President Donald Trump is pushing for an unexpected replacement to fill the vacancy left by the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., in the Senate.

Trump wants South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster to tap Graham’s sister, Darline Graham Nordone, to be appointed to the lawmaker’s suddenly open seat for the remainder of his term.

“I recommended, to Governor Henry McMaster, Lindsey Graham’s wonderful sister, Darline, to serve as interim Senator from the Great State of South Carolina,” Trump said on Truth Social on Monday. “This would be a fabulous tribute to Lindsey, who loved her dearly!”

Graham and his younger sister, Darline, had a unique bond, given that, after their parents died, the lawmaker legally adopted and raised her.

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Trump’s announcement comes as a scramble behind the scenes is taking place to fill Graham’s spot, and further, find a new GOP nominee to run in November to keep his seat in the hands of Republicans.

McMaster is expected to announce his pick for the seat at 4 p.m. on Monday. He has so far kept quiet about who he would prefer. Fox News Digital did not immediately hear back from McMaster’s office on who he is eyeing in the interim.

Meanwhile, a key Republican, Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., also wants to see Graham’s sister get the nod for his seat.

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“Lindsey Graham’s sister, Darline Graham Nordone, would be a fantastic pick to serve out the remainder of the Senate term,” Scott said on X. “After speaking with Darline, there is no one better who understands Lindsey’s love for family, our state, and our country.”

Scott, earlier in the day, floated both former Rep. Trey Gowdy and former Sen. Jim DeMint as possible replacements in the interim. He hoped that McMaster would “put a placeholder and let the voters decide” later during a forthcoming special election.

“I think in the next several hours or next day or so we’ll figure out who that person is,” Scott said. “I love Trey Gowdy and Jim DeMint has been in the conversation.”

“[Graham’s] sister would be a wonderful placeholder as well,” he continued. “So we’ve got lots of candidates who could hold the place so that the voters decide. And remember the election starts August the 11th in South Carolina, three weeks from now, we’ll have a primary process.”

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Both Gowdy and DeMint have served in Congress — Gowdy in the House and DeMint in the Senate, preceding Scott. Graham Nordone, however, has never held public office.

Multiple sources close to Scott, who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) told Fox News Digital that he is pushing McMaster to choose one of the three to effectively be a placeholder and not seek a six-year term in the Senate.

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While the appointment race nears its conclusion, the race for the GOP nomination to run in South Carolina is still wide open.

Reps. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., and Ralph Norman, R-S.C., are already hinting at leaping into the special election, which is set for Aug. 11. Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., said that he would stay in the House, but the rest of the Palmetto State’s GOP congressional delegation have not said what their plans are.

The District of Columbia’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner on Sunday released preliminary findings indicating Sen. Lindsey Graham suffered an aortic dissection due to arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease before his death.

Graham, 71, was pronounced dead at George Washington University Hospital at 10:23 p.m. Saturday, according to a joint statement from the Metropolitan Police Department and the District of Columbia’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. An autopsy was performed Sunday.

The medical examiner emphasized that the findings are not final and that Graham’s death certificate will remain pending while toxicological and microscopic testing is completed.

“The preliminary examination findings were: Aortic Dissection due to Arteriosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease,” the medical examiner’s office said in a statement.

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The office emphasized that the findings are preliminary and that Graham’s death certificate remains pending. Officials said comprehensive toxicological and microscopic testing is routinely conducted when an autopsy is performed in the District and must be completed before the death certificate is updated with the cause and manner of death.

An aortic dissection is a tear in the inner layer of the aorta, the body’s largest artery, that allows blood to flow between the layers of the vessel wall, according to the Mayo Clinic. The condition is considered a life-threatening medical emergency that can lead to severe internal bleeding or organ damage.

Arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease refers to the buildup of plaque inside the arteries, which can restrict blood flow and increase the risk of serious heart and vascular complications.

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The release of the preliminary findings comes after Graham, 71, died Saturday night, shocking colleagues in Washington and across the nation.

Graham, a Republican who was first elected to the Senate in 2002 after serving four terms in the House of Representatives, became one of the chamber’s most influential voices on national security, foreign policy and the judiciary. He chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee during President Donald Trump’s first term and was one of the president’s closest allies on judicial nominations and defense policy.

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Following news of Graham’s death, tributes poured in from lawmakers across the political spectrum, with colleagues remembering his decades of public service and his influence on some of the Senate’s most consequential debates.

The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner said it will update Graham’s death certificate after toxicological and microscopic testing is complete.

More than three dozen California legislators are calling for Gov. Gavin Newsom to exempt the state’s film and TV production incentive program from a recently approved cap on corporate tax credits, warning that without action it will be “significantly kneecapped.”

Though the state’s budget has already been approved, the legislators say a solution must be devised before the end of the year so that production companies do not lose the “full value of tax credits they earned in exchange for creating middle-class entertainment industry jobs,” according to a letter dated Friday and addressed to Newsom, State Senate President Pro Tempore Monique Limón and Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas.

“Tax credits earned for creating jobs in motion picture and television production are not the same as tax credits provided for research and development,” the letter states. The legislation “creates short-term budget savings by reneging on commitments made to the entertainment industry and the working families who depend upon it for their livelihoods.”

The letter comes shortly after Newsom signed his final state budget as California’s governor, a $351.7-billion spending plan that includes new limitations on corporate tax credits.

The budget includes a provision that restricts the maximum tax credit companies can claim in a given year to $5 million or 50% of a company’s tax state tax liability, whichever is greater.

Hollywood industry representatives had warned the governor’s office that the new restrictions could affect the state’s production incentive program, which was just bolstered last year to an annual cap of $750 million.

The film and TV industry in Southern California has struggled to rebound from the effects of the pandemic, the dual writers’ and actors’ strikes in 2023 and the exodus of production to other states and countries.

Members who voted for the budget bill had believed there was a carve-out for the film and TV tax credit program, said Assemblyman Rick Chavez Zbur (D-Los Angeles), chair of the Assembly Democratic Caucus.

“I don’t think that anyone understood what this cap was, what it did and that it effectively kneecapped and reverses the progress that we made last year,” Zbur, who co-authored last year’s bill, said in an interview. “We need to have people understand that these changes, which I think people believed were minor, are really significant and will result in significant job loss if we don’t fix them.”

The new changes to the state’s film and TV tax credit program, which included expanded eligibility for additional shows and films, came after intense lobbying from studios and industry workers, who argued that more funding was necessary to lure production back from other states and countries.

Last week, the California Film Commission said the expanded tax credit program was set to deliver $6.6 billion in direct production spending in-state and more than 34,000 cast and crew jobs across the 170 total film and TV shows that received production incentives this year.