The Louisiana Republican also said his party should do something about inflation ahead of the midterm elections but that it’s “not likely.”
Sept. 6, 2026
Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., criticized Republican leadership on a number of issues including the Trump administration’s handling of the Ukraine peace process and Senate leaders’ response to inflation woes.
Kennedy told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” on Sunday he believes the Trump administration should take a different approach to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“This guy’s a pirate. He’s got blood under his fingernails. He doesn’t care about a bunch of pretty talk,” Kennedy said Sunday, as U.S. envoys meet with leaders on both sides of the conflict. “You don’t get any credit for kissing his ass. You’ve got to show him you mean business.”
Last week, the House failed to pass a Russian sanctions bill that the Senate approved in August.
“We should have passed that Russian sanctions bill, and we’ve got another chance to do it,” the Louisiana senator said. “Then we ought to help Ukraine and help Europe. They’re doing OK on their own, but we can provide them intelligence.”
Kennedy’s comments come as President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and the president’s special envoy Steve Witkoff met with Putin in Russiaand Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv this weekend.
“We got Putin down. We’re choking him to death. We’re choking him. We’ve got to choke him to death. That’s what he understands,” the senator added. “I’m not putting down any of the talk, and I think talk is good and it can be helpful. But I won’t faint with surprise if our guys don’t come out of there without a deal.”
Kennedy also weighed in on the ongoing military conflict with Iran, telling “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker that the war will “probably not” end before the upcoming midterm elections.
Still, he praised the Trump administration’s decision to launch the military conflict, telling Welker: “We have accomplished all of our objectives in Iran. … There’s just one problem: the Strait [of Hormuz] is semi-closed.”
The senator said that with the strait still blockaded by the U.S. military, gas prices in the U.S. likely won’t drop soon.
“The blockade was a smart play. It’s hurting the Iranians badly. It’s hurting the government,” Kennedy said. “I think we ought to leave it on for a few more months if we can stand the pain at the pump.”
Kennedy on Sunday also expressed doubt that Republicans in Congress would be able to do anything to lower costs or tackle inflation before November’s midterm elections, lightly criticizing his own leadership for not dealing with the issue sooner.
He described the economy as “solid” and pointed to “low” unemployment numbers but said inflation is “a big if.”
“It’s gutting people like a fish. Inflation is pernicious. And we’ve had it for a few years now. It’s been up and down since President Biden’s administration,” Kennedy said. “What we ought to do is something about it. I’m not blaming it on the president or the House. The Senate Republicans, about five months ago, for a reconciliation bill, we should have addressed it. We didn’t for a couple reasons. Number one, I couldn’t convince the majority leader to put a bill like that on the floor. And number two, we’re probably three or four votes short.”
Asked whether Republicans have enough time to address inflation before the midterm elections, Kennedy said, “We can do anything we want to in reconciliation and ask the House to come back and do it.”
Kennedy highlighted a procedural move Senate Republicans could use to pass some legislation without support from Senate Democrats but cast doubt on whether they would. “I’m not saying we will do that, certainly based on our record the last five or six months. It’s not likely.”
At last!
Someone who is not from the Putin Wing of the GOP.
And that is why he will never be in government for Krasnov.
Predictable shit from the putler-rimmers. DT :
Trump envoy: Zelensky must ‘make compromises’ with Putin
Ukrainian president rules out handing over key territories to Russia, saying that is existential for his country.
Donald Trump’s top negotiator told Volodymyr Zelensky to make “compromises” with Vladimir Putin as he attempted to restart talks to end the Ukraine war.
Steve Witkoff, one of the US president’s closest allies, said the US had brought “important cogent ideas”, when he met the Ukrainian president and European security officials.
On Sunday, Mr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, met Mr Witkoff and Jared Kushner in Sophia Square, in front of Kyiv’s historic Saint Sophia Cathedral and opposite Ukraine’s intelligence agency headquarters, which had been hit by a Russian drone two days earlier.
At a press conference after formal talks, Mr Witkoff said: “It’s going to take both sides to make some compromises and narrow the issues between them, and we think we have the ingredients to get to that place.”
Rather than coming up with potential breakthroughs, the US envoys brought updated versions of peace plans from when negotiations stalled in February, sources told the Financial Times.
Mr Witkoff’s comments follow a meeting with Putin in Moscow on Saturday, in which he thanked the Russian president for “incredible memories”.
At the press conference after a meeting with the US peace envoys, Mr Zelensky ruled out handing over key territories to Russia as Putin has demanded.
In previous negotiations, peace talks have foundered on hardline demands from Russia. One of them is that Mr Zelensky should turn over the Donbas, even though Putin has failed to conquer it on the battlefield.
The Ukrainian president ruled out the concession again on Sunday, arguing it was existential for his country.
“The question of the Donbas is not just a question of the Donbas. I believe it is the question of the entire war – a war of survival and attrition,” he said.
“This territorial issue is the objective of the Russian side. It acts as a Ukrainian outpost across many dimensions.”
Mr Zelensky also said he was counting on the US to pass a sanctions bill, which would impose steep tariffs on Russia’s trading partners to starve its war machine, which had been sponsored by the late senator Lindsey Graham.
Mr Kushner, who praised the Ukrainian president’s “strength”, repeatedly suggested that the talks could fail and he did not know whether a “peace package” was possible.
Both Russia and Ukraine pledged to halt strikes against each other’s capitals for three days during the US envoys’ visit. But Ukrainian authorities say Russian forces have continued to attack other locations across Ukraine.
John Kennedy, the Republican senator for Louisiana and ally of Mr Trump, on Sunday urged the House to pass the sanctions bill when it returned from recess on Monday, and sounded doubtful about the prospects of a deal.
“Vladimir Putin, this guy’s a pirate. He’s got blood under his fingernails, he doesn’t care about a bunch of pretty talk,” he told NBC News on Sunday. “You don’t get any credit for kissing his ass. You’ve got to show him you mean business.
“I’m not putting down any of the talk. And I think talk is good and it can be helpful. But I won’t be surprised if our guys don’t come out of there without a deal.”
The American delegation was accompanied to the talks by the three security advisers from Britain, France and Germany: Jonathan Powell, Günter Sautter, and Emmanuel Bonne.
Mr Witkoff, a former real estate developer who has established himself as Mr Trump’s most trusted negotiator, was making his first visit to Kyiv. He had never visited the Ukrainian capital before, but estimated he had travelled to Moscow roughly eight times.
He has previously been caught coaching the Russian side on how to flatter Mr Trump to get what they want out of negotiations. He appeared to follow the same playbook when sitting down in the Red Room at the Kremlin.
“We were all talking about when we retire, we’ll have all these incredible stories and incredible memories, and yours will be right at the top of it all,” he told Putin.
While Mr Witkoff was in Moscow, Russia’s foreign minister said his country was at “the beginning of a real war” with the West after Berlin accused it of attacking Leipzig airport with an explosive drone.
Sergei Lavrov cited a string of German actions as evidence of escalating tensions, claiming that some echoed events leading up to the Second World War.
Germany has expelled the Russian consulate general from Bonn, as well as closing the Russian House, a cultural centre in Berlin, in response to the failed drone attack in Leipzig.
The attack, discovered in early August, amounts to one of the most brazen acts of sabotage that Russia has attempted in Europe.
Mr Lavrov told a Russian state TV reporter: “This is, by and large, the start of a real war. They expelled the consulate general from Bonn. They’re closing the Russian House in Berlin. I remember that before the start of the Second World War… They want war again.”
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Moscow has waged a hybrid war on Germany and other Nato allies for their military support of Kyiv.
Hybrid warfare combines conventional tactics with covert methods – cyber attacks, disinformation campaigns, sabotage – designed to weaken the enemy without physical aggression.
Mr Lavrov’s comments came as AfD, the Kremlin-friendly German populist party, was predicted to win a landslide victory in a crucial regional election.
The DT, which is now owned by Axel Springer, is thankfully strongly opposed to AfD. A flurry of news stories about their victory has caused an absolute flood of Faragistas in the comments section. Broadly speaking, they all love Farage/AfD/Trump and of course fucking putler.
There is a serious crisis in the makjng : AfD nazi
scum would cancel all aid to Ukraine and make Germany a putinaZi satellite.
National Rally in France and Reform in the UK are also a deadly threat.
I was relieved to see that Kemi Badenoch’s Tories have just overtaken Reform in the polls. I hope she can consolidate and move onwards and upwards.
My comment on the AfD article was :
“The AfD is in favour of Putin’s genocide in Ukraine. We’ve seen where that goes before.
Horrible people.”
Reply : (I won’t name the person because I am actively engaging with them at the moment) :
The war against Ukraine is horrific but not genocide; that word is bandied about far too much. Also, support for AfD and their support of Russia is complex and not necessarily indicative of support for the Ukraine war itself. Dismissing the party and their supporters out of hand without understanding it is why they have gained 44%
My reply :
I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you are not a Putin-lover, like so many people on the far right and far left.
I might be wrong ….
State media RIA Novosti set out a clear intention of genocide in Feb 2022. You can Google it. Propaganda broadcasters were calling for Ukrainian cities to be bombed for years before 2022, clearly stating their objective to murder civilians.
There are a staggering number of documented war crimes and atrocities committed against civilians : it’s in the hundreds of thousands. 50,000 Ukrainian children have been kidnapped and brainwashed into hating Ukraine. That alone is classified as genocide.
Numerous world recognized experts have defined this as genocide.
YouTube : see “Professor Timothy Snyder on Russia’s clear genocidal intent in Ukraine.”
Then tell me there is no genocide.
I was downvoted by the Faragista scum.