President Donald Trump has been flamed live on air for letting Vladimir Putin ignore him over Ukraine seven times by a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Senator Jeanne Shaheen, the ranking member of the committee, put Trump to the sword on CNN, telling host John Berman that Putin wouldn’t respond to anything other than “strength and pressure.”
Shaheen’s hawkish rhetoric stems from a pair of fruitless summits, first with Putin and then with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the sum of which currently amounts to nil in the quest for a ceasefire.
Asked by Berman what she believed was the “current status” in the peace process, the veteran Democrat Senator for New Hampshire said: “President Trump has now allowed Vladimir Putin to blow through seven deadlines that he has set since he came into office. And he’s continuing to allow Vladimir Putin to play him.”
Putin traveled to the U.S. in August, where Trump rolled out the red carpet, welcoming him to Anchorage. Trump left the meeting, telling gathered reporters, “We had an extremely productive meeting, many points were agreed to, and there are just a very few things left.” Five days later, Russia launched 574 drones and 40 missiles at Ukraine, one of the heaviest bombardments in weeks.
Meanwhile, Trump’s original 50-day ceasefire deadline expired Tuesday.
“The most obvious example was at the summit in Alaska, where he got virtually nothing from Vladimir Putin,” Shaheen said. “And what we’ve seen is more people killed in Ukraine because of President Trump’s failure to act on something that he said he was going to be focused on.
“The only thing that Vladimir Putin understands is strength and pressure. We need to fund the Ukrainians in terms of the military hardware they need. We need to provide the support to help them keep going in this fight.”
The Democrat then stated her support for the tabled Senate bill, the Sanctioning Russia Act of 2025, which would facilitate strict property and visa sanctions on individuals and businesses, as well as a 500 percent duty levy.
“We need to pass the Graham-Blumenthal sanctions bill that has over 80 sponsors in the Senate to really put pressure on Russia to come to the table to negotiate a peace deal,” she said.
The senator’s foreign policy concerns come against the backdrop of unprecedented cozying between the leaders of North Korea, China, and Russia, who presided over a spectacular Chinese military parade in Beijing to celebrate 80 years since victory over Japan in WWII, as part of a wider summit between leaders with anti-West sensibilities to discuss roadmaps for a new world order.
Trump, meanwhile, was less than impressed not to be there. “May President Xi and the wonderful people of China have a great and lasting day of celebration,” he wrote on Truth Social. “Please give my warmest regards to Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong Un, as you conspire against The United States of America.”
