Critics challenged a New York Times account that portrayed President Donald Trump as emotional over the death of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) while describing how Graham's sister, Darline Graham Nordone, emerged as the nominee for South Carolina's full Senate seat. Graham had been among Trump's most visible Republican allies in the Senate, and the question of who would carry the seat forward carried implications for the president's support within the chamber.

The New York Times report described Trump as having had a "fraught week" and said that "several people described [Trump] as uncharacteristically emotional about the death of his friend." The article referred twice to a meeting with Nordone in which Trump was said to have shown emotion.

According to the Times account, senior White House officials in the meeting shared "stories about Mr. Graham. Mr. Trump, who is not known to show emotion, appeared upset by the loss, two people said."

The report then described a staffer handing Trump a list of possible replacements for Graham, after which officials discussed objections to various options. Trump was reportedly concerned that selecting Rep. Russell Fry (R-S.C.) to run for the Senate seat would leave a House seat open at a time when Republicans already held a narrow majority. Nordone, who remained in the room, then asked what Trump thought about her running for the full term.

Producer and Emmy Award winner Mark Concannon criticized the Times for what he called "parrot[ing] this Trump pressroom garbage."

“He wasn't 'grieving' about Lindsey Graham. He just knows his sister will be as big a sycophant as her brother was and do anything he tells her to do. That's why he endorsed her. Full stop,” Concannon wrote on X: https://x.com/MarkConcannonSU/status/2080651900144193925

Lawyer Steven Jaffe also criticized the newspaper, writing on X, “The NYTimes has outdone itself.” His post appeared at: https://x.com/jaffes/status/2080647770654879812

The social bookmarking site Pinboard commented from its X account, “Curious how 'a grieving Trump' passed the laugh test at the NYT.”

National security analyst Marcy Wheeler focused on what she described as a gap between the headline's framing and the article's later description of Trump's political calculations.

“If you were struck by the description of Trump the sociopath making a decision (to appoint Lindsey's sister, which decision Gov McMaster had already made) [because] of something NYT called 'grief,' the passage on the left precedes the passage on the right in the story,” Wheeler wrote on BlueSky, where she posted excerpts side by side: