{"id":15836,"date":"2025-11-19T21:16:45","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T21:16:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/congress-plots-path-for-russia-sanctions-bill-with-trumps-blessing\/"},"modified":"2025-11-19T21:16:45","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T21:16:45","slug":"congress-plots-path-for-russia-sanctions-bill-with-trumps-blessing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/congress-plots-path-for-russia-sanctions-bill-with-trumps-blessing\/","title":{"rendered":"Congress plots path for Russia sanctions bill with Trump’s blessing"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Lawmakers are quietly discussing how to quickly move new Russia sanctions legislation \u2014 this time with President Donald Trump\u2019s blessing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe president has now weighed in, in support of the Russia sanctions legislation,\u201d Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters Wednesday, adding that he believed the House would need to make the first move in advancing the measure. However, House GOP leaders have long believed the Senate needs to act first.<\/p>\n

Members of the House and Senate are expected to talk Wednesday about advancing the long-stalled bill after Trump privately told top Republicans he supports it, according to Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).<\/p>\n

Graham also told reporters Wednesday that the White House sent him a statement that very day about the bill, and that lawmakers involved in its drafting have signed off. The bill would impose tariffs on countries that import Russian energy and implement secondary sanctions on foreign firms that support Russian energy production.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s moving,\u201d Graham declared after a closed-door GOP conference lunch.<\/p>\n

Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), who is supporting a bipartisan companion bill of Graham\u2019s in the House, said in an interview Wednesday he believes his chamber could quickly pass the sanctions bill if Trump gave his public blessing. Wilson predicted it would receive overwhelming support from Republicans and Democrats.<\/p>\n

He conceded that \u201c15 percent\u201d of members of the House GOP Conference \u201care isolationist\u201d and will vote against Russia sanctions in any scenario. Despite potentially loud protests from that sliver of Republicans, however, Wilson predicted it wouldn\u2019t be enough to tank the effort.<\/p>\n

But House leadership hasn’t yet said if, or when, it will take up the Russia sanctions legislation, and Congress is quickly running out of time before the end of the year to take action.<\/p>\n

Thune, on Wednesday, pointed to a December agenda in the Senate already overloaded with appropriations, a defense policy bill, nominations and health care vote.<\/p>\n

Asked if he believed sanctions could pass this year, he said, \u201cwe\u2019ll see.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lawmakers are quietly discussing how to quickly move new Russia sanctions legislation \u2014 this time with President Donald Trump\u2019s blessing. \u201cThe president has now weighed in, in support of the Russia sanctions legislation,\u201d Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters Wednesday, adding that he believed the House would need to make the first move in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15836\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}