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SENATE Signals Readiness To Hit Russia With Hard Sanctions If Peace Deal Fails

Senate Stands Ready To Provide Economic Leverage If Peace Talks Fail
By Alex Miller Fox News

Published August 18, 2025 2:34pm EDT 

Lawmakers are watching President Donald Trump's meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy closely and are ready to 
pounce with hard-hitting sanctions against Moscow if need be.

Trump, Zelenskyy and a slew of European leaders are set to meet at the White House on Monday, just days after the president's 
summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Anchorage, Alaska.

How that meeting went depends on what side of the aisle lawmakers are on, with Republicans lauding Trump for seeking a diplomatic 
end to the war, while Democrats accused the president of legitimizing Putin and giving him a grand stage.

Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told Fox News Digital in a statement that 
"America's strength and leadership" were on full display under Trump.

"European nations are also stepping up to join us in this show of strength to Vladimir Putin," the Wyoming Republican said. "The 
killing needs to stop. A long-standing, verifiable peace between Ukraine and Russia is going to be good for Ukraine, Russia, Europe 
and the United States."

But some lawmakers agree that, should a deal not be reached, crippling sanctions are the next best step.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., commended Trump for 'dogged determination" to find a peaceful end to the war, and to 
engage with "all parties in a way his predecessor refused to do." But, he signaled that the Senate was standing by to hit Moscow 
with sanctions if needed.

"As peace talks continue today in Washington, the U.S. Senate stands ready to provide President Trump any economic leverage needed 
to keep Russia at the table to negotiate a just and lasting peace in Ukraine," Thune said on X.

Last month, Trump declared that Putin would have a 50-day deadline to reach a ceasefire agreement, which the president recently 
shortened to "10 or 12" days. While no such immediate agreement appeared to be reached between the two leaders, the Trump 
administration said the Russian leader agreed to security agreements for Ukraine.

Still, Senate Democrats were not satisfied with the end of the meeting and, ahead of Trump's second high-stakes summit with 
Zelenskyy, demanded that Congress move ahead with a sanctions package.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the top ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said if Trump doesn't act, "Congress must 
do so decisively by passing crushing sanctions when we return in the coming weeks."

"I will also continue to press for my bipartisan legislation to bolster Ukraine's defense and negotiating position with additional 
security assistance and my bipartisan bill to go after Russia's enablers in China," the New Hampshire Democrat said. "There is no 
appetite in Congress to entertain a relationship with Russia while Putin continues to kidnap Ukrainian children and murder innocent 
civilians."

And as for the meeting between Trump and Zelenskyy, lawmakers wanted to see a path toward peace.

"The interests of the American people should come first, and that means finding a path to a negotiated peace," Sen. Mike Lee, R-
Utah, said in a statement to Fox News Digital. "Peace is also in the best interests of the Ukrainian people, who have been unjustly 
used as pawns in a proxy war even as they heroically resisted Russian aggression. One way or another, Americans should not send one 
dollar more to prolong this disastrous conflict."

And Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said in a statement to Fox News Digital that he was "glad that President Trump is engaging directly with 
President Zelenskyy and European leaders at the White House today to discuss Russia's war in Ukraine."

"Any decisions regarding next steps must involve these key leaders - they can't be dictated by Putin's bloodthirsty regime," he 
said.              
 

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"Trump Derangement Syndrome" Is a Real Mental Condition

All you need to know about "Trump Derangement Syndrome," or TDS.

"Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) is a mental condition in which a person has been driven effectively insane due to their dislike 
of Donald Trump, to the point at which they will abandon all logic and reason."

Justin Raimondo, the editorial director of Antiwar.com, wrote a piece in the Los Angeles Times in 2016 that broke TDS down into 
three distinct phases or stages:

"In the first stage of the disease, victims lose all sense of proportion. The president-elect's every tweet provokes a firestorm, 
as if 140 characters were all it took to change the world."

"The mid-level stages of TDS have a profound effect on the victim's vocabulary: Sufferers speak a distinctive language consisting 
solely of hyperbole."

"As TDS progresses, the afflicted lose the ability to distinguish fantasy from reality."

The Point here is simple: TDS is, in the eyes of its adherents, the knee-jerk opposition from liberals to anything and everything 
Trump does. If Trump announced he was donating every dollar he's ever made, TDS sufferers would suggest he was up to something 
nefarious, according to the logic of TDS. There's nothing - not. one. thing. - that Trump could do or say that would be received 
positively by TDSers.

The history of Trump Derangement Syndrome actually goes back to the early 2000s - a time when the idea of Trump as president was a 
punch line for late-night comics and nothing more.

Wikipedia traces its roots to "Bush Derangement Syndrome" - a term first coined by the late conservative columnist Charles 
Krauthammer back in 2003. The condition, as Krauthammer defined it, was "the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal people in 
reaction to the policies, the presidency - nay - the very existence of George W. Bush."