Congress
Trump is interested in new Russia sanctions. But there’s a catch.
President Donald Trump is ready to sign a punishing Russia sanctions bill that GOP hawks have pushed for months. But only if it changes to give him more control.
A senior administration official granted anonymity to discuss the president’s view said that “conceptually there’s an openness” to the bill from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), but the person suggested that the legislation needs to preserve what the White House sees as the president’s sole authority to oversee U.S. foreign policy.
The current draft of the bill allows the president to waive a 500 percent tariff on countries that buy Russian oil and uranium for up to 180 days, and Graham said Tuesday he has agreed to revise the bill to allow for a second waiver, subject to congressional oversight.
The administration’s desired changes would solidify the president’s waiver authority, ensuring that Congress has no power to question Trump should he decide to end the sanctions.
“The current version would subject the president’s foreign policy decisions to micromanagement by Congress through a joint resolution of disapproval process. … That’s a nonstarter for us,” said the official. “The administration is not going to be micromanaged by the Congress on the president’s foreign policy. The bill needs a waiver authority that is complete.”
Trump’s new willingness to engage with Congress on a sanctions bill underscores his growing frustration with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who he says has rebuffed efforts to negotiate an end to the bloodshed in Ukraine.
“For the president now, he has invested his own reputation of being able to negotiate anything anywhere, and Putin has made him look foolish,” said one Republican operative close to the White House.
Trump said Tuesday that Putin was throwing “a lot of bullshit” at him and that he was “looking very strongly” at the sanctions bill. On Wednesday, Speaker Mike Johnson threw his support behind the sanctions push.
“Vladimir Putin has shown an unwillingness to be reasonable and to talk seriously about brokering a peace, and I think we have to send him a message,” he said.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune has been more circumspect, citing both “substantial progress” in working with the White House on the bill but also making clear his desire to get Trump fully onboard. He said in a floor speech Wednesday it was possible the measure could come to the Senate floor this month but offered no guarantee.
But the president’s comments, emphasizing that any additional Russia sanctions would be “at my option,” underlined what aides said is a top priority: maintaining maximum flexibility and total control over U.S. policy toward the Kremlin.
Two people granted anonymity to describe private discussions on Capitol Hill acknowledged that while the White House might broadly be supportive of the sanctions bill, they hadn’t yet reached an agreement with lawmakers on the scope of the waiver authority.
Thune acknowledged in a brief interview that the waiver language remains subject to negotiation.
“We’re still working with them,” he said, adding that they were “trying” to get everyone on the same page.
The White House, asked for comment on the state of play, pointed to Trump’s remarks.
So far, the GOP-controlled Congress has been remarkably pliant in the face of Trump’s pressure, delivering the president’s massive tax and spending package last week and backing the White House’s actions on trade, immigration and war powers — all areas where Congress has constitutionally granted authority.
Given that pattern, the administration expects lawmakers will craft the Russia sanctions bill in a way that satisfies Trump, even if that means giving up their role administering its provisions. That’s a shift from Trump’s first term, when a broad sanctions bill targeting Russia included language creating a former congressional review process.
Aside from his desire to curtail Congress’ ability to check him on foreign policy matters, Trump’s insistence on flexibility has just as much to do with keeping the door open for a potential breakthrough with Putin, according to the two White House officials.
Graham reiterated Wednesday that he believes Trump is on board with his legislation, saying that the president “wants a waiver, he’s got a waiver. He’s in control of how you implement the sanctions.”
“He told me he thought it would be helpful,” Graham said about his conversations with Trump about the bill. “We want to be a team. We want to help the president. This is an effort to give the president leverage he doesn’t have today.”
Even with the bill’s broad and bipartisan backing in the Senate — with more than 80 co-sponsors, it could theoretically survive a Trump veto — many Republicans are loath to take it up until there’s a clear and unequivocal statement of support from the president.
“The desire to move up here is real, but the risk is moving a bill that the president ultimately decides he doesn’t want,” said one GOP Hill official granted anonymity to discuss the private deliberations.
While Republicans are tentatively eyeing the week of July 21 to put the bill on the floor, some GOP lawmakers have been privately skeptical of Graham’s claims this week that everyone is on the same page. They want to hear Trump say it himself.
That’s particularly true for a handful of lawmakers in the “America First” faction of the GOP who have typically been at odds with Graham’s more traditional hawkish stances. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), for instance, said he would be calling Trump this week to hear his thoughts on the bill directly.
“I know Lindsey has said now he’s in favor of it … [but] I just want to get clued into what his thinking on it,” Hawley said. “I just prefer to hear it from him.”
Said another GOP senator who was granted anonymity to speak candidly, “If the president’s in favor of sanctions, then I’m in favor of sanctions, but I defer to the president.”
“He’s the one in the middle of all the negotiations,” the senator continued. “He’s frustrated with Putin today. He’s been frustrated with [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy before. And he’s the only leader in the world that can bring both sides together.”
Connor O’Brien contributed to this report.
Congress
Trump apparently shares Tom Cotton’s phone number in push to make Daylight Saving Time permanent
President Donald Trump appeared to share Sen. Tom Cotton’s phone number in a Saturday morning social media post imploring the Arkansas Republican to get behind a bill to make Daylight Saving Time permanent.
“Almost everybody wants “The Sunshine Protection Act” to pass, except for Tom Cotton,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “To the Great People of Arkansas, please let your Senator know it would be a GREAT Bipartisan WIN for the United States Senate, and for America, itself.”
The president has spent months personally pushing Senate Republicans to end the practice that sees Americans change their clocks twice a year, cementing more sunlight hours in the evening for all twelve months of the calendar. Cotton, whom Trump called “a friend of mine” in the Saturday post, has long argued that making daylight saving time permanent would leave children, farmers and other early risers in the dark for hours on winter mornings.
One of Trump’s key selling points on Saturday: the PGA tour.
“The PGA TOUR, as an example, needs more Daylight in the afternoon in order to finish their Tournaments,” he said, attaching a letter from PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp endorsing the bill. ”Likewise, regular Golfers, Tennis Players, Hunters and, perhaps most importantly, Farmers who want more Daylight to play or work.
A Blue Light News call to the cellphone number went to voicemail. A spokesperson for Cotton did not respond to a request for comment. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The current version of the bill was introduced in the House in January 2025 by Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.), with Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) leading the Senate version. The legislation would make daylight saving time permanent across most of the country, ending the twice-yearly clock changes. The legislation has been stalled in the Senate since July.
The president encouraged supporters of the bill, dubbed the “The Sunshine Protection Act,” to call Cotton to “let your Senator know it would be a GREAT Bipartisan WIN for the United States Senate, and for America, itself.”
During the 2016 Republican presidential primary, he publicly gave out the personal cellphone number of then-rival Sen. Lindsey Graham after the South Carolina Republican criticized him. Trump, who came to count on Graham as a reliable Senate ally after he won the presidency, revisited the moment during Graham’s funeral in July, acknowledging that sharing the number was something he “shouldn’t have done.”
Kelsey Brugger contributed to this report.
Sen. Bernie Sanders will hit the road for Troy Jackson in Maine starting Oct. 10, the first time the progressive leader will stump for the candidate this cycle.
The Vermont independent plans to hold three rallies with Jackson, according to an itinerary shared first with Blue Light News: first in Bangor on Oct. 10th followed by Lewiston and Biddeford on Oct. 11.
The Maine swing will kick off Sanders’ travel for the final stretch of the midterms, covering ground throughout October for House and Senate candidates, POLITICO reported.
“Bernie and Troy know that working people built this country and deserve a government that fights for them,” Jackson spokesperson Dan Gottlieb told Blue Light News. “Susan Collins has had nearly 30 years to deliver, and working Mainers are still getting squeezed while she serves the billionaires and corporate interests who bankroll her campaigns. Mainers don’t need another six years of excuses.”
Sanders campaigned ahead of major wins for progressives in the primary season, speaking at more than 60 rallies since last year’s Fight the Oligarchy tour and endorsing more than 90 candidates up and down the ballot.
He’s also opening his substantial $23 million campaign war chest, POLITICO reported, and contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars toMinnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan’s Senate campaign and others including Angie Nixon in Florida and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison,
Sanders will return to Maine after initially backing Graham Platner’s campaign for Senate. Allegations reported by POLITICO ultimately led him to call on the Democratic nominee to drop out of the race.
Sanders had not formally endorsed Jackson since he clinched the nomination from Platner, though he previously backed Jackson’s initial run for governor.
House Financial Services Chair French Hill said he has “no concerns” about winning back his Arkansas seat in the upcoming midterm elections, but the six-term House member acknowledged the political headwinds for his party.
“I consider the atmosphere a very tough political environment right now because of President [Donald] Trump’s lack of favorability at the top, and you know people are concerned about, as I say, what it’s like to live under an inflated economy the last four years,” Hill said in an interview.
Hill is in a solidly red district, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, and said he is up against a “weaker candidate this time than I’ve had in past races.” Polling in the district, however, has shown a tighter race. The two polls done this year placed Democratic challenger Chris Jones ahead of Hill by a few percentage points. Any perceived polling victory for Jones is still well within the margin of error, and one of the polls had a Democratic sponsor.
Stephannie Lane Baker, a spokesperson for Jones, said that “of all the Republicans in Congress, the chairman of the Financial Services Committee doesn’t get to dodge responsibility for this economy. He’s in trouble, and he knows it.”
Additionally, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker’s PAC, Ready for the Fight, committed more than $1 million in television ads through the next five weeks for Jones’ race in Arkansas’s 2nd District, Jordan Abudayyeh, a spokesperson for the PAC confirmed. Overall Democratic spending on advertising for the race was just over $1 million, primarily made up by contributions from the Ready for the Fight PAC, with Republicans spending almost $2.7 million on ad buys, according to AdImpact, an advertising tracking service.
Hill said he has addressed affordability concerns “head on” this Congress.
“My work on housing, my work on the Price Stability Act, my work to try to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse, and drop the federal budget deficit as a percentage of GDP,” Hill said. “All these things can contribute to a more affordable environment for people. So I’ve tried to make that a forefront of my campaign this year.”
Hill was a key architect of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, a bipartisan housing affordability bill that became law in July. The Price Stability Act, which is unlikely to become law this year, would narrow the Federal Reserve’s current dual mandate of pursuing maximum employment and price stability to focus exclusively on containing inflation.
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