Abu Dhabi (Somalia Today) — Leading US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said Wednesday he had met Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan for 90 minutes and found him “alive” and “well”, angrily dismissing online rumours about the United Arab Emirates leader’s health that had rattled regional markets.
In a statement on X, formerly Twitter, Graham told those “perpetuating false narratives” about the Emirati president that they were “full of it”, adding that the 64-year-old ruler was “as sharp as I’ve ever seen him”.
The veteran senator’s intervention came after a fevered 48 hours of speculation in the Gulf, triggered when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan abruptly postponed a planned visit to the UAE earlier this week.
An official Turkish account briefly posted — then deleted — a statement referring to a “health problem” concerning Sheikh Mohamed, sparking a wave of unverified claims on social media that the leader had suffered a stroke or even died.
Graham, a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and close ally of President Donald Trump, met Sheikh Mohamed at Qasr Al Shati in Abu Dhabi.
The state-run Emirates News Agency (WAM) released photographs and video of the encounter, showing the two men engaged in animated conversation, in an apparent bid to put the rumours to rest.
According to WAM, they discussed “regional developments” and efforts to promote peace in the Middle East.
But Mogadishu-based analyst Ahmed Abdi said the senator’s unusually blunt tone could have the opposite effect, keeping the story alive rather than shutting it down.
“When a senior US lawmaker feels compelled to publicly certify that a Gulf leader is ‘alive’ and ‘well’, it can plant fresh doubt in the minds of people who were not following the rumours,” Abdi told Somalia Today.
‘Light vs darkness’
Graham used his statement to offer sweeping praise for the UAE’s development model and its decision to normalise relations with Israel under the 2020 Abraham Accords, calling it one of the “bravest” shifts in modern Middle Eastern history.
He urged other regional players to “buy-in” to the UAE’s approach of modernisation while “maintaining the faith”, warning that Abu Dhabi “cannot do this by himself”.
“To the region: Understand that history is about to be made,” Graham wrote. “President Trump wants a region that looks more like the UAE and less like the Ayatollah.”
The comments reflect the Trump administration’s renewed “maximum pressure” strategy against Iran, which Graham framed in stark ideological terms as a struggle between “light” and “darkness”.
The senator warned that if the “religious Nazi regime” in Tehran survives, it would imperil the Abraham Accords, which have faced severe strain during the grinding war in Gaza but remain intact.
The UAE became the first Gulf Arab state to establish full diplomatic relations with Israel in September 2020, a US-brokered deal that shattered a decades-old Arab consensus that normalisation should only follow a resolution to the Palestinian issue.
While Abu Dhabi has maintained ties with Israel throughout the Gaza conflict, it has become increasingly critical of Israeli military operations, with officials warning that moves toward annexing the occupied West Bank would cross a “red line”.
Riyadh rivalry
Graham said he was travelling next to Saudi Arabia to meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, praising the kingdom’s “Vision 2030” reform agenda.
The itinerary highlights Washington’s delicate balancing act between its two primary Gulf Arab partners, whose relationship has deteriorated sharply in recent years.
Once close allies, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi have increasingly competed for geopolitical and economic dominance, from clashes over oil output quotas at OPEC+ to a proxy struggle for influence in Yemen and the Horn of Africa.
Tensions flared visibly last month following reported skirmishes between UAE-backed separatist forces and Saudi-aligned troops in southern Yemen, though both sides have since sought to de-escalate.
Economic rivalry is also heating up, with Saudi Arabia pressuring multinational firms to move their regional headquarters to Riyadh or risk losing government contracts—a direct challenge to Dubai’s status as the Middle East’s business hub.
Graham, however, sought to bridge the divide, explicitly linking the Emirati vision with the Saudi crown prince’s reform plans as a unified model for the region that would be “great for America”.
“The forces that are merging here recently are trying to undercut the movement toward the light,” Graham said, without naming specific actors. “You do so at your own peril.”
The senator’s unusually blunt defence of the Emirati leader underscored how sensitive leadership optics have become in the Gulf, where diplomatic stability is often intertwined with the personal health and standing of ruling monarchs.
Sheikh Mohamed, widely known as MBZ, has been the de facto ruler of the UAE for years before formally becoming president in 2022 following the death of his half-brother, Sheikh Khalifa. He is viewed in Washington as a linchpin of US security architecture in the Middle East.
