Lindsey Graham

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) believes Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) may have offered President Donald Trump an eleventh-hour breakthrough on the president’s key legislative priority, according to a new interview.

In comments released Thursday, Thune told The New York Post that Graham, who died unexpectedly at 71, may have provided Trump with a silver lining on one of the president’s biggest legislative priorities, just hours before the longtime senator succumbed to a “brief and sudden illness” on Saturday.

A preliminary report from the D.C. medical examiner’s office found that Graham died of an “aortic dissection due to arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease.”

Trump later said during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that the late senator had called him to tell him: “We’re all set for the SAVE America Act.”

The president didn’t specify how, but has repeatedly called for the Senate GOP to nuke the filibuster — the 60-vote threshold needed for most legislation in the upper chamber to pass — in order to push through the bill that would reshape how federal elections operate.

Thune, while speaking with the Post, speculated on the conversation between Graham and Trump.

“Perhaps what Lindsey was talking to the president about — I don’t know this for a fact — whether or not there was an option for reconciliation, and there is a way in which I think you could [do that]," Thune said.

The GOP leader maintained that Senate Republicans are not even “close” to having the required votes to eliminate the filibuster — and that there is no way for Democrats to come on board.

“Figuring out a way to incentivize states to pass or to implement photo ID in their states through financial incentives is something that’s been talked about as a possible reconciliation option,” Thune said. “How you design or structure it matters a lot.”

Graham, who was the chair of the Senate Budget Committee, was heavily involved in reconciliation negotiations.

Senate Republicans failed last month to add the elections legislation as an amendment to a nearly $70 billion immigration and border security funding package. The attempt was defeated in a 48-50 vote, with four Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Thom Tillis of North Carolina — joining all Democrats to block it.

It was the second time Republicans tried to attach the SAVE America Act to a budget reconciliation package.

“It’s got to be principally budgetary, not policy-oriented. And if the budgetary impact is incidental to the policy impact, then you know it’s usually ruled a violation,” Thune said. “I’m not denying there’s some level of subjectivity.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) announced Wednesday that the House Budget Committee is moving forward with another budget resolution, dubbed “Reconciliation 3.0,” with components of the legislation. The process would allow the GOP to bypass the Senate filibuster and move the bill forward without any Democratic support.

“It’s our best shot at enacting our party’s top priority legislation, the SAVE America Act,” Johnson told reporters. “It is important to the American people and it’s important to the future. There is nothing in this bill that every Republican in Congress cannot proudly get behind.”