Newly released documentary footage shows Senator Lindsey Graham telling a film crew he "almost cried" with joy over the US-Israeli strikes on Iran, claiming he personally persuaded President Trump to launch the war despite opposition from within Trump's inner circle.

The footage, shot by British filmmaker Alex Holder over three years with more than 400 hours accumulated for a planned documentary, was first released on July 26, 2026, with CNN and the Wall Street Journal publishing initial reports that day. Al Jazeera published a full written article on July 28, following a video newsfeed report on July 27. Graham died on July 11 at age 71. Both Trump and Netanyahu attended his funeral on July 28.

The US-Israeli strikes on February 28 killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and opened the war. In footage dated March 3, five days after the strikes, Graham told Holder's team: "Look what we've done here. I almost cried." The Wall Street Journal reported that Graham laughed loudly immediately after saying this. He called the push for war "the best thing I've ever done" and described Trump as "jacked." He said Trump "loves blowing stuff up."

Graham claimed in the footage that many people in Trump's circle opposed military action against Iran and that he had successfully argued the case for it. He compared the Trump-Netanyahu partnership to the World War II alliance of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, framing the two leaders in the mold of a generational wartime coalition.

The documentary also captured a phone call on March 4 between Graham and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. On the call, Graham offered to persuade Trump to join Israel in bombing Hezbollah targets in Lebanon. Netanyahu responded that Israel was concentrating on Iran and could attack Lebanon later. Hezbollah had resumed rocket attacks on Israel on March 2, two days after the initial strikes, in support of Iran.

Holder and his team provided excerpts from the documentary to the Wall Street Journal. The footage spans Graham's movements and conversations from the period leading up to and following the February 28 strikes, offering an unusually intimate record of a sitting senator's private conduct during the initiation of a major military operation.

The documentary's final interview with Graham took place at a bagel shop in Columbia, South Carolina, in June. By that point, a preliminary ceasefire agreement with Iran was under discussion. Graham expressed concern that Trump was pulling back from the war's objectives. "He's letting this thing slip away," Graham said. "I got to go talk to him."

The footage has circulated widely since its release. Al Jazeera promoted the story on its Facebook page with a clip captioned "Look what we've done here. I almost cried." The YouTube channel for Breaking Points, hosted by Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti, published a segment titled "RAW FOOTAGE: Lindsey Graham TEARS OF JOY After Iran Strikes."

The broader context here is the light the footage sheds on the internal mechanics of the decision to go to war with Iran. Graham's own account, recorded privately, places him as a primary advocate for military action inside the administration, pushing against what he describes as a resistant circle of advisers. Whether that self-portrayal fully captures the decision-making process is a question the footage alone cannot answer. Graham was a single senator, not a member of the executive branch, and his claim to have personally steered the president toward war is an unverified assertion made by a participant eager to claim credit. What the footage does establish, with unusual clarity, is that the war's chief congressional champion viewed the killing of Iran's supreme leader as an achievement worth celebrating visibly and repeatedly, and that he remained committed to escalation even as the administration moved toward a preliminary ceasefire. The gap between Graham's private enthusiasm and the eventual trajectory toward de-escalation is visible within the documentary itself, compressed into the weeks between his March remarks and his June frustration.