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Browse major news stories and see what officials have said.

Sep 18, 2026· Updated

The Senate Passes the Russia and Iran Sanctions Bill 86-11 and Names It for Lindsey Graham a Month After He Died — "This Is a Big Effing Deal," Blumenthal Says, Quoting Graham's Last Words to Him

On August 7, 2026, the Senate passed the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026 by a vote of 86-11, breaking a stalemate that had lasted more than a year and handing the late South Carolina Republican a posthumous version of the bill he had spent years failing to move. The measure imposes primary and secondary sanctions on Russia and the financial network sustaining its war in Ukraine, targeting the "shadow fleet" of shell corporations and repurposed maritime infrastructure along with Russian officials, oligarchs, their family members and financial institutions. It authorizes tariffs of up to 100 percent on the five largest importers of Russian crude and natural gas by volume — in practice China and India — and extends the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996, renewing sanctions on Iran's energy and weapons sectors that were set to lapse at the end of the year. The bill had been blocked for months by the White House's unwillingness to accept binding sanctions authority. It moved only after a bipartisan group — Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Darline Graham Nordone (R-S.C.), Katie Britt (R-Ala.), Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Jim Risch (R-Idaho) — announced an agreement on July 28, seventeen days after Graham died at 71 at his Capitol Hill home. They said there was "no greater way to honor" his legacy. Blumenthal, a co-author, told the floor: "I'm not even going to try to channel my inner Lindsey Graham, except to say, as he said to me in some of his last words, 'This is a big effing deal.'" Graham's sister Darline Graham Nordone — appointed to his seat on Trump's recommendation — said he "believed that this was the most consequential piece of legislation that he had ever led." Not everyone was satisfied. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) forced a vote on an amendment limiting Trump's tariff authority under the bill; it failed 32-64. On the House side, Foreign Affairs ranking member Greg Meeks (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) warned that the final text "still contain[s] the broadest possible waiver authority for President Trump, who already has the power to impose these sanctions on Russia under U.S. law but has refused to do so," and Meeks said he opposed "handing President Trump a Trojan horse for tariff authorities he has repeatedly abused." The House is expected to take the bill up when members return from summer break on August 31.

“I wish Lindsey were here to celebrate this historic day. I know he would be so proud.”
Darline Graham Nordone (R-SC) · Sep 18, 2026

The U.S. Ambassador to Israel Says the British Government's "Jew Hate … Knows No Boundaries" — Aimed at a Jewish Foreign Secretary — and When Britain Bans West Bank Settlement Goods Two Days Later, He Warns of "Repercussions" and a Florida Congressman Threatens to Cut Britain Off From "Billions of Dollars"

On Tuesday, September 8, 2026, British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband announced that the United Kingdom will ban imports of all goods from Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, along with services — financing, construction, infrastructure, real estate and advertising — that support them. Miliband, who is Jewish, told Parliament that "there is ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in areas of the West Bank, perpetrated by settler terrorists" and that the government's "argument is not with the people of Israel … our argument is with the conduct of its government." He said France and Canada would follow. Prime Minister Andy Burnham briefed President Trump by phone on Monday before the announcement; Downing Street's readout did not describe Trump's response, and the Trump administration had privately urged London not to proceed. Israel's finance minister called for expelling the British ambassador and its security minister urged closing the British consulate in East Jerusalem. The American response came from the U.S. ambassador in Jerusalem and a Florida congressman. Two days earlier, on September 6, Ambassador Mike Huckabee had responded to a Miliband video describing medicines being blocked from Gaza by posting on X: "The Brits have lost it. The Jew hate of their government knows no boundaries and knows no facts." On the morning of the announcement Huckabee told the BBC's Today programme the ban was "a discrimination against the Jewish people," that "I don't know if they have thought it through," and that "the UK is a sovereign country; they can do what they want, but so is the US" — warning Britain could face "repercussions or retaliations" and suggesting states like Florida could act on their own. Rep. Randy Fine, who as a Florida legislator wrote the state's anti-boycott law, posted Monday night that any British company forced to comply would be barred from doing business with Florida's state and local governments: "Florida is one of Britain's largest trading partners. They should understand that their vanity project in support of Muslim terror could cost them billions of dollars." The episode lands as the Senate weighs a Democratic resolution on West Bank settlements and after the E1 settlement tenders that Britain cited as its trigger. No member of Congress had publicly criticized Huckabee's "Jew hate" remark about a Jewish foreign secretary as of the announcement, and the State Department had not issued its own statement on the British measures.

“I'll be speaking to Israel, I'll be speaking to them, and I'll find out what's their thinking... I understand what's going on. But I want to find out why all of a sudden has that happened.”
Donald Trump (R-FL) · Sep 9, 2026

Trump Calls Off Diplomacy and Declares an "ECONOMIC D-DAY" Against Iran — the White House Pivots From "Hammer Iran ASAP" to "Strangle Them," and a Senate Democrat Calls It a "Strategic Dead-End"

On August 18, 2026 — a day after the 60-day deadline in the US–Iran memorandum of understanding lapsed — President Trump instructed his negotiating team, including Vice President JD Vance and envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, to stop talking to Tehran, and posted on Truth Social that "there are no talks or conversations going on, or scheduled." White House officials told CNN the strategy had shifted from "hammer Iran ASAP" to "strangle them" over time. The next day, Trump put a name to it. In a Truth Social post he promised "the MOST CRUSHING ECONOMIC OPERATION EVER TAKEN AGAINST ANY COUNTRY," said Iran would face "Economic Warfare and Isolation on an unprecedented scale," and warned that any country whose banks, businesses, airports or government entities gave Iran "any type of lifeline" would face "TREMENDOUS Economic Consequences." He called it an "ECONOMIC D-DAY." Speaking to reporters the same day, Trump left the door to talks open — "maybe at some point" — while insisting "right now, I think the situation is so good." With Congress in August recess and the Senate not back until September 14, on-the-record congressional reaction was sparse. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a member of the Armed Services Committee, called the pivot evidence of a "strategic dead-end." Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi dismissed the announcement as a distraction from American debt.

“No, I'm doing much more than a nuclear deal. … We're going to have nuclear, that's 99.9% — but there's going to be a lot of other things on the table.”
Donald Trump (R-FL) · Sep 9, 2026

The Trump Administration Brings a Sanctioned Russian Finance Minister to a G20 Meeting on American Soil — Europe Refuses the Family Photo and Shaheen Says the White House Is Handing Putin a Platform

Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov — sanctioned by the United States in April 2022 — attended the U.S.-hosted G20 finance ministers' meeting in Asheville, North Carolina on August 31, 2026. It was his first in-person G20 appearance since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and he was there at the Trump administration's invitation. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent met Siluanov bilaterally on the sidelines. According to Reuters, when Siluanov raised areas of possible cooperation, Bessent cut him off, saying nothing was possible until the war ends. European finance ministers objected loudly: German Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil called the invitation "quite troubling" and said he would not pose for a photo with his Russian counterpart, and Siluanov was ultimately left out of the traditional family photo. Trump defended the invitation the next day. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, tied the episode directly to the stalled Russia sanctions bill that the Senate passed 86-11 in August and that the House has not taken up. The meeting landed the same week Russian strikes killed civilians in Kyiv for a sixth consecutive day.

“We like getting along with everybody. One of the reasons that I’m so successful, I get along with everybody.”
Donald Trump (R-FL) · Sep 1, 2026

The United States Designates a British Protest Group and an Italian Web-Hosting Collective as Global Terrorists — the First Sanctions Under Rubio’s "Far-Left Terrorism" Doctrine

On Wednesday, August 26, 2026, the State and Treasury Departments designated three organizations as Specially Designated Global Terrorists under Executive Order 13224, the first sanctions imposed under the administration's push to reorient counterterrorism policy toward what it calls violent far-left terrorism. The three are Palestine Action, a United Kingdom protest group proscribed by the British government in July 2025 after activists broke into RAF Brize Norton and damaged military aircraft; Autistici/Inventati, an Italy-based collective that provides encrypted email, web hosting and anonymity services and that the State Department describes as supplying "the digital infrastructure for Antifa cells"; and Masar Badil, a transnational pro-Palestinian movement the Treasury says operates as a front for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, along with two of its leaders. The designations block the groups' US assets and bar Americans from transacting with them. The action follows Secretary of State Marco Rubio's July 2026 summit in which delegations from more than 60 countries were pressed to treat far-left political violence as terrorism, and the administration's 2026 National Counterterrorism Strategy, which names violent far-left groups as one of three top threats — a reversal of the Biden-era emphasis on far-right and white supremacist violence. Civil liberties groups and Palestine Action itself say the designation criminalizes protest and civil disobedience. House Foreign Affairs Committee Democrats had already written to Rubio in July warning that the Department was politicizing counterterrorism work, hosting a conference focused exclusively on left-wing extremism while cutting the offices that assessed extremist violence of all kinds. No member of Congress had issued an on-record response to the designations themselves in the first 24 hours.

“Political terrorism has no place in our society, and we will continue to cut the financial lifelines of these groups until they are eliminated.”
Scott Bessent (R-SC) · Aug 26, 2026

After 47 Years, the United States Takes Syria Off the State Sponsors of Terrorism List — and Also Delists the Islamist Coalition That Toppled Assad

On August 24, 2026 Secretary of State Marco Rubio formally rescinded Syria's designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism, ending a listing that had been in place since 1979. The same action removed Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham — the Sunni Islamist coalition that led the campaign that toppled Bashar al-Assad in late 2024 and whose leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, now governs Syria — from the Specially Designated Global Terrorist list. The rescission followed the statutory sequence: Trump notified Congress of his intent on July 8, 2026, and the required 45-day congressional review period ran out without a resolution of disapproval. That is because the underlying policy had bipartisan backing. On July 2, Senate Foreign Relations ranking member Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) — an unusual trio — wrote to Rubio urging him to delist, arguing the legal grounds for the designation no longer existed and that it had become the single biggest obstacle to Syrian reconstruction and to keeping Russia, China and Iran out. Rubio framed the move as a reward for al-Sharaa's counterterrorism cooperation. Outside analysts, including at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, warned that the designation had rested on Syria's ties to Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran-backed groups and that those ties are not resolved by a paperwork change. No member of Congress went on record opposing the delisting.

“These actions represent another historic step by President Trump to give the Syrian people a path to prosperity.”
Marco Rubio (R-FL) · Aug 24, 2026

House Discharge Petition Forces Ukraine Aid Vote, Bypassing Speaker Johnson

A discharge petition introduced by Rep. Greg Meeks (D-NY) reached the required 218 signatures on May 13, 2026, forcing a House floor vote on the Ukraine Support Act (H.R. 2913) — bypassing Speaker Mike Johnson, who had blocked the legislation. The bill would authorize $1.3 billion in military aid and other assistance to Ukraine, up to $8 billion in loans, and impose new sanctions on Russia. Rep. Kevin Kiley (I-CA) provided the decisive 218th signature. All 215 House Democrats signed, joined by Republicans Brian Fitzpatrick (PA) and Don Bacon (NE). The vote is expected to be scheduled for early June. Even if the bill passes the House, it faces significant headwinds in the Republican-controlled Senate and from the White House. The development marks the sixth successful discharge petition of the 119th Congress — an extraordinary number for a maneuver that had succeeded only a handful of times in the previous quarter-century.

“A message to our Ukrainian friends: Help is on the way.”
Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) · May 13, 2026