Republicans turn on Trump after surprise Putin sanctions pause… as top MAGA henchman warns Zelensky after ‘careless’ accusation
Donald Trump’s own party has turned on him after he froze sanctions on Russia just four weeks after signing them into law in a shock announcement over the weekend.
‘Lindsey would be appalled,’ Senator John Cornyn fumed on Saturday, invoking the late Lindsey Graham, whose name sits on the sanctions act the president has now sidelined.
Republican Senator Thom Tillis branded the move ‘unconscionable’ and accused the administration of ‘capitulating to a Russian dictator who illegally invaded Ukraine and butchers innocent civilians.’
The revolt erupted after Trump signed an executive order late on Friday waiving the new sanctions and tariffs, including a 500 percent duty on Russian goods.
Trump’s sudden turnaround comes as Vladimir Putin pushes for a three-way summit with Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping to settle the future of Ukraine, with Volodymyr Zelensky locked out of the room, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Even as Republicans tore into the president, Trump’s Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent issued a stern warning to Kyiv.
Bessent cautioned that Zelensky ‘should be very careful about making statements like this that aren’t true’ after the Ukrainian leader claimed Washington ordered Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite internet service to be slowed for his military.
‘I think it is very reckless for President Zelensky to make such a charge,’ Bessent told NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday.
The revolt erupted after Trump signed an executive order on Friday waiving the new sanctions and tariffs, including a 500 percent duty on Russian goods
Russia strikes on the Ukraine capital of Kyiv back in August
The Ukrainian leader claimed Washington ordered Starlink to be slowed for his military
Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have flatly denied that anyone in the administration throttled the satellite service.
Ukraine’s forces rely on the technology for frontline communications, including about possible Russian drone and missile attacks.
Zelensky told NBC the order ‘came from’ the American government, though he admitted he did not know ‘from whom.’
Trump’s public turn against Zelensky comes after he struck a deal with Putin on an October 9 phone call.
The two leaders agreed that the US would buy hundreds of thousands of tons of Russian diesel and push it onto the global market.
After Ukraine hit an oil terminal in Putin’s hometown of St. Petersburg on Sunday, Trump raged on Truth Social that Zelensky ‘doesn’t want to end this war, and probably never did.’
He has also said Ukraine needs a new president and demanded Kyiv halt its strikes on Russian refineries.
That same October 9 call led to Putin’s pitch for the trilateral summit, which the Kremlin wants held on the sidelines of the APEC gathering in China in November, according to the Journal.
‘I think it is very reckless for President Zelensky to make such a charge,’ Bessent told NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday
A senior US official said Trump has not agreed to the meeting but could be receptive, given his campaign promise to end the war on ‘day one.’
Trump’s warming relations toward Moscow comes less than three weeks before midterm elections.
Republicans face the real prospect of losing the House and the Senate over soaring fuel prices.
Those prices have surged since the war with Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway responsible for one-fifth of all global oil.
The White House has claimed that the Russian diesel deal is a solution to help bring down the cost of fuel.
However, some energy experts say the Iran conflict is the main driver and that the volumes Russia has promised would barely move the market.
