President Trump on Sunday pressed congressional Republicans to expand a stalled bipartisan Russia sanctions bill to include Iran, framing the move as a tribute to the legislation’s chief architect, the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.
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“Republicans should add Iran to the Russian Sanctions Bill,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “That’s what Lindsey wanted to do, and it was going to happen. IMPORTANT!!!”
Graham introduced the Sanctioning Russia Act of 2025 in April, but the measure languished for months while the administration worked to broker an end to Russia’s war against Ukraine through direct talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Momentum picked up in recent days after Graham secured a breakthrough with the White House to advance the package shortly before his death.
Trump’s push comes as his patience with Putin appears to be wearing thin. With the Russian leader continuing to stall on a peace settlement, the president has signaled growing openness to tougher measures on Moscow .
It also arrives as the administration confronts a renewed and dangerous escalation with Iran. After more than a week of hostilities that reignited a conflict dating back to joint U.S.-Israeli strikes in late February, American forces carried out retaliatory strikes Saturday following an Iranian attack that killed two U.S. service members in Jordan. Trump called the deaths of the two Americans “a very sad thing.”
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U.S. Central Command said the strikes were designed to further curb Iran’s ability to threaten commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and to deliver punishment to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps units behind the missile and drone attack on American troops.
On Capitol Hill, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, both said advancing Graham’s bill would be a fitting way to honor him. Thune said it’s something lawmakers have “been interested in for a long time.”
Shaheen had stood alongside Graham as part of the bipartisan coalition that announced the White House’s earlier support for the bill.
Some Democrats have balked at provisions in the current text, which hands the president broad tariff authority and locks in sanctions already imposed by executive order, a change that would make it far harder for a future president to unwind them.
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