July 28 (UPI) — President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance and dozens of dignitaries eulogized the late Sen. Lindsay Graham in Washington D.C., on Tuesday.

The funeral service for the late Sen. Lindsey Graham began at 2 p.m. EDT Tuesday at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in attendance.

Graham died July 11 at age 71. He died from an aortic dissection due to arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease. He served four terms in the U.S. Senate.

“He held more than one role for each of us,” said his niece, Emillie Boggs Roberts. “He wasn’t just an uncle, a brother, a nephew, he was the foundation of our family. In our family, when you needed advice, a problem solved or a helping hand, you turned to Lindsey.”

Roberts said on the day he died, she told her mother, now-Sen. Darline Graham, the senator’s sister, that she was pregnant with her second child.

“The first thing she did was pick up the phone to call him to tell him the great news, just like I knew she would. She never got to tell him, but I have no doubt that he knows and is thrilled,” Roberts said. “No matter the situation, with Lindsey around, at the end of the day it would all be OK. To be loved by Lindsey was to be truly blessed.”

Trump said, “nothing of consequence happened in this capital without Lindsey Graham knowing about it. Nothing of significance happened anywhere in the world without Lindsey Graham having a view on it, and no bill became law in the most exceptional republic in human history without Lindsey Graham having a say in it,” Trump said.

“He was the first person to make you laugh,” Trump said. “And one of the last people that you’ve really ever wanted to fight.”

Trump talked about the time in 2016 when he shared Graham’s private phone number with the public. Graham was running for president in the Republican primary.

“Back in 2016, Lindsey said something rather nasty on his flight to becoming the next president of the United States,” Trump said. “So naturally, I did something that I shouldn’t have done — I shared his personal cell phone number with the millions of people that happened to be watching that particular day.”

Soon after, Graham made a video of himself destroying the phone. He changed his number.

“But it was Lindsey who had the last laugh, because while I blew up his phone for one day, we became great friends, and Lindsey did not stop calling me for the next 10 years,” he joked. “It was not easy.”

Vance remembered Graham’s, “swashbuckling, infectious laugh.”

Graham could connect with all people, Vance said, whether it was political leaders or the waitstaff in the Capitol, NBC reported.

“Lindsey Graham loved people from all walks of life. … He was fascinated in the waitstaff in the Senate dining room. He was fascinated in the people who made the food. He was fascinated in the lowest staffer who had been hired three days earlier,” Vance said at the Capitol ceremony. “He was fascinated by, of course, the very leadership of our country, and I think he was fascinated in people because he loved people.”

Senate Republican leader John Thune, R-S.D., said Graham’s loss is painful.

“It’s difficult to believe that we’re here today to say a final farewell to Lindsey as he leaves the Capitol for the last time. My heart is heavy,” Thune said at the ceremony.

“Lindsey was a towering figure here in the Senate and on the international stage. … Lindsey will be remembered as a senator and as a statesman,” Thune said. “But for me, most of all, I will remember him as my friend. It’s hard to think that there will be no more Senate dinners with Lindsey.”

In the last months of his life, Graham was among the most staunch supporters of Trump’s war with Iran. The Republican senator has long played a role in foreign policy and in brokering bipartisan agreements with Democrats on Capitol Hill.

New Hampshire Gov. Kelly Ayotte told NBC News that losing Graham is, “such a loss in terms of his voice on foreign policy and America’s role in the world. He loved life, he had so much fun, and no one could make you laugh more than Lindsey Graham.”

Soon after Trump made Graham’s phone number public, he went to see the movie, Minions with Ayotte’s family.

“So my son, who was probably 5 or 6 years old, Lindsey had him on the phone answering the calls, and so Jake would pick up the phone and say, ‘Oh, hey, who is this? Why are you calling?'” Ayotte said. “So we had a lot of laughs over that.”

Tuesday’s service is only the beginning for memorializing Graham. A service will be held in his home state South Carolina on Wednesday. A public ceremony will be at First Baptist Church in Columbia.

While in the U.S. Capitol, Netanyahu and Zelensky plan to meet with the president. Netanyahu has met with Trump seven times while in office but this will mark their first meeting since the war in Iran began.