Trump biographer drops major allegation about dirt Trump had on Lindsey Graham

Sen. Lindsey Graham holds a hat reading "Make Iran Great Again" at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., February 24, 2026. REUTERS/Nathan Howard

The recently deceased Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham was well-known as a staunch loyalist for President Donald Trump, and according to a bombshell new allegation from the president's one-time biographer, it was all because the senator was afraid of the dirt that Trump had on him.

Michael Wolff is a longtime journalist and author, best known for his extensive coverage of Trump's life, including a series of books about his tumultuous first term in the White House. In the latest edition of his Daily Beast podcast, "Inside Trump's Head," he revealed his own take on why Graham, who passed away abruptly over the weekend, became such an avowed sycophant for the president, claiming it was due to an aspect of the senator's life which he described as an open secret in Washington.

“I felt that [Graham] understood that he was playing with fire,” Wolff explained. “He understood that Donald Trump was a very volatile presence. Who could — if he was unhappy with you, he would take it out on you. Behind this, there was this thing. So Lindsey Graham was — I don’t think that there’s anybody in Washington at any informed level who was not aware that Lindsey Graham was gay, but Lindsey Graham was also in the closet. This was also a discussion within the Trump circle. So this was very known. And what did that mean to Donald Trump? You know, I’m not sure that it meant anything more to Donald Trump than [that] he had something on Lindsey."

He continued: "Lindsey Graham never said, ‘I’m gay, and if I don’t suck up to Donald Trump, I’m screwed.’ Never. Of course, never anything like that. But again, that sense of Donald Trump as this unknown, a constant variable, ‘What is he going to do?' Even now, I mean, 71 years old, and you haven’t fessed up to this. I think Lindsey Graham obviously also knew the game. This is politics. This is power at a very high level. People will do anything to you. Nothing is off limits in this context.”

Graham, a South Carolina Republican, passed away on Saturday after what his office called a "brief and sudden illness." A medical examiner's report found that his likely cause of death was an aortic rupture caused by stiffened arteries, a type of condition that he was also likely at higher risk of given his close family history of heart disease.

Rumors about Graham's sexuality were common throughout his career in Washington, but were never substantiated to any significant degree, even as they were often spoken of as an open secret in political circles. In the wake of the senator's death, writer Jesse James Rose claimed to have been paid by him for sexual relations while they were in college, prior to undergoing a gender transition, in a social media post that has since gone viral.

“Lindsey Graham was an absolute suck-up,” Wolff added. “I mean, embarrassing suck-up. And people within the Trump circle would joke about this, you know, if you needed somebody to reassure the president, you call Lindsey, Lindsey calls and tells the president, you know, ‘Sir, you’re fantastic.’ Sucking up was not just the basic price of admission. It was the entire thing. That was what you had to do in order to get more access, in order to sustain access, in order for your access to be greater than anyone else’s. It was just a question of how much sucking you were willing to do.”

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