Sen. John Kennedy Breaks with Trump on Putin Strategy, Pushes for Stalled Russia Sanctions Bill

Since Witkoff and Kushner left Putin in Moscow on September 5 and headed to Kyiv, one of the loudest Republican voices on Ukraine strategy has gone public with his own doubts about how the White House is playing the hand.

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., told NBC News' "Meet the Press" on Sunday that the administration should stop trying to talk nice with the Russian president. "This guy's a pirate. He's got blood under his fingernails. He doesn't care about a bunch of pretty talk," Kennedy said. "You don't get any credit for kissing his ass. You've got to show him you mean business."

Kennedy's target isn't just Putin. It's Congress, including his own party. The Senate passed a Russia sanctions bill in August. The House failed to pass it last week. Kennedy wants another vote.

"We should have passed that Russian sanctions bill, and we've got another chance to do it," he said on "Meet the Press." "Then we ought to help Ukraine and help Europe. They're doing OK on their own, but we can provide them intelligence."

He made the same case earlier on Fox News' "Sunday Briefing" with host Jackie Heinrich, according to Breitbart and Fox News. Asked whether the sanctions bill has stalled partly because it would hit China, Kennedy didn't dodge it. "Russia's not our friend," he said. "We've got him down right now and we're choking him. We need to choke him to death. It took us a year to pass the Russian sanctions bill. The House needs to go pass it and we need to implement it and Russia will come to the table."

Kennedy also argued Iran and China are actively propping up Russia's war effort, framing Xi Jinping as the "quarterback" of an axis running through Moscow, Tehran, and Beijing. "You need to put down the bong if you think that Iran and China are not helping Russia in that war," he said, per Breitbart.

A GOP Senator Betting Against His Own Administration's Talks

Kennedy isn't predicting failure outright, but he's not betting on success either. "I'm not putting down any of the talk, and I think talk is good and it can be helpful," he told Kristen Welker on "Meet the Press." "But I won't faint with surprise if our guys don't come out of there without a deal."

A sitting Republican senator voicing this publicly while Kushner and Witkoff are still working the diplomatic track is significant. The Kremlin has already said the three-hour Moscow talks left Russia confident it can still take all of eastern Ukraine, and Moscow paused strikes on Kyiv for 72 hours following the meeting. Supporters of the administration's approach could reasonably argue that a negotiated pause and direct access to Putin represent real, if incremental, progress, and that sanctions alone haven't ended the war in three-plus years of fighting. Kennedy's own position, that pressure works better than diplomacy, is a legitimate strategic disagreement, not an accusation of bad faith.

Iran, Gas Prices and the Midterms

On Iran, Kennedy told Welker the conflict will "probably not" end before the midterms, even as he praised the administration's decision to strike Iranian targets. "We have accomplished all of our objectives in Iran," he said. "There's just one problem: the Strait [of Hormuz] is semi-closed."

Kennedy said the U.S. blockade of the strait is deliberately squeezing Tehran and that Americans should expect to keep paying for it at the pump. "The blockade was a smart play. It's hurting the Iranians badly," he said. "I think we ought to leave it on for a few more months if we can stand the pain at the pump."

He was less charitable to his own leadership on the economy, calling inflation "pernicious" and saying it's "gutting people like a fish," despite what he called a "solid" economy with low unemployment. Kennedy conceded he doesn't expect Congress to act on cost-of-living issues before November.

The open question now is whether House Republican leadership brings the sanctions bill back for another vote before the midterms, and whether Witkoff and Kushner's Kyiv leg produces anything more concrete than the 72-hour pause the Kremlin already granted.