Congress
Russia sanctions bill on hold for now, Thune says
Senate Majority Leader John Thune indicated Monday that legislation slapping new sanctions on Russia and its trading partners is on hold until after an upcoming meeting between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“I think they’re thinking that — see how this meeting goes in a couple of weeks with Putin,” Thune told reporters, adding that he is in close contact with the Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who is coordinating the sanctions efforts with the White House.
“I think at least right now [Graham] is working with the White House trying to determine whether or not that meeting that happens in a couple of weeks will be a fruitful one,” Thune added.
A second person granted anonymity to disclose internal discussions confirmed that the bill is effectively on ice until after the Trump-Putin meeting. Trump announced last week the meeting would happen in Budapest, Hungary, but he did not set a date..
The decision to press pause comes after Thune indicated Thursday that it was time to move on the legislation, which would impose tariffs on countries that import Russian oil and gas and implement secondary sanctions on foreign firms that support Russian energy production.
But the same day Thune spoke out, Trump held a long phone call with Putin and subsequently questioned whether it was the right time to move forward with the sanctions legislation.
The sanctions bill has more than 80 cosponsors, giving it enough support that it could overcome opposition from Trump. But Republicans have been reluctant to move forward without an explicit endorsement from the president.
The concern is that if GOP leadership were to move forward without Trump’s public approval, it would put their members in a politically difficult spot if he were to subsequently come out against the bill.
A Democratic trio attempted to pass an artificial intelligence bill via a unanimous consent request on Tuesday but were blocked on the Senate floor.
Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) and Andy Kim (D-N.J.) sought to pass their Artificial Intelligence Risk Management and Security Act using the procedural mechanism, which allows expedited consideration of legislation but fails if one senator opposes it.
“The whole world has recognized that we’ve got to do something,” Warner said in a speech on the floor. “We should not miss the moment to put a safety protocol in place now.”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) objected to the bill, preventing any chance of passage.
“Congress must not legislate on the issue of artificial intelligence hastily or in a closed manner,” he said on the floor, adding that it gave some in the government too much power to dictate the technology that could be permitted to be released.
As some lawmakers grow concerned over dire warnings from AI labs’ top executives about the technology’s risk to humanity, Congress’ attempts to legislate AI guardrails have largely stalled.
In the past few weeks, two other AI-related bills, the Ratepayer Protection Act and AI Emergency Button Act, were also nixed in an attempt to pass them unanimously.
Warner, Schatz and Kim’s new bill would have established a new safety board within the Commerce Department to vet models before they are deployed and set safety standards for the industry. It would also have created a reporting process for safety and security incidents.
Sen. Darline Graham sought to take up her brother’s mantle Tuesday, going after former special counsel Jack Smith for obtaining the late-Sen. Lindsey Graham’s phone data.
“You should be ashamed of yourself,” the South Carolina Republican told Smith as he testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, adding that the anguish the prosecutor caused her brother “makes me sick.”
Lindsey Graham, until his unexpected death in July, was among the most vocal in his outrage over revelations that Smith secretly collected electronic data from GOP lawmakers as part of the Biden-era investigation into President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
The late senator was also unapologetic in his support for a provision tucked into a government funding package, which was later repealed, allowing senators to sue the federal government for $500,000 or more if they discover their electronic records were seized without notification — language specifically designed to compensate Smith’s targets.
But Smith replied that Lindsey Graham was not a target of his investigation and was not suspected of wrongdoing — in fact, he considered Darline Graham’s brother “a patriotic public servant” who likely would have been a “witness” in his case against Trump for attempted election subversion.
“Your brother investigated the claims that Donald Trump was making,” Smith told Darline Graham. “He found them to be false.”
The federal government’s internal watchdog told Congress Tuesday that it has concluded President Donald Trump acted unlawfully in unilaterally canceling $810 million in federal funding.
In a letter to congressional leaders obtained by Blue Light News, the Government Accountability Office’s top lawyer panned Trump’s declaration Friday that he is nixing money Congress appropriated through a controversial budget maneuver called a “pocket rescission.”
“The Constitution vests in Congress the power of the purse,” GAO General Counsel Edda Emmanuelli Perez wrote,
adding that “Congress did not cede this important power” by enacting the 1970s impoundment law intended to stop presidents from withholding money Congress approves.
“Any withholding of appropriated funds beyond their date of expiration, regardless of size, subverts both the constitutional process for enacting federal law and Congress’s constitutional power of the purse,” Perez added. “The President may not force the expiration of budget authority Congress has already enacted and did not rescind.”
It is unclear what practical effect, if any, the letter will have on the interbranch funding fight. Outside groups sued the administration last year over a prior pocket rescission, but the Supreme Court issued a preliminary ruling that they did not have standing to challenge the matter. The Trump administration has argued that only the head of the GAO is able to sue under the 52-year-old law governing rescissions.
- Inside Mamdani’s fraught effort to rein in the NYPD unit he pledged to end
- Cruz blocks Senate Democrats’ bid to pass AI safety bill
- Pharma’s new top lobbyist is a former House majority leader
- White House looking to Europe to release diesel from strategic reserves
- Darline Graham rips Jack Smith for obtaining her late brother’s phone records
- Federal watchdog says Trump’s $810M funding cancellation is unconstitutional
- Sen. Eric Schmitt pins down Jack Smith — as a Caitlin Clark fan
- Mike Johnson backs voluntary regulation to ‘calm the nerves’ on AI safety
- Democrats are running pastors for office. Republicans are attacking their religious comments.
- What Jack Smith plans to tell the Senate Judiciary Committee
-
Politics2 years agoFormer ‘Squad’ members launching ‘Bowman and Bush’ YouTube show
-
Uncategorized2 years ago
Bob Good to step down as Freedom Caucus chair this week
-
The Josh Fourrier Show2 years agoDOOMSDAY: Trump won, now what?
-
Politics2 years agoFormer Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron launches Senate bid
-
The Dictatorship2 years agoPete Hegseth’s tenure at the Pentagon goes from bad to worse
-
The Dictatorship2 years agoLuigi Mangione acknowledges public support in first official statement since arrest
-
Politics2 years agoBlue Light News’s Editorial Director Ryan Hutchins speaks at Blue Light News’s 2025 Governors Summit
-
The Dictatorship1 year agoMike Johnson sums up the GOP’s arrogant position on military occupation with two words