffectualness of attempts to orchestrate foreign geopolitical events by America’s myriad network of intelligence agencies.
It could be more nefarious.
Regardless, the South Carolina Senator’s fingerprints are all over the catastrophe.
In February of 2025, as a handful of moderate and establishment Senators pushed back on Trump’s call to “DOGE” USAID, Graham’s past support for USAID reemerged.
“You’ve made a big difference in the world. You’re a force for good, create a great impression for our country, and you change lives,” Graham said in a resurfaced video message to USAID. “[You] take taxpayer dollars and you improve the lives of others, which is good foreign policy, good national security policy. And to all the folks throughout the world who work for USAID, local hires – thank you. I’ve been a big champion for a long time. Enjoy this anniversary and when it comes to USAID, the best is yet to come.”
Breitbart News reached out to a Graham spokesperson for comment regarding terror groups that received American tax dollars now posing a threat to America’s aims in Iran but did not receive a response.
Graham Defended USAID Despite Troubling Evidence
The warning signs of USAID’s contributions to terrorists were there, for those willing to look.
Yet while Graham was cheerleading the continued funneling of billions in taxpayer dollars to the rogue agency, the Senate was MIA on its constitutional role of oversight, leaving the House of Representatives to carry the rucksack.
“USAID and the State Department have even provided direct support to Hamas and other terrorist groups,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast (R-FL) warned point blank in a March 2025 letter.
“From 2007 through 2024, USAID and the State Department sent at least $122 million to NGOs aligned with designated terrorist organizations,” they added. “Many of those NGOs have openly espoused antisemitic rhetoric and encouraged violence against Jewish individuals.”
Breitbart News asked a Graham spokesman if she could point to any oversight efforts that Graham led on USAID spending but did not receive a response.
Aid from the internationalist agency may even have directly contributed to the Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel of October 7, 2023.
In just one example, USAID issued a grant to the Bayader Association for Environment and Development, an NGO based in Gaza, on October 1, 2023 – less than a week before the attack that rocked the relative calm Trump had painstakingly orchestrated in the Middle East.
Since 2016, according to a report published by Middle East Forum in February 2025, Bayader has received at least $900,000 in U.S. government funding despite openly collaborating with Hamas officials, including holding joint events with Hamas leaders.
Bayader regularly consorts with Hamas on a very close basis, including those responsible for October 7 attacks. In February 2023, at an event organized by Bayader, its “staff embraced senior Hamas officials, including Abdul Salam Haniyeh, the son of the late Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, one of the men responsible for the October 7 attacks.
By the time taxpayer dollars were flooding Middle East terror groups, Graham’s role as the top Republican patron of USAID had been long established.
“There’s one senior Republican who’s willing and able to fight for maintaining the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development budgets: Sen. Lindsey Graham,” Josh Rogin wrote for Foreign Policy in 2011.
Iran Debacle Triggers Questions of Graham’s Advisory Role to Trump
The hawkish, neoconservative Graham, Trump’s 2016 rival-turned-consigliere, regularly boasts of his role as informal advisor to Trump, often sharing photos of their frequent golf outings.
His chummy relationship with Trump despite their fundamental philosophical differences – Graham almost daily lavishes praise upon Trump in a barrage of Fox News appearances seemed orchestrated for an audience of one – kept him from a primary defeat in 2020 event as many South Carolina voters prefer a candidate more aligned with the America First agenda.
Graham faces another primary challenge this year from candidates touting their MAGA bona fides.
But the worsening crisis in Iran has led to renewed questions from Republicans in South Carolina and across the country regarding Graham’s role as the Senate’s informal ambassador on national security issues.
Graham’s influence also raises broader questions about the advisors available to Trump in his Senate stable, not only on issues of war and diplomacy but the politics inside the Senate Republican conference.
The Senate Tuesday took up the SAVE America Act, Trump’s top legislative priority, in a destined-to-fail messaging exercise undertaken due to establishment wing insistence no path to pass the bill exists. Many conservatives and Senate parliamentary experts dispute that claim, pointing to clear precedent to back their case.
Graham has maintained his support for the filibuster, perhaps to his credit not even giving lip service to ending the popular practice – unlike many of his colleagues who safely claim to support the standing filibuster knowing Thune will not allow it to move forward.
Instead, Graham has loyally stood by Thune’s decision to hold a show vote that, despite any merits, will provide cover to Republican Senators unwilling to take steps necessary to pass the bill.
“I look forward to voting on the SAVE America Act,” Graham said in a February statement announcing his cosponsorship of the bill, whose fate was already sealed.
Neocons Prepare for Life After Trump, Return to Bush-Era Republican Party
The neoconservative wing of the party is flexing its muscles ahead of the 2028 presidential election after almost a decade in the political wilderness.
While Trump created a new coalition of Republican voters, the neocon wing still holds power in the Senate, where career politicians cobble together decades-long tenures one six-year term at a time.
Throughout history, Senators often hold the mindset that they need only keep their head down to outlast a president – in their own party or not – with whom they disagree.
The aftermath of the 2020 election and the 2024 Republican primaries demonstrated how establishment Republican Senators were anxious to move on from Trump, with many, including Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), actively working against Trump’s reelection efforts.
Their efforts failed to keep Trump out of office.
But with its tactics exposed as ineffectual, are those neocon remnants, the Ghosts of the Republican Party Past, now seeking to damage Trump’s legacy in an effort to ensure Trumpism dies with the end of his time in elected office?
With Trump’s agenda largely stagnant in Congress since July 2025 passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill, and the SAVE America Act headed for defeat despite the manufactured drama, questions of whether Republican Senators are giving lip service to Trump while secretly sabotaging his agenda are unavoidable.
Meanwhile, Iran and the terrorist groups it has long funded – with an assist from USAID – increasingly threaten Republicans’ domestic agenda and electoral prospects.
The catastrophe could not only derail Trump’s agenda but break apart the winning coalition he created, providing neocons – those who have not already embraced the Democrat Party – an opening to reclaim the GOP.
Despite the uncertain outlook, Graham continues pushing to escalate the war in Iran, even openly threatening Saudi Arabia’s American aid unless it joins the war against Iran.
“Why should America do a defense agreement with a country like the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that is unwilling to join a fight of mutual interest?” he asked, adding that if Saudi Arabia would not join America’s war efforts, “consequences will follow.”
Graham had promised USAID “The best is yet to come” for the agency. Yet for now, despite court challenges and quiet (for now) establishment Republican objections, USAID’s offices are dark.
But the agency’s shadow remains on the geopolitical landscape – and is seemingly getting longer.
If Republicans like Graham have their way, the Republican Party will reestablish foreign interventionism as its guiding tenet.
Terrorists might welcome the regression, but American voters, particularly those who’ve embraced the new America First direction of the Republican Party, are unlikely to reward the party – or what would be left of it.
Bradley Jaye is Political Editor for Breitbart News. Follow him on X/Twitter and Instagram @BradleyAJaye.
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