Lindsey Graham's Legislative Legacy, Taxpayers on the Hook for Charlie Kirk Murder Trial

South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster announced Lindsey Graham's temporary replacement on Monday. His sister Darlene Graham Nordone. Lindsey has always been there for me and now I will be there for him. It is such a privilege to get to finish some of his important work and I promise to work hard over the next several months to support the president and carry forward the efforts of my brother on behalf of the citizens of South Carolina and the United States. Now to Lindsey, I miss you more than I can even put into words but I'm gonna do this. I got it. Just hours before his sudden death Senator Graham was cracking jokes about all the legislative work he had left to do. According to people close to the South Carolina Republican, Graham wasn't feeling well on Saturday but rebuffing suggestions he seek medical care he joked I can't die now. I still need to do the Russia sanctions, get Iran sorted out and do Israeli-Saudi normalization. The late senator even wanted to wait to see a doctor until after his scheduled appearance on NBC's Meet the Press. Graham also spoke with President Trump not long before his heart gave out. The two spoke about his recent trip to Ukraine and the bipartisan Russia sanctions bill he had been pushing alongside Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal. Now with Graham gone, many of the issues that he was personally championing are suddenly without their most passionate advocate. So what happens to those priorities now? The Post political reporter Ryan King has been digging into it. Yeah well there's a big interest on Capitol Hill in getting the sanctions bill through. That had been a bipartisan piece of legislation. At one point it had almost 85 senators backing it and ultimately it didn't get passed because of President Trump's reluctance. He wanted to keep his options on the table and not be forced to apply financial penalties against Russia that was as severe as what was in that piece of legislation. But before Lindsey Graham died, he had been pretty optimistic that President Trump had come around and that was really the big barrier. So now there's a big bipartisan push to get that sanctions bill across the finish line. And then as for some of Senator Graham's other priorities, there are things that the Trump administration is looking into. One of the things before he died was he believed that the Trump administration needed to take a more forceful approach against Iran over the Strait of Hormuz. And we've seen over recent days the President do just that. There have been a lot of strikes against Iran and fighting has resumed essentially between the U.S. and Iran. The Trump administration had sent a notice to Congress to notify them about this. And then one of Graham's really big ambitious items that he was going after was trying to get normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. That's extremely ambitious. A lot of leaders have wanted to get that done. And that's something that President Trump himself is really interested in. So I think it's fair to say that there's going to be an effort to pursue that as well. There's just a lot of barriers at play with that one. I think the Saudi leadership is not really too interested in normalizing relations with Israel until there's more of a resolution to the situation with the Palestinians. But that was something that Graham was working really hard on and he was growing optimistic that a path was forming for that before he died. So there's certainly a lot of interest in carrying on some of the late senator's top priorities, particularly pertaining to foreign policy. The murder trial of accused Charlie Kirk assassin Tyler Robinson is already costing a fortune. Legal experts estimate the case could end up costing Utah taxpayers more than 10 million dollars to defend. That figure is just staggering. Now Robinson has been declared indigent, meaning the state is responsible for paying his legal team. Anyone who's watched Law & Order should be familiar with this whole concept. It's part of his Miranda rights. If you can't afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. But what's unique here is the sheer size of adjudicating this particular case. The Utah County Commission has already approved a million dollars for both prosecution and the defense, and officials have asked the state for even more funding. One expert the Post spoke to says the biggest expense isn't necessarily the trial itself. It's what comes after. If he's convicted and sentenced to death, years of mandatory appeals would require specialized attorneys, driving the cost even higher. And legal experts also say Robinson's defense team has filed a series of motions challenging everything from media access to the prosecution itself. It's a common done both to delay the proceedings and to increase the chances of negotiating a plea deal that takes capital punishment off the table. But delays mean time, and time is money. Lots of it apparently. Big tech news sites have come under scrutiny because of the Graham Platner scandal. A new study from conservative watchdog the Media Research Center claims Apple News and Google News failed to feature dozens of negative stories about Platner for months, even as controversies about his past continue to pile up. According to this particular study, between last November and this May, both news platforms featured zero stories about allegations involving Platner's Nazi tattoo or his offensive Reddit posts. The report also claims the apps failed to promote at least 112 stories from conservative-leaning outlets that did cover those controversies. The MRC argues the coverage changed only after the New York Times published a report about Platner sexting women outside of his marriage. Now, Platner's campaign collapsed spectacularly last week after two former girlfriends accused him of sexual misconduct, including one who alleged he sexually assaulted her and another who accused him of stealthing or removing a condom during sex without her consent. Platner has denied all of the allegations. He finally quit his race for the Senate, blaming what he called large forces, the corporate media, and the political establishment for his exit from the race. For more on these stories and everything else you could possibly want to know, check out the New York Post in print or online. And don't forget, like and subscribe to the New York Postcast wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube. 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