Turner urges Senate to advance Russia sanctions bill after Graham's death

Mike Turner urged the Senate to move Lindsey Graham’s Russia sanctions bill “this week,” saying the legislation should survive the senator’s death and still reach the president’s desk. Turner, an Ohio Republican and former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, made the case on Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan as Washington absorbed Graham’s death at 71 after a brief and sudden illness.

Turner said Graham had been pushing the sanctions package just days earlier at a NATO summit, where Turner joined him and other senators including Jeanne Shaheen, Chris Coons, Dick Durbin and Mike Rounds. Turner said the delegation met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and that Graham was still pressing the effort there. He said the bill had already passed the House, and that he had co-sponsored it.

The measure at the center of the fight is the Sanctioning Russia Act of 2025, introduced in April 2025 by Graham and Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal. Earlier versions went beyond direct sanctions on Moscow and targeted third countries buying Russian energy, including a proposed 500% tariff on imports from countries purchasing Russian oil, gas, uranium, petroleum products or petrochemicals. Support for the bill had grown to 85 senators, and lawmakers revived the effort in May 2026 after it had stalled for more than a year.

Turner tied the bill to Graham’s broader foreign-policy identity, placing him in the tradition of John McCain and Ronald Reagan, who backed allies without sending American troops to fight for them. He said the legislation would send an unmistakable signal that the United States stood with Ukraine, even as Republicans debate how far an “America first” foreign policy should go. Turner argued that the posture did not have to mean retreat, saying the country can be “America first” without being “America alone.”

The bill also gained momentum through an unusual alignment with the Trump administration. On July 10, Graham and Blumenthal said they had reached an agreement with the administration to move the revised legislation forward. That development came as sanctions supporters pointed to the scale of Russia’s energy trade, with China and India accounting for roughly 70% of it, as a reason to keep pressure on buyers as well as Moscow itself.

Graham’s death left an open question over whether the respect expressed by President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Senate Majority Leader John Thune would translate into votes. Turner’s argument was that Graham’s absence should sharpen, not slow, the push to pass the bill.