President Donald Trump has waived sanctions on Russian energy and says the move keeps Moscow at the negotiating table over the war in Ukraine, a decision his Energy Secretary defended on Fox as the toughest sanctions regime Russia has ever faced with one narrow carrot attached. The waiver has drawn criticism from Democrats and some Republicans, and the argument over it spread across X on Monday, carried by accounts on the left and the right that read the same decision in opposite ways.
Speaking on Fox, the Energy Secretary said the administration has not lifted sanctions on Russian oil or Russian oil exports. "We have not lifted any of the sanctions on Russian oil and Russian oil exports," he said, describing the work of Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent as producing "the toughest sanctions that Russia's ever faced." What the administration is offering, he said, is an incentive on diesel specifically. Russia is not currently exporting diesel, and the waiver would let diesel reach the market sanction-free. "If they could produce diesel and put it on the market, we're giving that we're basically putting a carrot out there to saying, hey, if you could put some diesel on the market, that would go sanction-free," he said. "That would help American farmers, American truckers, American ranchers."
Gunther Eagleman, who has 1.8 million followers on X, posted the clip with a headline rejecting the idea that Trump had gone soft on Moscow: "NO, TRUMP DID NOT GO SOFT ON RUSSIA. HE'S PLAYING CHESS." Eagleman pointed to diesel at six dollars and thirty-one cents a gallon, almost three dollars higher than a year earlier, and quoted the Secretary saying the sanctions remain in place. In the interview, the Secretary argued that more diesel supply anywhere in the world market would lower prices at home, and that the administration inherited high prices from policies he said had shut down refineries and stopped drilling and LNG exports.
The Democratic response came from Senator Dick Durbin, who has 683,000 followers on X. Durbin posted that he and colleagues had spoken with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky about the war and about "the effects of President Trump's sanctions relief for Russia." Durbin wrote that "Trump's oil handouts to Vladimir Putin undermine the war effort" and that he made Congress's position clear on the call. The post was cut off mid-sentence in what was published.
Occupy Democrats, an account with 738,000 followers, framed the decision as a betrayal serious enough to split the Murdoch media empire from the President, writing that the waiver is "so DANGEROUS that even the Murdoch media empire is turning against him." The post described the Murdoch outlets as a "multi-tentacled right-wing propaganda machine" now calling out the President for "cozying up" to Russia. The post was likewise truncated in what was published.
Coverage elsewhere described a bipartisan reaction. The Atlantic reported that the waiver came shortly after Trump lifted restrictions on Russian diesel sales to the United States and other markets, and that the moves had produced "a rare moment of bipartisan disgust," with Democrats and Republicans sharing alarm at what the magazine called a betrayal. Newsweek reported that the President was defending the waiver amid Republican backlash, and other coverage said Trump had blocked numerous sanctions on Russia two days before they were due to take effect, writing on Truth Social that the suspension keeps peace negotiations going. Senator Darline Graham of South Carolina, who championed the sanctions bill Trump waived, said she would prefer to keep sanctions pressure on Russia and that she looked forward to talking to the President.
Separately, Clash Report, an account with 895,000 followers, posted video of Trump discussing Iran and the roles of Russia and China. In the clip, Trump says Russia "could have done a lot more to help Iran" and that "Russia has done very little for Iran," that China could have done more as well, and that "When China does not that much, maybe nothing, almost. But very little for Iran, and Russia does very little for Iran, I view that as being a very positive thing."
Mario Nawfal, an account with 3.9 million followers, posted a different clip from the same remarks, in which Trump is asked about a trilateral meeting with President Xi. In that clip Trump says: "not so much in Ukraine, because Russia, frankly, has been fine on Ukraine. They haven't been doing much." Nawfal's post, credited to a writer named Daniyal, pushed back on the comment, noting that more than six hundred thousand Ukrainians have been left without power by Russian strikes.
Infowars, an account with 707,000 followers, promoted a live broadcast tying the sanctions shift to questions over Ukraine peace talks while pivoting to unrest in France and backlash against President Emmanuel Macron.
Next News Network could not independently verify the underlying claims about the sanctions waiver or its effects.
Our Take
The White House is asking Americans to accept a simple trade: a narrow opening for Russian diesel in exchange for lower prices at the pump and leverage at the negotiating table. The Energy Secretary's case is that the sanctions architecture is untouched and that a single product can move without breaking it. That is a reasonable argument, and it deserves a straight answer to one question: if the sanctions are the toughest Russia has ever faced, why does Moscow get relief on anything before the shooting stops?
The bipartisan criticism is the tell. When a sanctions bill a Republican senator championed gets waived and that senator says she would rather keep the pressure on, the administration has a sales job at home, not just in Moscow. Republicans who spent years demanding maximum pressure on Putin are now being asked to call a diesel exemption chess. They may do it. They should not pretend it is cost-free.
The President's own words do not help. Saying Russia has been "fine on Ukraine" and "haven't been doing much" while six hundred thousand Ukrainians sit without power is not tough diplomacy. It is a gift to every critic who says the administration has decided Ukraine is someone else's problem. If the strategy is pressure plus incentives, the President should sound like it, because right now the loudest voices making the administration's case are the ones explaining what it did not do.
