Trump Has Not Signed Russia Sanctions Bill and Has Not Even Responded to Putin Expelling 755 US Diplomats

President Spends Weekend at His Golf Club

On Tuesday the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill increasing sanctions on Russia, and barring the President from reducing or eliminating any sanctions without the expressed approval of Congress. On Thursday the Senate passed a similar bill. The vote in the House was was 419-3, and in the Senate 98-2, making it one of the very few veto-majority bills this Congress has been able to pass.

It was a rare move against President Donald Trump, (not to mention Russia,) by the Republican-majority House and Senate.

On Friday, the White House received the bill.

While the White House begrudgingly signaled the President would sign the Russia sanctions bill, President Trump has yet to do so.

Also on Friday, Russia announced it would retaliate, by expelling U.S. diplomats from Moscow. 

On Sunday, President Vladimir Putin personally announced he was expelling 755 American State Dept. officials from Russia. 

Calling it “the harshest such diplomatic move since a similar rupture in 1986,” The New York Times reports “Putin said Russia had run out of patience waiting for relations with the United States to improve.”

“We waited for quite a long time that, perhaps, something will change for the better, we held out hope that the situation would somehow change,” Mr. Putin said in an interview on state-run Rossiya 1 television, which published a Russian-language transcript on its website. “But, judging by everything, if it changes, it will not be soon.”

Mr. Putin said the staff reduction was meant to cause real discomfort for Washington and its representatives in Moscow.

“Over 1,000 employees — diplomats and technical workers — worked and continue to work today in Russia; 755 will have to stop this activity,” he said.

President Trump has not responded to Russia expelling U.S. diplomats, and has not even acknowledged the Russian retaliation, which also includes Moscow seizing two U.S. owned diplomatic compounds. 

Since the Russian sanctions bill passed and Russia first announced it would retaliate against the U.S. President Trump has found time to encourage police brutality at a speech he delivered to local suburban New York law enforcement officers, spend Saturday and Sunday at his Virginia golf course after demanding the Senate not leave town until it passed an ObamaCare repeal bill. (On Sunday, his budget director echoes the president’s remarks.)

Trump has also found time to erupt in three separate Twitter tantrums on Saturday, including attacking China for not being able to contain North Korea’s increased development of long-range missiles and nuclear weapons, and attacking Republican Senators as “quitters” for not passing an ObamaCare repeal bill, while insisting Russia was against him during the election.

He also threatened to sabotage the health care coverage of millions of Americans, and Congress. It’s actually illegal for Trump to do anything to reduce the compensation of members of Congress, which includes benefits, like health care.

UPDATE: August 2, 2017 – BREAKING: Trump Signs Russian Sanctions Into Law but Adds ‘Statement Raising Red Flags’

On Twitter, many noticed Trump’s seeming intransigence on the Russia sanctions bill.