Transcription
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham suddenly died within hours of returning from Ukraine at age 71. And this has unleashed a wave of conspiracy theories across social media.
There was some mourning of the longtime Republican senator, but very quickly questions as to whether he had been poisoned have started. Others quickly took the theory even further, arguing that Lindsey Graham's death wasn't even an isolated event, that it's part of a broader pattern involving other high profile deaths and unexplained illnesses, including the continuing mystery of Mitch McConnell's now nearly month long hospitalization. We're going to update you on that, but let's start with Lindsey Graham. What do we actually know?
Lindsey Graham's office announced yesterday that at age 71, he died after what was described as a brief and sudden illness. Now, that word "illness" is the subject of much discussion. This was after returning from Ukraine, which is also not an insignificant detail in the theories that are sprouting now. Initially, we had no medical information as to what happened. According to President Trump, Lindsey Graham came back from a trip to Ukraine. Trump spoke to him by phone the previous night. Trump said Graham sounded a little bit tired, but perfect, and that was basically the extent of what was initially publicly available. That lack of detail has fueled so much speculation now. At that point in time, there was no public evidence that Lindsey Graham had been poisoned.
But what sort of fascinating is more than just the rumor? It's let's watch the conspiracy theories take shape, and you could see the process unfold. And the way it typically works is public figure dies unexpectedly. Official explanation is brief. Some information is missing, maybe for nefarious reasons, but maybe just because it's too soon to have additional information. And then people start collecting events into a pattern. Someone connects two dots and someone else connects those two to five more, and before long, you've got thousands or even millions of people convinced that they've uncovered something that the media doesn't want them to know. That is how it happened here.
And some people online pointed to the death of Israeli television producer Dana Eden when she was in Greece overseeing production of the fourth season of Tehran. Greek authorities said we're treating her death as a suicide. She worked on a Mossad-themed TV show. There was a lot of speculation right away. Now, then others said, okay, you've got Dana Eden and Lindsey Graham, who was in Ukraine, and others then said, we've also got the death of Israeli venture capitalist Zaki Jamal during a business trip to New York. He was only 38 years old, widely known in Israel's technology sector, and suddenly died. And some commentators, I guess you could say, said, look at, look at this cluster. Now, even though we don't have evidence of foul play nor a connection.
But then, and I know some of you are thinking about this, we've got the Mitch McConnell situation. Former Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell is still in the hospital. Up until yesterday, he had been hospitalized for weeks with no information as to why he was hospitalized and no proof of life. And even the Associated Press sort of noted, hey, listen, Lindsey Graham's death is coming during a period where there's concern about transparency around the health of members of Congress. And there's the McConnell thing. Now, before we get back, because I'm going to, I'm going to sort of do a follow-up on each of these. I'm planting some seeds, and then we're going to see whether anything grows.
There's another piece which is that Kash Patel tweeted out about Senator Lindsey Graham, devoted public servant, etc., and mentions the FBI is assisting local authorities and has made every necessary resource available. And this is when the speculation really grew, because initially when it was sudden illness, why do you need the FBI for a sudden illness? Later, it was cardiac arrest. Additional information. Why do you need the FBI for cardiac arrest? That's sort of weird. And this fomented the pattern.
Now, I think that this is when media literacy becomes really important because human beings are really good at recognizing patterns, and sometimes we're too good at it. And we have sort of evolved to connect dots, because if you missed a pattern on the savannah, it could be dangerous. Next thing you know, you're getting mauled by lions. But that's an instinct that sometimes leads us to connect dots that don't really have anything to do with each other. And when you have an answer question, that's not really evidence of a conspiracy. Conspiracy theorists love to say when you can't find evidence that's part of the conspiracy, because the evidence has clearly been covered up.
Now, what is true is that there's been a serious lack of transparency around Mitch McConnell, which is growing the feeling that we are not being given all of the relevant information. Now, who could have done this? If we, for a moment, entertain the notion that maybe Lindsey Graham was poisoned, who could have done it? One initial reaction was Iran. But then another idea developed, which is it's Russia making it look like it would be Iran. Why would Russia do it? Well, Lindsey Graham had announced that Trump agreed to this big sanctions bill against Russia. So all very mysterious, all very interesting.
But now that I've built it up, let me kind of take it back down. We did ultimately get a medical report about what happened to Lindsey Graham, and it said he had an aortic dissection. Usually, that's from many years of high blood pressure or an aneurysm, or it can be an inherited condition. And it also can be just from smoking and cardiovascular disease. Can you induce an aortic dissection with poison? Not really. There's the idea that if someone's already predisposed to such a medical event, you could use stimulants to, to sort of trigger it. Like if someone took a bunch of cocaine or meth, they were predisposed to aortic dissection. Maybe it could trigger it, but it's not very solid. So now that we have a report saying aortic dissection, the report would need to be part of the conspiracy. It's a fake report put out by people involved. That starts to get a little more difficult. People saying, you know, he looked so healthy yesterday. That's kind of how aortic dissection works. You could look very healthy and then suddenly you're dead.
Now, meanwhile, the Mitch McConnell story is also developing. Mitch McConnell has put out a proof-of-life picture with him sitting next to his wife, holding yesterday's newspaper sports section. Some people speculating the newspaper he's holding looks like AI. The letters are garbled. I think the resolution is just low and it's kind of hard to read it. But unless that is also fake, if it's not really Mitch McConnell yesterday, if they've used AI or Photoshop or whatever, Mitch McConnell is also alive. So these theories very quickly deflate as we add more information.
Now, I think there is an important distinction between asking questions and asserting answers. I think it's perfectly reasonable at any point to go, hey, why haven't we gotten that much information? And maybe there's a good answer, maybe there isn't. It's a Sunday and Lindsey Graham isn't married, has no kids. So it was sort of like the staff of the senator that was putting out information, and it took him a few hours. Maybe that's the explanation. It's reasonable to ask. Might additional facts emerge? Totally fine. What I think is less reasonable is to immediately take speculation to mean that there is foul play. And a lot of times the internet skips that middle step. And what are really just questions become assumptions. And the fact that there are assumptions are believed to be certainty. We don't have that.
But as I write in my new book, pay attention, certainty becomes viral. If you go, listen, we have a death here. It's not a young man, but he's not that old. He is not known to have a congenital heart condition, but also he doesn't seem to have the healthiest lifestyle. That's not that interesting. If you go, he was poisoned and it's McConnell and him, and it's all suspicious. That spreads very, very quickly. And that's how these narratives get constructed. So maybe we'll get additional facts about Lindsey Graham's death that will raise the level of suspicion. Maybe we won't. But right now, aortic dissection.
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