In Reply to: The "Iowa farmer" lives in a Kansas mansion posted by mh on August 07, 2026 at 10:07:55
A bipartisan bill moving rapidly through the Senate could hand President Donald Trump a "nuke" and Democrats are sitting idly by, a new political analysis contends.
The Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia Act has 62 cosponsors, including 21 Democrats, and could clear the Senate as soon as this week, but The Bulwark's Catherine Rampell argued the bill accomplishes neither of its stated goals of honoring the late senator's legacy or punishing Russia with new sanctions.
"The bill, which is based on legislation originally introduced by Graham last year, does not actually grant Trump any new authorities to sanction," Rampell wrote. "Everything sanctions-related in this bill is something Trump could already do, but has chosen not to, presumably because hes not interested in angering Vladimir Putin."
The bill grants no new sanctions authority Trump didn't already have, Rampell wrote, and it includes a broad waiver allowing him to bypass sanctions entirely by certifying they conflict with the "national interests of the United States."
Georgetown law professor Jennifer Hillman called it "an absolute waiver," saying Trump would have "unfettered authority to waive sanctions, on any individual, any sector, any country."
The bill's real significance, Rampell contends, lies in tariff authority requiring the president to impose tariffs up to 100 percent on goods from at least 15 countries across three categories tied to Russian oil and gas purchases and sanctions evasion but leaves the criteria for those rankings largely undefined.
That ambiguity could let Trump target countries like Slovakia and Hungary, the columnist argued, potentially opening a path to tariff the broader European Union, or even shift tariffs onto Ukraine rather than Russia. Unlike Trump's earlier "Liberation Day" tariffs, which courts struck down, these would be explicitly authorized by Congress and harder to challenge legally.