Shaheen spoke with NPR's Steve Inskeep from Croatia, where she is on a congressional delegation visit to southeastern Europe. She is one of a bipartisan group of senators who object to the president lifting sanctions on Russian energy. Trump also claimed an "energy ceasefire" that did not materialize.
That 2022 law, she said, expressly prohibited Russian imports unless the administration first consulted Congress and Congress agreed to conditions. The administration has not done that, she said. She also questions whether Russia has any diesel to give, pointing to long lines of cars and trucks waiting to fill their tanks after strikes on its energy infrastructure.
Shaheen calls the deal an effort to deflect blame. Americans face high gas and diesel prices because of the war in Iran, she said, and the president is trying to pretend otherwise. He started that war, in her telling, and Vladimir Putin is playing him. Asked whether the United States needs to do something given that war, she said the administration should find a way to end it and keep negotiating. It is not willing to, she said.