‘Reagan Stood His Ground’ – Republicans Lose Patience With Trump’s ‘Escalation Management’

WASHINGTON DC – Now that US President Donald Trump’s apparent “two weeks” deadline laid out for the Kremlin is up without a ceasefire in Ukraine, key Republican Senators are taking a fresh swipe at the White House for its inaction towards Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

“Weakness is what provokes a KGB man like Putin,” Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) said Thursday in his address to the Senate floor, urging Trump to refrain from “making the same mistake” as his predecessor, Joe Biden.

“Biden was too timid in his approach, trying to manage escalation, “ he explained. “Had the West instead given the Ukrainians what they needed earlier, they might have pushed Russia out of their country by now,” he said.

Grassley added, “President Trump ought not to make the same mistake that President Biden made. I think Putin thinks that he can play President Trump.”

Although the US President has recently floated that the Kremlin could be “tapping us along”, he has been veering away from overtly criticizing Putin, while openly berating Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Speaking to reporters at the White House on Thursday, Trump repeated his previous statements that he was unhappy with both Russia and Ukraine for not reaching a peace agreement.

“I’m very disappointed in Russia, but also in Ukraine, because agreements could have been reached,” Trump said. “They’re losing five to six thousand people a week – mostly soldiers, but also civilians, because cities are being bombarded with missiles again.”

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Back on Capitol Hill, Republican lawmakers, such as Grassley, believe that Putin will only respond to strength, and that the Congress “ought to give President Trump the tools to stand up to Putin” with strong sanctions that, as Senator Grassley put it, “plug the loopholes in the current Biden sanctions.”

Grassley is among the 84 Senators who support Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Richard Blumenthal’s (D-CT) Sanctioning Russia Act of 2025, which calls for “bone-crushing” sanctions to cripple the Russian war machine. The authors of the bill believe that Putin lies to Trump to dodge new sanctions and keep his brutal war going

“Putin’s lackey, former ‘puppet’ President Medvedev, admitted recently that what Russia wants is not peace but in his words ‘swift victory’ and, again, in his words, a ‘complete destruction’ of the Ukrainian Government,” Grassley said in his speech.

Another Republican Senator, Bill Cassidy (R-LA), said Wednesday night that one way the US could effectively help Ukraine is by crushing Russia’s oil trade, particularly in Europe.

“The EU using more US liquefied natural gas throws a wrench in Vladimir Putin’s war machine. Last year, the EU paid 22 billion Euros for Russian natural gas and, again, Putin used that money to fund his war,” he said, adding, “We can help them by saying: ‘Don’t buy Putin’s gas to fuel his war, by ours.’”

Cassidy recalled that following Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the US and Europe helped Kyiv stand up against Putin. “Let’s use our energy to do it even more so,” he said, echoing the Graham/Blumenthal bill.

Senator Grassley also urged Trump not to hesitate to stand up to the Russian dictator. He went on to draw historic examples, such as former US President Ronald Reagan’s infamous 1987 speech at the Brandenburg Gate during which the Republican president dared to call for the then-Soviet Union’s General Secretary to “tear down” the Berlin Wall.

“Those lines were nearly left out of [Reagan’s] speech after the advisers from the State Department and the National Security Council claimed that the statement was, in their words, ‘too provocative.’ But President Reagan stood his ground. He wanted to speak directly to the hearts of the divided world and take a moral stance against tyranny,” Grassley reminded.

He then concluded: “It turned out that Reagan’s words were prophetic—not provocative. President Reagan’s words resonated with millions of East Germans. These East Germans dreamed of freedom. Two years later, the wall came down.”