Unreleased Documentary Footage Captures Graham’s Obsessive Push for Iran War

A filmmaker followed the senator over the past three years, chronicling his relationship with Trump and Netanyahu

Josh DawseyJuly 26, 2026 at 6:00 am

The friend, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told him on a call before the trip that bringing the U.S. into the operation, in the midst of the Iran war, was going too far, too fast, according to unreleased footage from a documentary about the South Carolina Republican lawmaker that was being filmed before he died earlier this month.

“We’re concentrating right now on Iran,” Netanyahu said on the March 4 call, according to the footage, which was viewed by The Wall Street Journal. “If we tell Hezbollah that we’re going all the way, we threaten them, but if we actually do it, then they have no reason not to go all the way against us. And right now that’s not our interest,” he said on speakerphone. 

“That’s actually good counsel,” Graham replied from his Senate office, which was covered with Trump hats, scattered papers and Planters Peanuts, with a bottle of bourbon on the shelf. 

The extraordinary exchange was captured by the documentary filmmaker Alex Holder, who had been granted extensive access to Graham since 2023. It provides an unvarnished look at Graham’s yearslong quest to topple the Iranian regime and the ways in which he persuaded Trump to strike, at times pushing for even more aggressive action than Netanyahu was prepared to take.

“Look what we’ve done here. I almost cried,” he tells the crew, laughing loudly just after U.S. strikes on Iran began in February. “How long have we been pushing this?”

He then tells the crew that Trump was equally happy about the war. “I talked to Trump this morning, he’s jacked, he said, ‘best thing I have ever done.’ He loves blowing stuff up.” 

The footage shows the documentary crew regularly traveling with Graham, sitting in the back seat and filming as he takes phone calls from the front seat. Graham let the crew stay in the room for sensitive meetings, and some of the people Graham spoke with by phone told the Journal they didn’t know the calls were being recorded.

It includes Graham flying to meet with Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, to sell him on the war in Iran; calling the military commanders about the war; speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky; huddling with other world leaders; and expressing candid thoughts on a range of American political figures.

In the call with Netanyahu, Graham said that it would be time for Israel to normalize relations with Saudi Arabia when the Iranian regime falls and that he had already lined up Republican and Democratic support. Netanyahu encouraged him to focus first on Iran. 

The Israeli government didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Holder is now distilling hundreds of hours of raw camera footage for a documentary currently titled “Lindsey’s Game,” which he said he wants to release in the coming months. Graham agreed to it, saying he wanted people to understand his long tenure in the Senate and hopefully inspire others to work in government. Graham repeatedly told the crew how “cool this was,” Holder said. 

“He would call what this was ‘a game,’” Holder said, describing how Graham told him how bizarre he thought it was that a senator from South Carolina has a closer relationship with the Saudi Arabian leader than anyone in a Democratic or Republican administration. 

The crew also filmed Graham as he talked in March with Jake Sullivan, who was national security adviser under President Joe Biden, about the challenges of working with the Trump administration on Middle East negotiations. 

​“I can’t do it with Jared, and I can’t do it with Witkoff. They’re just too conflicted. It’s gotta be Rubio,” he said to Sullivan, referring to Trump’s primary envoys in the negotiations, his son-in-law Jared Kushner and his longtime friend Steve Witkoff, and his secretary of state, Marco Rubio. A White House official said Graham, Witkoff and Kushner were close friends. “Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are excellent dealmakers whose results speak for themselves,” the official said.

Sullivan asks Graham in March about how much longer the war in Iran is going to last, and Graham provides a response that proved to be wildly off. “In three to four weeks, we’re going to have them in a spot where they start losing control of some cities…get the Arabs more openly involved tomorrow, and then have almost irreversible momentum.”

Graham speaking after being briefed by the administration earlier this year on the war with Iran. Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA/Shutterstock

At one point, Graham describes battling with “a lot of people inside” who didn’t want Trump to venture into a war with Iran, which has since proven unpopular and has frustrated Trump. At another point, he expresses dismay that Republicans aren’t doing enough to back the war. “Very few people are out selling this war from the administration. I’m shocked,” he says to the crew. 

The footage also shows Graham’s occasional frustration with Trump, particularly for signing a preliminary deal with Iran in June. The project’s final interview was at a bagel shop in Columbia, S.C., in June, weeks before his death. Graham then says even Trump is growing too wobbly on the war. “He’s letting this thing slip away,” Graham said. “I got to go talk to him.”

Graham sometimes expressed amazement with how much access he had to Trump, telling Holder the president was easier to reach than Holder himself. Graham said Trump was “fun to be around” and he liked him, but he understood Trump’s limits. For example, Graham said Trump didn’t care about abortion, according to Holder. 

Graham relished his role in the center of the action. “We could do a media show every two seconds,” he says about the Iran war, asking his press secretary if he had ever been so in demand.

Graham told Holder, who previously filmed a documentary about the January 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, that if the movie turned out great, he could take credit for it. If it turned out bad, Graham told him: “I’ll just call you a bunch of Communists and raise lots of money,” according to Holder.

Many of Graham’s critics have said he made moral trade-offs to gain relevance. They have noted that Graham—who was once close with Democrats and the late Republican Sen. John McCain—was fervently anti-Trump in 2016, going so far as to call Trump a threat to America.

Graham broke with Trump after mobs of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, fueled by Trump’s false claims of voter fraud. Graham later was dismissive of those attacks, Holder said, adding that he was unapologetic about his association with Trump and often laughed at the crowds gathered outside to protest him. Graham previously had said Trump is “the greatest president of all time.”

Holder traveled with Graham for a meeting with Israeli officials and the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, as they prepared for the Iran conflict. Holder likened Graham’s treatment there to how a prime minister or king would be treated.

In the final weeks of Graham’s life, Holder said he noticed that Graham frequently looked tired, prompting Holder to ask if he was doing OK. Graham would say he didn’t have time to sleep because he needed to finish off the Iranian regime; sort out a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine; and establish ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel by the end of the year. 

At one point, when Graham looked “absolutely disheveled and exhausted,” Holder said, the senator complained that others weren’t helping him. 

“He’d say, ‘There’s no way I can die yet,’” Holder said.