During a press briefing on Wednesday, Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA) and Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) were asked about President Trump's 'shift in tone' towards Russian President Vladimir Putin.
00:00Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There's a debate in the Senate right now over Russia's sanctions package.
00:07Lindsey Graham, Richard Blumenthal are trying to push Leader Thune to bring that particular bill to the floor.
00:14I wanted to get the caucus's thoughts on imposing additional sanctions on Russia.
00:19And what do you make of the President's shift in tone towards Vladimir Putin?
00:24He's put out some recent, I guess, truth social posts saying that he's surprised by, you know, Putin's unwillingness to engage in good faith peace talks.
00:35I want to get your thoughts on that.
00:37I think many of us in Capitol Hill warned him in dealing with Vladimir Putin.
00:43And I think that you're seeing that now. This seems like the upside down, right?
00:47Donald Trump's former friends and Vladimir Putin and Elon Musk are now being are now not besties.
00:53I don't know. I can't keep track of it anymore. But Russia is a is a threat.
00:59We have voted for sanctions for Russia previously.
01:03We continue to view it through the lens of national security.
01:08And we will be willing and ready to make deliberations and votes if there are packages and proposals.
01:15But I think right now the effort that the Senate is undertaking is more of an effort to get Donald Trump to be supportive of Russian sanctions than it is to get the House of Representatives to be supportive of Russian sanctions.
01:28They clearly are trying to work Donald Trump to get to to this position.
01:34And we'll see what happens in the in the weeks to come.
01:39Vladimir Putin has repeatedly said that Ukraine is a part of Russia and Putin attacked Ukraine, Crimea.
01:48And then when there was not a good response from the West, he attacked again Ukraine a second time.
01:55And my view is Putin will not stop until his troops are defeated on the battlefield.
02:01And I urge the Trump administration to understand that fact.
02:06And I believe the best way to get Putin to the negotiating table is to apply maximum pressure in terms of sanctions.
02:14Give Ukraine what they need to defeat Russian troops on the battlefield.
02:17And then we'll get Putin to the negotiating table.
