President Donald Trump’s phone-in tribute to the late Sen. Lindsey Graham turned into a nearly six-minute monologue on Monday morning, July 13, leaving “Fox & Friends” hosts scrambling to steer him back to the subject as he wandered from voter ID legislation to a Los Angeles mayoral race. The awkward on-air moment has drawn commentary from late-night hosts.

Graham, the South Carolina Republican and longtime Trump ally, died Saturday, July 11, at the age of 71. The cause was aortic dissection due to arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease. Trump, 80, called into the program Monday to reflect on his relationship with the senator.

Co-host Ainsley Earhardt opened the segment gently, telling the president she was sorry for the country’s loss and acknowledging he had lost one of his closest friends and an ally in the Senate. She asked how he was feeling. What followed veered quickly off script.

A Tribute That Quickly Unraveled

Trump began by describing Graham as a “great guy” and a “friend” who “loved golf.” He recalled the frequency of Graham’s calls, joking that he would tell the senator to stop phoning him. Trump characterized Graham as a “total workaholic politician,” adding that “some people don’t call that work, some people call that a lot of talking.”

Soon after labeling Graham a chatterbox, Trump himself proved difficult to stop. He stayed on topic briefly, noting that Graham had backed his sought-after voter ID measure, the SAVE Act. But the president quickly pivoted to his grievances with Democrats, invoking what he called “Trump derangement syndrome.”

Trump then discussed terminating the filibuster, reality TV personality Spencer Pratt’s failed Los Angeles mayoral bid, California gubernatorial hopeful Steve Hilton, and mail-in ballot reliability, at one point declaring that “these elections are very dishonest.”

Hosts Struggle to Regain Control

As Trump talked, the show ran a montage of Graham photographs — a segment that continued even after the president had long moved on from his late colleague. Trump out-talked the montage entirely. When it finished, the broadcast simply displayed a photo of Trump with on-screen text identifying him as the 47th president of the United States.

At three separate points, the hosts tried to interject with questions about Graham, only to be talked over. Co-host Lawrence Jones pressed repeatedly, asking whether Trump had noticed anything different about the senator during their most recent phone call. On one attempt, Jones could be heard muttering “Oh, hmm” as the president kept going. Trump had mentioned earlier that Graham phoned him after his trip to Ukraine on July 8.

Jones grew more insistent, repeating “Mr. President, Mr. President” as Trump pressed on with his point about ending the filibuster, which he called the single smartest thing that could be done. Finally, on the fourth try, co-host Griff Jenkins managed to redirect the conversation back to Graham.

Once back on the senator, Trump referenced past friction between the two men, including Graham’s public break with him following the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riots. Trump gave Graham a friendship score of 99 out of 100 because of that dissent. Graham had declared at the time that he was counting himself out and that enough was enough. Trump claimed the senator called him back roughly 40 minutes later, saying he had experienced a change of heart. The president also added that he had nothing to do with the events of that day.

Trump’s remarks on Graham’s golf game were characteristically mixed. He said the senator loved playing and being outside, but conceded Graham “wasn’t a great striker of the ball” and was neither Jack Nicklaus nor Tiger Woods. Still, Trump insisted Graham had fun with politics and was good at it.

Late-Night Hosts Weigh In

The appearance drew swift reaction from late-night television. On “The Daily Show,” Jon Stewart dissected some of the president’s more unexpected comments, mimicking Trump’s line about always letting Graham go to voicemail. Stewart said Trump had “zoomed through the first five stages of grief” and landed on a sixth stage of his own.

Stewart also replayed Trump’s remarks about Graham’s golf and his description of the senator as a workaholic who did a lot of talking. Elsewhere across late night, “Late Night” host Seth Meyers and “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” guest host Ike Barinholtz also weighed in on Trump’s comments, extending the segment’s reach well beyond the morning broadcast where it began.

For all its detours, the call captured a familiar dynamic: a presidential appearance that began as a solemn remembrance and quickly became something else entirely, with the hosts left waiting for an opening that took several tries to arrive.

The “Fox & Friends” call was not the only venue where Trump held forth on his late friend that week. On NBC’s “Meet the Press” on July 12, he disclosed that he had spoken with Graham on Saturday night, hours before the senator died, saying that “other than being tired, he was fine” and reflecting that it had been a “quick end, and maybe that’s not the worst way to go.” In a July 13 phone interview with Newsmax, he offered a more clinical account, relaying that doctors had told him “a certain part of his body literally blew up,” then adding, “I wish he took better care of himself.” He also waved off the prospect of an FBI inquiry into the death as a waste of the bureau’s time. Taken together, the remarks amounted to a remembrance delivered in Trump’s own idiom — part affection, part appraisal, with the appraisal often winning out.