Sen. Graham Touts Movement On New Russian Sanctions Bill ‘With Trump’s Blessing’

Sen. Lindsey Graham announced Monday the Senate is taking up legislation that would sanction Russia’s trading partners, in order to ramp up the pressure on Moscow to end the war with Ukraine.

The announcement came after President Donald Trump told reporters Sunday night the proposed legislation would be “OK with me” – which marked his strongest signal yet that he’s planning on signing off on it.

Graham, a Russia hawk (and pretty much hawkish on all other conflicts and official US ‘enemies’ in the world) unveiled the move forward on the legislation “with President Trump’s blessing.”

He described the necessity of yet more sanctions in order to “continue the momentum to end this war honorably, justly and once and for all.”

“This legislation is designed to give President Trump more flexibility and power to push Putin to the peace table by going after both Putin and countries like Iran that support him,” Graham wrote. “I appreciate the strong bipartisan support for this legislation in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.”

“The Senate will move soon on a tough sanctions bill — not only against Russia — but also against countries like China and India that buy Russian energy products that finance Putin’s war machine,” Graham additionally stated. “The Senate bill has a presidential waiver to give President Trump maximum leverage.”

“When it comes to Putin and those who support his war machine, it is time to change the game,” he continued. Further, Graham again verified that Trump “is looking at [the bill] very strongly.” But Trump wants the ultimate final say-so:

Graham and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a co-sponsor of the bill, worked to include the presidential waiver to satisfy a White House request to give Trump more options, according to Politico.

US media is framing this as part of Trump “losing patience” with Putin over ending the war; however, the reality remains that Kiev and its Western backers have been unwilling to offer territorial concessions. Finally ceding Crimea hasn’t even been on the table.

“We get a lot of bullshit thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth,” Trump recently told reporters. “He’s very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.” And Graham responded to Trump’s words by saying the president “is spot on about the games Putin is playing.”

Lately, amid a ‘civil war’ in MAGA-land in the wake of the Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes interview, many of Trump’s supporters have vehemently complained that Trump is too much in neocon Lindsey Graham’s corner on foreign policy. His administration certainly didn’t start off like that.