The editorial board of the conservative Wall Street Journal joined the pile-on of Donald Trump for betraying his friendship with the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC).
And they didn’t pull their punches.
“President Trump’s assistance to Vladimir Putin keeps growing by the day, and in the latest example he stuck a shiv in the back of the legacy of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham,” the board wrote in an editorial.
The board said Trump waived tariffs for an indefinite period against the top buyers of Russian energy covered by the Graham bill, which passed the Senate 86-11. His executive order also waives new sanctions on Russian political and military officials, government entities, financial institutions, the energy industry and the shadow fleet Moscow uses to evade sanctions, the board wrote.
Trump "offered no explanation" beyond a statement that “the issuance of such a waiver at this time is in the national interests of the United States,” the WSJ board accused. The White House has said enforcing the sanctions now would impede U.S. efforts to negotiate a peace agreement.
“The opposite is true, and Mr. Trump is now Mr. Putin’s best friend in the world, after perhaps China’s Xi Jinping,” the editors wrote.
The board wrote that Putin responded Friday night with "one of the largest attacks" on Ukrainian energy infrastructure in the four-and-a-half-year war, including strikes on more than 15 power generation and transmission facilities.
On Sunday, the editorial said, Trump posted that he doesn’t “want to do anything that will drive, foolishly, Russia away from the bargaining table.” The editors countered that “he’s been courting Mr. Putin this way for two years, to no avail.”
The board also pointed to Trump dropping sanctions on Russian diesel sales, which it called a $4.5 billion windfall for Russian energy companies, and to threats to cut off U.S. intelligence to Kyiv. Trump has denied threatening to stop sharing intelligence, Euronews reported. The editors added that the administration still hasn’t explained who ordered speed limits on SpaceX’s Starshield satellite service used in Ukraine.
The editorial urged “a bipartisan reckoning” after the Nov. 3 election over Trump’s “budding alliance with the Kremlin against Ukraine, Europe and American interests.”
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