School of War - Lindsey Graham: The Last of the ‘Three Amigos’ with Vance Serchuk

Episode Date: July 13, 2026

Vance Serchuk, executive director and Partner at the KKR Global Institute, and former senior national security adviser to Senator Joe Lieberman, was uniquely positioned to witness one of the most influential partnerships in modern American foreign policy: the “Three Amigos” of John McCain, Joe Lieberman, and Lindsey Graham. What made their partnership so effective? What vision did they share for America’s role in the world? And what does the end of the “Three Amigos” mean for the future of American foreign policy? 02:21 - Lindsey Graham and the Three Amigos 10:42 - First Impressions of Lindsey Graham 13:20 - Lindsey Graham’s Sense of Humor 15:47 - Graham’s Spontaneity 21:44 - The Three Amigos’ Bond Through Travel 23:31 - Oversight on the Front Lines 24:56 - The Russian Threat 27:00 - The Three Amigos’ Shared Convictions 28:28 - Russia’s Invasion of Georgia 32:56 - Senator Graham’s Political Courage 33:27 - What Made the Three Amigos Different 37:24 - Graham’s Political Instincts 37:56 - Why the Three Amigos Worked 39:33 - The Power of Political Friendship 42:28 - Graham’s Work in the Trump Era Follow along on Instagram, X @schoolofwarpod, and YouTube @SchoolofWarPodcast Find more at The Free Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Senator Lindsey Graham has died fresh back from a trip to Ukraine to secure more American support for Keeve in that war. We're going to talk today about his political legacy, really his foreign policy legacy as part of a famous triple partnership, the so-called three amigos of John McCain, Joe Lieberman, and Lindsey Graham, a phrase, a term apparently coined by General David Petraeus. We're going to talk with a key staffer for that partnership during its heyday and try to understand what it's now disappearance from the scene means for the future of America and the world. Let's get into it. It is for a war. This is a lot of the invasion of Hawaii. December 7, 1941, a date which will live in history. A bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a state. We continue to face a great situation in grand. If you'll fight on the beaches, we'll fight on the landing ground,

we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, which will never surrender. If you read the headlines about Israel, you're only getting a tiny slice of a long, complicated story without depth, context, or sometimes even the basic facts. I'm Norm Weissman,

the host of unpacking Israeli history, the podcast that dives into the fascinating and sometimes controversial events and figures that have shaped Israel's past, And present each week on unpacking Israeli history, I explore the layers of Israeli history, debates around the Palestinian and Israeli conflict, the cultural forces at play, drawing from a variety of sources and perspectives. So if you're looking for a nuance, thought-provoking take on Israel one that avoids the oversimplifications and political spin,

I think you'll really appreciate the show. Find unpacking Israeli history wherever you listen to your podcast. or on YouTube. Hi, Marion McLean. Thanks for joining School of War. I am delighted to welcome to the show today. Vance Surchuk. Vance is the executive director of the KKR Global Institute. He's a partner at KKR. He's a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution. But I want to talk to Vance today about people he is known and worked with over the years. So very relevant from his biography is that years and years ago, he was also senior national security advisor to Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, professional staff, member on a committee that Senator Lieberman was chair of. Vance, thank you so much for coming on School of War. Thanks a much, Aaron. It's an absolute privilege and an honor to be able to be with you today. So we are speaking on the sad occasion of the death of Senator Lindsey Graham, a man with a very significant career and an impact on American politics and American foreign policy in the life of the Senate. But what we're going to focus on today and what you are sort of uniquely

positioned to walk us through is Graham's membership in this triple partnership, the so-called three amigos of John McCain, Joe Lieberman, and Lindsey Graham. They died in that order. Graham is now the last one to go. And we're going to get into what they meant, what that partnership meant for American life and American foreign policy. How did you come to work for Senator Lieberman in the first place? Well, first, let me just say, Aaron, I really appreciate you having me on. I think that there are probably people who knew Senator Graham much better than I did, who've worked for him.

I've worked for him more recently than I had the privilege of working with him at times by virtue of the way that the three amigos worked for him. But I do think that it was privileged to be present during a really interesting moment, which was when Senators McCain, Lieberman, and Graham were all in the Senate together. I was the foreign policy advisor for Senator Lieberman during his final term. So that was from January of 2007 until the end of 2012. But you recall that he had even by the standards of Washington, D.C. and American politics, I think even by the standards of 2026, an unusual pass. to re-election what was now 20 years ago, so 2006, which is that he ran for re-election.

He, of course, had been in 2000 the Democratic vice presidential nominee under then-Vice President Al Gore, first person of Jewish faith to be the vice-presidential nominee of a major political party. He then in 2006, however, lost the Democratic primary in Connecticut really on the basis of one issue, which was the war in Iraq. Together with actually, in hindsight, the majority of Democrats in the Senate had supported the authorization for use of military force back in 2002 when President George W. Bush sought that AUMF. But as the war became increasingly unpopular as the situation bogged down in Iraq, Senator Lieberman did not tack in the direction of what was really overwhelming public opinion, and especially, of course, in the Democratic Party, which was to call for withdrawal from Iraq. He thought that that would be irresponsible. He thought that that was

the wrong policy. And instead, together, with Senator McCain, Senator Graham, he advocated for an alternative strategy, which ultimately was expressed in 2007 as the surge in Iraq under General Petraeus, but in short, kind of a counterinsurgency strategy, which we can talk about at some length if it's of interest. The bottom line, of course, though, was that was very much out of a joint with where his party he was 2006, so he lost the Democratic primary. He then did something that no one before in history had done. He ran as an independent and he won. So he was re-elected to the Senate for what would turn out to be his final term as what he called an independent Democrat. So he would continue

to caucus with the Democratic Party in the Senate, but his reelection was not. He was not, not on the basis of the Democratic Party line in Connecticut. I was going to law school at Yale, so in Connecticut. When all this was playing out, I actually just started my first year there in the fall of 2006. And I got a phone call from a mutual friend in the fall of 2006 just after he won re-election, saying that he was looking for a national security advisor. And in particular, someone, who shared his convictions about the world, about in particular what he thought was necessary in Iraq. And it didn't particularly commend me that I think at that time, the list of people who actually thought that sending more troops to Iraq and doing counterinsurgency there and who might possibly be willing to go work in the United States Senate, you probably could count those people, I think, on one hand. And so it was not exactly a robust selection offering that I think Senator Lieberman had.

But he asked whether or not I'd be interested to go interview with them and have a conversation. And I did. And there are a couple things that I remember from that conversation. But one of them was that, well, two things. And this gives you a measure of Senator Lieberman, who's not the principal purpose of our conversation today. But the first was that he said, you know, you're really willing to leave, take a leave of absence from law school in order to do this. And I said, well, you know, there really are only two people that I'd be willing to do this for in year one and John McCain's the other.

And I remember him shuffling and say, well, just wait until you meet Senator Graham. You might have a third to the list. And the second is that he at the end of the conversation said, you know, I am going to offer you this job, but I'm being. Before I do that, I'm going to do something which I am quite confident is in violation of probably every labor law that we have. But whatever, I'm still going to do it, which is I'm going to ask you to first ask permission from your parents before I formally offer you the job because I don't want your parents to be upset that their child is leaving Yale Law School to go work for me. That seems like that could be professionally kind of questionable. But happily, I did talk my currents. They were on board. So as a result, in January 2007, I started working for Senator Lieberman.

And the issue which absolutely dominated us from day one was, of course, the war in Iraq. and that issue which, and it's hard to kind of think back to that moment, realize how incredibly controversial and unpopular. Not only the war was, but would President Bush, his policy that he would announce, which was the appointment of Dave Petraeus as the overall commander there, and the commitment of approximately 30,000 additional troops. And keep in mind, 2006 election, Democrats had taken both the House and the Senate. The issue of Iraq was really at the absolute top of the list.

And so from day one of my time with Senator Lieberman, there was a absolutely ferocious parliamentary fight in the Senate. And the Senate was really the key place because in the House and the rules that it works by, simple majority, There's no question that Democratic majority was going to mean kind of a lack of support for the surge. The Senate, because of its rules of procedure, a bit more complicated. But as a result from day one of my time with Senator Lieberman, this great debate about what was happening in Iraq and what to do. And I will tell you that the three people who were at the heart of that debate were John McCain, Joe Lieberman, and Lindsey Graham. And so my opportunity working very closely with Senator Lieberman all of this was very quickly also working with the staffs and with the other two senators. You mentioned that you had, you know, a strong opinion already and a positive opinion of John McCain.

What were your first impressions of Lindsay Graham when you got to the Senate? Yeah, Senator Graham was a couple of things immediately. The first was incredibly politically shrewd. I remember seeing a press conference. It must have been, again, in January. It was right at the beginning. where it was McCain, Lieberman, and Graham, and they spoke in order of seniorities they usually did, which meant McCain, Lieberman, and finally, Graham.

And I was standing alongside Richard Fontaine, who was the foreign policy advisor at the time to Senator McCain, now president's CEO of Center for New American Security. and Richard, just as Lindsay stepped to the podium, said, watch this. He's going to, he is going to stick the landing. And with just incredible eloquence, with cleverness, he, in a couple of turns of phrase, I just remember crystallizing going, wow, okay, this is something else. Right. So first, incredibly shrewd, incredibly quick. You know, that ability that exceptionally talented politicians have to distill an issue into a couple of kind of clever, memorable phrases and clips, which was, let's just say that, you know, brevity may be the soul of wit, but it is not necessarily the soul of the United States Senate on balance. It's not always the feature that's most common among United States senators.

When we were just at the very beginning of the surge, watching a press conference between Senator McCain, Senator Lieberman, Zimmer Graham, the three of them speaking in that order. and I remember when it was Senator Graham's turn to speak. I was watching all this in the Senate Press Gallery. And the staff were going to us staying next to Richard Fontaine, who's the foreign policy advisor to Senator McCain, now president of Center for New American Security, turned to me and said, well, watch, watch Lindsay. He's going to stick the landing.

And just with a couple turns of phrase, he cut right to the heart of the issue, of course, got the perfect sound bite from it. The second thing we realized really quickly is that Lindsey Graham might be the funniest human being I've ever met. To certainly, you sometimes described as the funniest senator. I think that that does him a bit of a disservice that sometimes has a bit of a ring of like the tallest tower in Topeka. but by any standard, Lindsay Graham was just absolutely screamingly funny. One of the privileges of the job that I had is that got to travel all around the world with Senator Graham,

among with the three amigos, you know, from Iraq and Afghanistan to places that were a bit more. esoteric. I remember going to Bhutan with Senator Graham, which led to quite possibly the eternal New York Times headline, The Three Amigos in Bhutan, which probably a movie, some of us would want to watch. And listening to the couple of us would just jot down some of the things that Senator Graham would say. which were just invariably hilarious. I mean, just absolutely, absolutely hilarious. So he was brilliant. And it reflected the fact that he was someone who took his job incredibly seriously

and obviously worked insanely hard, was driven, was indefatigable, but was not someone who took himself seriously. and always had a great sense of humor. Hey, y'all, it's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder, what if? Like, what if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair.

With Wayfair, there's no what if. Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit Wayfair.com. Wayfair, every style, every home. You got to share some nuggets then, if you're going to say it's funny. The one I just preparing for this interview, the one I came across was I was watching a video of Senator Graham's eulogy for Senator Lieberman at his funeral, which he opens with saying, I just learned moments ago

that Joe's middle name was Isidore, and frankly, his passing has saved him a lot of grief. Which, I mean, what an amazing way to open a eulogy. You know, I don't actually recall Senator Graham ever delivering a prepared speech. You know, I don't ever recall him actually going to a podium with, you know, sheets of paper that he read.

it was always spontaneous and not even at least as far as I can recall note cards he was someone who had that incredible gift for spontaneous hyperarticulate thought including the kind of off-the-cuff humor like in the eulogy the quip about Isidore all right so there are a couple of

stories that immediately spring to mind I'll tell you one So 2009, the three amigos plus, I think it was Susan Collins, were doing a Middle East Kodal. At the time, the United States had, was in the midst of burying the hatchet with MoMA Gaddafi. And so as a result, we ended up going to Libya and were slated to have an honest. audience with the brother leader. And so we're waiting in this hotel for word that Gaddafi is going to receive us and it's getting later and later. And finally, the ambassador is out of the country.

So it was the Chargeré who was with us that, you know, there's something which is really important, I have to tell you, which is that during the meeting he may say something. And it's very, very important for all this that you don't laugh. he may try to enlist you in his proposal for the territorial dismemberment of Switzerland. And he may say to you that the two greatest threats to world peace right now are number one al-Qaeda and number two Switzerland. And this was as a result of some episode involving one of his reprobate children in Switzerland. But the bottom line was that Gaddafi might pray to Switzerland and try to get senators to sign off on this. We're all allowed one super niche foreign policy view.

Yeah. So, you know, the idea was that like the German speaking parts would go to Germany and the French speaking parts would go to France. This was going to be the proposal. And so, you know, it's like, okay, this may get thrown at you. Yeah, got to be ready for it. And Senator Graham said, you know, the other senators, okay, look, if this comes up, I know exactly what we're going to do. I'm going to look them right in the eye and say, brother, leader, the reason that we have traveled from afar to be here. today, the reason that people across the United States have so much respect for you, the reason

that in this world of ours, billions of people love you, is because you are the only one with the courage to say what all of us secretly think but are afraid to say. Now, thankfully, Gaddafi did not raise this in the meeting. And as a result, everyone survived. But that would be a sort of glimpse of Senator Graham's unique sense of humor. And traveling with him was sort of non-stap versions of that. Again, just really, really funny, silly, witty, kind of hilarious asides. and at the same time that he had a keen sense of humor about the absurdity of geopolitics,

the absurdity of the United States Senate. He was also actually really wise. There was a member just another anecdote, which is one that always stayed with me, which was this idea that he would say, you know, that, Remember him saying this at one point, that all of his life, he kind of thought that there were, he wanted to be one of them. The idea of being people who actually were plugged in, knew what was going on, were kind of part of the group that was making decisions and understood the world. And, you know, he as a result strived really hard and got elected the House of Representatives and finally is in Washington, D.C. And he looks around and realizes, like, actually, this is not them.

like what's going on here in in in the house it's it's many things but this is not a place where you know everyone's got it all figured out and then a few years passed and he gets elected the senate and think okay i'm going to the senate now you know this is this is them and um again quickly realizes like this is this is not them this is not a place where everyone's got it all figured out and then you know a few years past he's in the level office he's with the president he's with the secretary of state he's with you know this is you know this is you know some of the most important people and thinks, okay, well, this is it. This is, this is them. And then you realize it's wait a second to actually, there is no them. There's only us. And it's really up to all of us to try to shape things for the better. So that was a version of, it was funny, you know, the way that he told the story, even funnier than mine, but also a real kind of deep lesson in that as well about the way that, you know, sometimes I think from afar we assume, once we get to those halls of power, everyone's got it all figured out until we realize, well, actually, no, it's, it's on us. And I think that that sense of responsibility

for all the silliness that Senator Graham could throw off was actually very much at the heart of what drove him. I've heard it said, I think it was Senator McCain who said that it was really travel, as you point out, Vance, that is one of the key ingredients in binding those three men together. And, you know, it wasn't all Middle East oriented. An enormous subject during the period of your own work, of course, was Russia. I know that Senators McCain, Lieberman, and Graham were in Georgia at one point, not long after the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008. What about that trip or that issue can you share to shed light? Not only on the Russia issue and how these three guys interacted with it, but I'm curious in particular about the delineations between them. I mean,

one of the things that's so unusual about the Three Omigos, quote unquote, is how different they were in certain respects. And not just in terms of, you know, Graham had a great sense of humor and McCain was a hot head and stuff like that, though that's true. But also in terms of their fundamental attitude towards politics as a business. Yeah, it's a really great question, Aaron. So first, I think that it's absolutely right that that travel around the world was a part of what really consolidated the the the the the friendship it was a huge part of it and they did travel to many many parts of the world together in these congressional delegations or or codels probably the place that I think though that they did travel the most

When it was the three amigos, when it was McCain, Lieberman Graham, all three in the Senate, certainly during the years when I was together, it was Iraq and it was Afghanistan. And I think that that reflected their view that during those years, all three were members of the Senate Armed Services Committee. And I think all three believed deeply that it was their solemn responsibility to, in a place where young Americans were fighting, were dying, putting their lives at risk every day, to understand these wars, to not just to exercise a true oversight,

which meant going out, meeting with leadership, asking tough questions, going down range, which they always insisted on doing as well, and as much as possible, trying to really bear down into the core of what was happening. And if things were not going well, if things were not right, then challenging them. And at the same time, also leveraging their positions to be able to make the case to the American people about the stakes, whether it's the stakes of the surge in 2007 or the stakes in Afghanistan,

but try to explain to use their pulpit as senators. to that end. You know, Russia was another example of this. Back in 2007, when Vladimir Putin gave that famous speech in February at the Munich Security Conference, they were, of course, there. Senator McCain and Senator Lieberman co-led the delegation to Munich for many years. Senator Graham then took up the mantle for many, many years. And the Munich Security Conference was another example of an incredibly important place for them to go out to spend time with America's allies, transatlantic partners, but also far before it was fashionable to talk about what all three of them saw as the threat of Vladimir Putin. And having gone to Munich and seen that speech, I think that they understood far earlier than those Senator McCain especially, that the Russia that we were dealing with, the Russian leadership that we were dealing with, was not one that we could have a normal relationship with, which, of course, was the instinct of, well, of every president after the end of the Cold War. and so that that was also super super important.

But, you know, I think the question is to what really made these people friends? Why were the three amigos? By the way, the term three amigos, Dave Petraeus claims that he coined it. We'll give him credit for it. Whenever the three amigos were invoked, because the three of them would show up together to Iraq when General Petraeus was commander there, then Afghanistan when he was commander there. Whenever the term was invoked, Graham would always have the aside that it was a lousy movie in his view, but that he nonetheless accepted the term. The first thing I think was, you know, they obviously did share a deep set of convictions about the world, about America's leadership and responsibility.

I think that they shared a deep set of convictions, again, about the proper role of. their responsibility is the senators, again, especially with respect to the conflicts, the post-9-11 wars that we found ourselves in. I think the experience of 2006 advocating for a change in strategy. What it was clear that what we were doing was going off the rails and it was a kind of open moment as to what the United States would do. And then 2007, 2008, where it was a fight for the life of the surge every single day. and they were at the absolute center of it and it was not popular not only was it not popular in the country

it was not popular in the Republican caucus and the number one thing actually that I think all of us were most focused on was not democratic criticisms of the surge those took them for granted it was the prospect of Senate Republicans saying to President Bush we just can't do this anymore

and you've got to turn the plug on it before the strategy was given a chance to work. And they did believe that it had a prospect of working, that it was the last best hope that we had. And they had to give it their own. But I think that it was deeper than just a shared set of convictions. Russia invaded Georgia in August of 2008. It was the first time that Russia had used conventional and ultra

force against a former Soviet Republic. Your calls summer 2008 and the Russians had sort of baited the Georgians into this confrontation over two secessionist regions, South Ossetia and Abkhazia and then poured troops in for a period. It looked like they were going to make a go at Tbilisi, the capital, try to overthrow the then president of the democratically elected president of the country, Mikhail Sakashvili. And amidst all, this happening, of course, U.S. presidential campaign with John McCain as the nominee. McCain

proclaimed that he was in an act of solidarity sending his two closest friends in the Senate, Joe Lieberman and Lindsay Graham, which was somewhat news

for those of us watching. But then kind of off to the races as we were. So actually it was it was Lieberman and Graham who did the trip and went to Ukraine first and then flew into Georgia on a C-17 because at this point the U.S. was regularly cycling C-17s into Tbilisi to provide assistance to the Georgians and also serve as a kind of deterrent for the Russians pushing all the way to the capital and then stopping in Poland on the way back. And it was a really memorable trip for a whole host of reasons, not least hearing from

to Ukrainians, that the Crimea would be next, that that would be Putin's next move and why they thought that, talking to the polls about what kind of the broader NATO reassurance strategy should look like to include things like contingency planning for the eastern flank of NATO, because at that point, Article 5 for the eastern flank, for the countries that had joined in Central Europe since the end of the Cold War was frankly something about a bluff. Neither the resources nor the contingency plans were there. All policies that actually, you know, for the coming years, would actually get put in place as Russian aggression became even more inescapable.

But Lieberman Graham were on the front lines of calling for those changes and seeing them. But the trip was maybe most memorable for me because of a conversation on the flight back. So remember, this is now late August or so 2008. In a few weeks, there's going to be the Republican convention. And Senator Lieberman, who had, despite being a Democrat, endorsed Senator McCain. It was campaigning with Senator McCain. I had agreed to speak at the Republican Convention. And this was going to cause a great deal of grief for him inside his caucus.

Keep in mind that despite winning as an independent Democrat, Democrats had allowed him to keep his seniority, keep his charmingship. And on this flight back, we were on a military plane. Remember Senator Grant asking Senator Lieberman, like, you know, how are you thinking? about it, how's it going? And, you know, Senator Lieberman in his way kind of shrugged and said, you know, I feel liberated from the election and the re-election I've had. And, you know, I'm just going to do what I think is right. And we'll let the chips fall where they may. And Senator Graham, you know, responded by kind of talking about fear and how for so many politicians, fear is the governing, is a governing instinct. Politicians are a governing instinct. Politicians are

afraid of losing their seats, they're afraid of losing their relevance, and that Senator Lieberman kind of had what he was doing, epitomized freedom from fear, and that this was something which was so incredibly important and that he admired so much and that he also wanted to embody himself. And that kind of political courage was something which I think, you know, Senator Leverman had was something, this ability to kind of put everything on the line. Senator McCain, of course, in 2007, you know, saying that he would rather lose an election, in that case the Republican primary for the presidency, then lose a war. This belief that there are some things that go beyond politics.

Now, I would say this also, which is part of, I think, what would, was so striking about the friendship of the three amigos is they shared a set of values, shared a set of convictions about the world, but they were incredibly different people. They were incredibly different by way of their respective backgrounds. You know, demographics may be destiny, but no one told McCain, Libroon, and Graham that. You know, one of them, the sort of the sion of this great military family, family, son and grandson of admirals, war hero from Vietnam. Senator Lieberman, completely different background, you know, kind of Ivy League,

educated Yale, Yale Law School, lawyer, did not serve in the military, New Englander. And then, you know, Senator Graham, who grew up, as he would say, in the back room of his family's bar, you know, who came from a small town in South Carolina, you know, a military lawyer, jag, you know, orphaned, you know, really, really tough childhood in, I think, many ways. So these individuals were as diverse as the country that elected them. And what's of course interesting is that each of them on these sort of key foreign policy issues found their solidarity not in the individuals that shared their respective profiles. You know, it was not taken for granted that, oh, John McCain's a Vietnam veteran, so therefore he's going to be with, you know, John Kerry or Bob Kerry or some of the other senators who had served in Vietnam. or Joe Lieberman is a Democrat from the Northeast, you know, who came up in the 1980s and 1990s, or Senator Graham, who was elected in the Republican Revolution of 94. On the contrary, right, they often are not actually on the opposite side of the people who shared that profile.

So that's really interesting, right? It tells you about the power of conviction, of belief. But I also think, you know, having one of why. him up close and and but at the same time admittedly you know being being young and just being an observer on on with with some of the inherent distance that comes from being a saffer rather than than obviously a principle I do think that each of them may have also seen something in the others that um each admired and perhaps also recognized was was not in himself you know, Senator Lieberman had a kind of preternatural calm.

When, you know, disputes broke out, he was always a cooling influence. He had an incredible ability to lower the temperature in the room and kind of try to bring people down and broker disputes. Senator McCain is obviously incredibly fiery. And I think that Senator McCain, at some level, appreciated the calm that radiated from Senator Lieberman. But, you know, Senator Lieberman also, I know, had a great appreciation for John McCain. He was a fighter. He was a troublemaker.

You know, he was a kid who sat in a kid who sat in a, the back of the class and made Starkey comments, which was probably not where Joe Lieberman was sitting when he was in class, you know, the 4.0, Yale, Daily News Editor. But they got, you know, John McCain got Joe Lieberman into good trouble a lot of the time. And Senator Graham, you know, had this incredible political facility, you know, this way with words, this dexterity, which was also I think unique and which was a quality that might not have been the most developed in McCain and Lieberman. So each of them I feel like from what I saw brought something to this partnership, to this friendship, which perhaps push them to be able to do things together that individually would have been more difficult for them to do.

And it also, I think, you know, the basis of the admiration, the respect, the genuine love that they had for each other. And it was, you know, truly from everything I saw, and I saw a lot, it was not just a kind of working partnership, you know, the friends you've got in the office, but three people who really loved each other. it was also this admiration and precisely not because of just the the commonalities of belief but the differences the differences in background the differences in their life experiences

but also the very qualities that they had and you know it's interesting you think about our political history as a country and we love biography. We read it. We, I think, spend a lot of time.

Those of us are interested in politics, studying the lives of the individuals who have led our country, an executive branch and the legislative branch. And there are stories about great partnerships. You think about Nixon and Kissinger. George H.W. Bush and Brent Scowcroft, Truman and Atchison, the Doris, Karen's Goodwin, brilliant book about Team of Rivals, Lincoln and his cabinet. But of course, all those are stories about president and subordinate or subordinates. I can think of fewer examples of the kind of of partnership and friendship that the three amigos

epitomized where it's three members of the Senate from totally different backgrounds, different parties, different parts of the country, different histories, who nonetheless came together

kind of on issue after issue to try to to shape things. Now, your viewers will undoubtedly, you know, be able to materialize and comment that this was a reflection of my insufficient knowledge of senatorial history and that, you know, in 1830s you had this triumph for it and following things. But I think it was, at least in my experience, in my observation, you know, there are a lot of things that drive people to Washington, D.C. and to motivate them compel them to endure all the indignities that come with the pursuit of high office. Deep abiding friendship is probably not one of them.

Harry Truman's line about if you want a friend in Washington, I'd get a dog. Case of the Amigos, I think, is also interesting because it shows that you can be incredibly politically successful. but simultaneously build and preserve deep friendship. And then in fact, that's not the opposite. It's actually the foundation for some of the political effectiveness that they had. So last question for you, Vance, having lingered for a bit on their differences and their similarities, I want to focus on the similarities on the category of. ideas and their vision largely shared of what America meant in the world.

And this kind of, these will be my characterizations. You can obviously accept or reject them as you please. But the balance that they were all negotiating and seemed to share a vision of how to negotiate it between American power and its importance and a certain kind of internationalism, a certain kind of idealism about the world. You know, another characterization for me, you know, senators McCain and Lieberman obviously were not, you're not preternaturally inclined to accept the Trump era in Republican politics. There was something about Senator Graham that made it possible for him to do that, perhaps uniquely of the three, as indeed he did.

And then by chance of nature, he's the last man standing of the three of them, both in the Senate but also alive. sort of, you know, my view of his work in the last, you know, in the Trump era is of somebody who was doggedly pursuing his own interpretation of the forum policy platform of McCain, Lieberman Graham, through the difficulties of the Trump era, which involves a lot of compromise on his part, which involved a lot of things, you know, some perhaps distinction between his public positions and his private opinions. which he caught a fair amount of criticism for, but in pursuit of policy goals and relevance, and then the relevance to pursue those policy goals, you know, it's all kind of a mix. He's gone now. What do you think is the future of this particular fusion

and characterize it however you see fit between a kind of internationalism, a kind of moral vision of the world, and also a very robust embrace of the role of American power. And indeed, I mean, I think a belief shared by the three, then there's sort of an important link between those two things. Yeah, so Aaron, I think that you get the thumbnail sketch of the foreign policy views correct fundamentally. You know, a lot of the obituaries of Senator Graham, as for Senator McCain and Senator Lieberman talked about,

that these were individuals who were. were advocates for the robust use of American power, including military, military power. But I think that that's actually just a very small part of the larger picture. What it began with was, I think, a view that the United States, by dint of our position, by dent of our history, had a responsibility in the world to stand up for a certain set of values, beliefs, and that our national security, this was not an altruistic enterprise purely, but that our national security was inherently tied up with the fate of democracy, freedom, even human rights around the world.

So in the case of Senator Graham, for example, there was also no stronger supporter for organizations like our IRA and the National Endowment for Democracy for organizations like Radio Free Europe. So it was a view of American power, which I think was very much also rooted in the belief. that the dictators are not the same as the democracies and that dictatorship as a general rule does represent

in many cases something that you've got to keep your eye on. It's not to say that every dictatorship is a threat that their views were far more subtle than that and they recognized that we live in a world where at times we do have to work with non-democratic regimes

and sometimes work very, very closely with them. but that unbalanced freedom is better even tyranny and that the survival of a freedom is dependent on American strength, not just rhetoric, not just soft power, but hard power. And I don't think it's an accident that this friendship of three amigos really crystallized in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks,

the post-9-11 wars, the struggle with al-Qaeda, later the Islamic State, and the struggles of that period, where I think that that was very much part of the perspective, the viewpoint that they had. You know, the second thing I would say, you know, there's obviously no shortage of commentary about, you know, the Trump era and, you know, how Senator Graham maneuvered. through it and how he positioned himself. And this has led to plenty of people who, you know, criticized Senator Graham for being disloyal to the legacy of, you know,

Senator McCain's often invoked. You'll hear plenty of people who will also criticize him saying, well, he's not really, you know, wasn't a real Trump Republican and bringing up all sorts of things. We'll leave all that to, the history books to sort out. I think for our discussion today. I will simply say this of, I think, all three.

None of them was looking to win a popularity contest. When I look at how they position themselves, they were prepared to do what they thought was right for the good of the country. And if it was going to be unpopular with their party, if it was going to be unpopular with the press, if it was going to be unpopular with whoever, so be it. They were trying to do what they thought was right

for the national security of the country. I will only say that I think when I look at Senator Graham from the conversations that I did have with him during the last several years, I think that his conviction about what was necessary with respect to Ukraine, with respect to the Middle East, the opportunities he saw. Those were the things that were, I think, driving him. And that he, in pursuit of what he saw is absolutely indispensable national security

and foreign policy objectives for the United States to do what was necessary to advance them and let the chips fall where they may. As for the future of that particular perspective on the world, it's a good question. It's, you know, as challenging as it is to try to make sense of the past, the future is even harder, as you know. I guess I'd only say this. You know, at no point, I think during at least the time that I spent with Senator Lieberman, when the three amigos were at their height, did it feel like the political wind was at our back?

On the contrary, I recall pretty much every one of the fights that we picked felt pretty hopeless at the time. I think when the surge got announced, it had about a 7% approval rating, to paraphrase John McCain. You know, conoscopies and cockroaches were more popular among the general public. when they were raising the human cry about Russia, it was to say that it was a kind of idiosyncratic minority view against presidents who, you know, the case of President Obama,

had made the reset with Russia a centerpiece of what was an incredibly popular presidency. And I can go on, whether it was with respect to Syria, and the advocacy there early in the war, that if we let this faster, it's going to become a bigger and bigger problem and many, many other examples. So I guess I would conclude just by saying making two observations.

The first is with respect to foreign policy. You know, if the Amigo stood for anything, it was the idea that you figure out what you think is right and you fight for it. using every democratic tool that you can because we do live in this thing called politics and that's all we got.

And the fact that your view may be the minority, the fact that your view is not the way that everyone else sees it, the fact that you're going up against a president of your party in some cases or against your party establishment or that you're going to have to fight these fights, who cares, right?

regardless of whether or not your whatever term of art you've got, internationalist or America First or whatever you want to call it, I think that that conviction is something that we can respect. I hope that it's something that we can respect. And letting your foreign policy convictions drive your politics as opposed to letting your political affiliation determine your foreign policy views, that's a pretty powerful thing.

That's not the way it always goes. The second is maybe a bit broader than foreign policy, which is that we're at this moment, as you know very well, as all of your listeners and viewers know very well, when America seems so incredibly divided, polarized. We can't agree on anything. the political discourse, we know what it is. I think that when you think about the relationship of these three men,

how different they were, their life experiences, their political affiliations and political self-interests. But nonetheless, their ability to come together in support of really important things, really important things because the fact is, of course, we talked about all the things that they agreed about, but, you know, there's a lot they didn't agree about, about, you know, things that were in domestic policy, lots of things that were, they would have been on other sides of the issues. But this ability to realize that actually the disparate qualities, the fact that their

personalities were actually so different, the fact that their backgrounds were so different, could actually be a source not of paralysis or dissent into internecine, nonstop, arguing, but actually the foundation for some kind of greatness. That's a larger lesson for the United States, which, as we mourn, the loss of the Last Amigo, is one that beyond just his unique contributions, and he was an American original, as an original as they come, we shall not see his like again.

I think that that friendship carries maybe a larger set of lessons that all of us can take, regardless of where you fall on the questions that seized their energies, their political attention, during their time together. Those belong to the past increasingly. But the lesson about how people of such different backgrounds can become friends in the deepest possible way can work together, can draw on their differences to create something and achieve

something that they would otherwise not have been able to do perhaps as individuals, that's a story for the ages. Van Surchuk of KKR and once upon a time of Senator Joe. Lieberman's staff. It's been great to hear your reflections on these three men and the role of Lindsey Graham within that triple partnership and in American foreign policy more broadly. Thank you so much for coming on School of War. Thanks, sir.