U.S. Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, said on Saturday that “helping Putin in Ukraine is reckless,” warning that Russian President Vladimir Putin “would not stop with Ukraine and our NATO allies would be next.” He made the remarks in a post on X at 2:02 p.m. EDT (1802 GMT) on Oct. 17.
The post did not name President Donald Trump or any specific policy. It came the day after Trump signed an executive order waiving sanctions, restrictions and duties under the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, including a 500% duty on goods from Russia.
“Putin is fanatically committed to restoring Russia’s glory days, calling the collapse of the Soviet Union ‘the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century’ and claiming Russia was ‘robbed’ in the breakup,” Cornyn wrote. The post contained no links, images or video, and Cornyn did not add replies to it.
Earlier that day, Cornyn had addressed the waiver directly. At 7:31 a.m. EDT he wrote “Lindsey would be appalled,” referring to the late Senator Lindsey Graham, the law’s namesake, and shared a news report on the order. He later shared a National Review piece headlined “Congress Must Investigate Trump’s Aid and Comfort to Putin” in a separate post, and, about an hour before the “reckless” post, an American Enterprise Institute commentary headlined “Trump Just Can’t Figure Out How to Make Peace in Ukraine,” in another post.
Cornyn voted for the law. The Senate passed H.R. 5334 86-11 on Aug. 7, with Cornyn voting yes, according to the Senate roll call. The House agreed to the Senate amendments 262-159 on Sept. 16, House Clerk records show, and Trump signed the bill on Sept. 18.
The order waives the law’s duties in sections 112 and 113, which also include 100% duties on goods from the five largest buyers of Russian oil and gas that make new purchases on or after Oct. 18. It also waives the sanctions and restrictions in sections 102(a), 102(d), 102(e), 103 through 111 and 117.
Trump wrote in the order that he had sent Congress a certification that the waivers are “in the national interests of the United States,” along with a report explaining the basis, as section 115 of the law requires. The order keeps in place sanctions imposed under earlier executive orders tied to the national emergency on Russia.
Administration officials have defended the decision. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, in a clip posted by the State Department, that Trump “wants to take this 60-day period to analyze what imposing both sanctions and tariffs will mean for the global economy and the U.S. economy.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent defended the order in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. Asked by moderator Kristen Welker why Trump was “rewarding a dictator who invaded Ukraine,” Bessent said the law gives the president “60 days to assess the situation” and that the Europeans “continue to gorge on Russian energy.” He said European allies had refused his request to join the United States in putting secondary tariffs on China and India, and asked, “Why should the U.S. go it alone, Kristen?” according to an NBC transcript. After Welker played his January 2025 confirmation-hearing remark that the Biden administration’s Russia sanctions “were not fulsome enough,” Bessent cited Trump’s sanctions on Russian oil companies Rosneft and Lukoil and said “no one has been tougher on Russian sanctions than President Trump.” He also said “no sanctions were lifted on Friday,” when Trump signed the order, and that “the only thing that has been lifted is the diesel embargo.” The White House’s Rapid Response account posted clips of his remarks on Europe and his remarks on sanctions.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright described a separate Treasury license allowing Russian diesel sales as “a carrot to try to end a war; it’s not an economic lifeline for Russia,” in a clip posted by the same account on Sunday. That license, the Office of Foreign Assets Control’s General License 135, runs through April 7, 2027.
The two Putin phrases Cornyn cited come from separate speeches. In his April 25, 2005, address to the Federal Assembly, Putin said the collapse of the Soviet Union was “a major geopolitical disaster of the century,” in the Kremlin’s English translation, which differs from the wording Cornyn quoted.
The “robbed” remark comes from Putin’s March 18, 2014, address on Crimea, delivered as Russia moved to annex the peninsula. “It was only when Crimea ended up as part of a different country that Russia realised that it was not simply robbed, it was plundered,” Putin said, according to the Kremlin transcript.
Cornyn has criticized a Democratic administration over a similar step. In May 2021, then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken waived sanctions on Nord Stream 2 AG and its chief executive, citing the national interest. Two months later, Cornyn reposted a post from his campaign account saying President Joe Biden “has no problem making deals to help Putin construct the Russian Nord Stream 2 pipeline.”
Cornyn, first elected to the Senate in 2002, lost the Republican nomination for his seat to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in a May 26 runoff. His term ends in January.
The warnings that Putin “would not stop with Ukraine” and that NATO allies “would be next,” and the description of Putin as “fanatically committed,” are Cornyn’s assessments; the executive order describes the waivers as in the national interest. Cornyn’s post did not say who he believes is helping Putin. The certification and report the order says were sent to Congress have not been made public, and the 60-day timeframe was cited by Rubio and Bessent; the order sets no end date. As of Monday, no White House, State Department or Treasury post responding to Cornyn’s statement was found, and his Senate office had not posted a press release on the waiver.