Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu talked the late Republican senator Lindsey Graham out of convincing US President Donald Trump to join Israel’s fight against Hezbollah in Lebanon, according to unaired footage seen by The Wall Street Journal.

Graham, a staunchly pro-Israel senator from South Carolina and longtime friend of both Netanyahu and Trump, was followed by a documentary film crew during the first days of this year’s US-Israeli war with Iran. Footage of the film was obtained by the Journal, which published a short clip its their site.

In the clip, Graham boasts to his staff that Trump was thrilled after launching major strikes with Israel against Iran on February 28.

“I talked to Trump this morning. He’s jacked, he said, ‘Best thing I have ever done.’ He loves blowing stuff up,” Graham says.

“How long have we been pushing this?” he asks his staff, rhetorically, alluding to his many years of lobbying for the US to go to war with Iran.

Graham says he was fighting with “a lot of people inside” the Trump administration who were against the Iran war, and that Republicans were not backing the war firmly enough.

pic.twitter.com/0aEK22B30L — ertoi (@ertoiaccount) July 26, 2026

pic.twitter.com/0aEK22B30L

— ertoi (@ertoiaccount) July 26, 2026

“Very few people are out selling this war from the administration. I’m shocked,” he........

© The Times of Israel