Trump defended waiving the Graham law’s Russia sanctions, as his energy secretary called the diesel deal “a carrot to try to end a war” and his secretary of state said the diesel would have been sold anyway.
Trump signed an executive order late Friday, Oct. 16, waiving the Graham Act’s Russia sanctions and tariffs two days before they took effect. Six Republican senators and five House Republicans have joined Democrats asking him to reverse the related deal that lets Russian diesel into the U.S.
Trump signed the Graham law, which sanctions Russia and Iran, on Sept. 18. His aides then gave conflicting reasons for the diesel deal.
October 19, 2026 · Six stories, illustrated
He did not want to “drive, foolishly, Russia away from the bargaining table.”
Trump, on Truth Social.The deal is “a carrot to try to end a war,” not an economic lifeline for Russia.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright. The license itself asks for no ceasefire and no cut in attacks, per Treasury’s own text.“That diesel was going to be sold one way or the other.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who called the suspension a 60-day pause to study its effect on the U.S. and world economies.A bill from Rep. Gregory Meeks, a New York Democrat, filed Oct. 16, would void Treasury’s Russia licenses and bar new ones. Rep. Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican, cosponsors it.
Senate67 votes, so 20 Republicans if every Democrat and independent joins
6 signed · 14 more needed
House289 votes if all 433 members vote, so 75 Republicans
5 signed · 70 more needed
- A Republican who has joined Democrats in asking Trump to reverse the deal
- A Republican vote an override would still need
The counts are the reporting’s arithmetic: 67 Senate votes, so 20 Republicans if every Democrat and independent joins; 289 House votes if all 433 members vote, so 75 Republicans. Signing a letter is not a vote.
The waiver “dishonors the legacy of the late Senator Lindsey Graham.”
“I would choose to keep the pressure on Russia… because I don’t trust Putin and don’t trust Russia.”
She succeeded her brother.The order is “an important and truly historic moment.”
a gallon, the average
this year’s weekly peak
the pre-2026 record
Still open: Rubio’s 60 days has no automatic end. The order keeps the waivers in force until Trump or his officials decide “further action is appropriate.” The Graham law (Public Law 119-111) lets a president waive its penalties by sending Congress a written national-interest certification, and it sets no 60-day limit. A separate Oct. 9 Treasury license lifted sanctions on Russian diesel until April 7, 2027.
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Obama called the federal probe of Rep. Ilhan Omar’s citizenship “appalling,” and border czar Tom Homan said she could be stripped of her citizenship and deported if fraud is proven.
The Justice Department has not revealed its evidence, and the first Trump administration reviewed similar allegations in 2019 and found too little for a full investigation. Omar has not been charged.
In a long post on X on Sunday, Oct. 18, Obama called the federal pursuit of Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, an attempt to intimidate a critic of the president.
Omar’s age in the records when her father was naturalized in 2000
What investigators are asking. At 18 she would not have automatically become a citizen through him.
Officials have not said publicly what evidence shows she was 18 rather than the 17 her records list. A source told NBC that officials have cited conspiracy and false statements on immigration paperwork as possible charges. She has not been charged.
“The full weight of the federal government is being brought down on a law-abiding elected official because she has dared to criticize the president.”
He added that future presidents “in either party” could do the same.“If you lie during the naturalization process, there is a process to denaturalize somebody… I know things, but that’s the question for FBI.”
He said he has been told investigators have a “strong case.”“Unlike Joe Biden, President Trump has not weaponized the Department of Justice against his political foes.”
- Oct. 12
Federal agents search Omar’s Washington home and take her phone, in a criminal immigration-fraud probe tied to papers her late father filed, 22 days before her election.
- Oct. 13
U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro opens a review of Omar’s financial disclosures; Trump says he takes “no position” on deporting her.
- Oct. 14
Reports say a Minnesota grand jury has subpoenaed her relatives, and that her staff had earlier changed her listed birth year from 1981 to 1982.
- Oct. 16
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin says the case is headed to a grand jury; Omar’s lawyers ask for the seized items back.
- Her seat
- A finding would not by itself remove her from the House. The House judges its own members’ qualifications, including seven years of citizenship. It can unseat a member who lacks one by simple majority; expelling a member for misconduct takes two-thirds.
- No lawsuit needed
- If she was 18, she never derived citizenship from her father, and a 2017 immigration-board ruling (Matter of Falodun) lets DHS cancel such a certificate without a lawsuit.
- 305 cases
- Denaturalization suits the Justice Department filed from 1990 to 2017, about 11 a year, per the National Immigration Forum.
- At least 163 cases
- Civil cases it has filed since Jan. 20, 2025, by its own count.
A civil denaturalization case has no deadline; most criminal citizenship-fraud charges must be brought within 10 years, and this paperwork is 26 years old.
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A Ukrainian drone hit an oil terminal in St. Petersburg, Putin’s hometown, and Zelensky held a 40-minute call with U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.
The strike came after the refinery-only energy ceasefire Trump announced Oct. 11 broke down. Axios called the Sunday, Oct. 18 call Zelensky’s first with senior U.S. officials since Trump’s Oct. 9 deal lifting sanctions on Russian diesel.
After the strike, Trump went after Zelensky in public. On the call, they discussed meeting in person within days.
- Petersburg Oil Terminal
- Three tanks burning, one destroyed.
- Ruchyi fuel depot
- A separate site: a second tank destroyed.
- 12.5 million tonnes
- a year, the terminal’s rating
- 125.8 million tonnes
- of petroleum products Russia exported in 2025
- Primorsk
- Partly reloaded the day after its Sept. 12, 2025 strike.
- Ust-Luga
- Down roughly two weeks in March 2026. The Kyiv School of Economics put Russia’s forgone Baltic oil-export earnings in that March 23–April 5 outage at $1.76 billion.
Past Baltic port hits were short-lived.
- Oct. 9
Trump strikes his Russian diesel deal after, a U.S. official told Axios, Zelensky ignored six requests to stop hitting Russian refineries.
- Oct. 10
Trump says Ukraine needs “a new president.”
- Oct. 11
Trump announces an immediate energy ceasefire covering only refineries. Moscow does not confirm it, and Kyiv says it got no warning.
- Oct. 15
Ukraine hits a Russian refinery after a three-day pause. Zelensky says Russia never stopped and accuses Washington of cutting intelligence and throttling Starlink. Trump calls Zelensky “not a good guy.”
- Oct. 16
EU leaders say they “regret” Trump lifting Russian diesel sanctions.
- Sunday, Oct. 18
Zelensky’s 40-minute call with Witkoff and Kushner. He said they reviewed the teams’ Oct. 9 Miami talks and next diplomatic steps, per RBC-Ukraine.
Still open: the meeting. Axios describes it only as a possibility; no date, place or agenda has been announced.
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Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent declined three times to say whether Ukraine is a U.S. ally, and Zelensky said U.S. support for Putin would be a “historic mistake.”
Ukraine’s president and the U.S. Treasury secretary each made their case on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, Oct. 18. Zelensky said the U.S. briefly blocked intelligence sharing and slowed Starlink as a “message from American government”; Bessent called that “reckless.”
- Asked
He did not say.
The reporting does not quote this answer. - Asked again
He did not say.
The reporting does not quote this answer. - Pressed a third time
“I’m not the secretary of state. I’m not the president.”
“If United States will support Putin, I mean, it’s unbelievable, it’s tragedy, it’s historic mistake.”
He said he still hopes Trump will “change his decisions.”Zelensky “should be careful.”
He said European NATO members “have plenty of Patriots” and asked why they aren’t sending them.On Truth Social, Trump said Russia is doing “very little, if anything” to help Iran. Russia announced the same day that its foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, will visit Tehran this week.
- Starshield
- SpaceX’s military Starlink cut off Ukrainian terminals moving faster than about 100 mph (160 km/h), a Zelensky adviser told AP. Senators’ letter to the Pentagon inspector general says Space Force-administered contracts had previously given Ukraine unrestricted terminal speeds, and asks who changed that.
- Intelligence
- The U.S. last cut intelligence to Ukraine in March 2025, restoring it after ceasefire talks.
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Homeland Security agents searched Rep. Ilhan Omar’s home, the FBI posted a video criticizing a Democratic Senate candidate and the Justice Department gave California 48 hours, all in the weeks before the midterms.
A Guardian analysis published Sunday, Oct. 18, lists federal law-enforcement moves in the final weeks before the Nov. 3 midterm elections and argues that together they break the Justice Department’s long practice of staying neutral near an election. The attorney general is also campaigning for Republicans.
- The search · Oct. 12
Federal agents searched the home of Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat. NPR reported that they were from Homeland Security Investigations, part of the Department of Homeland Security, and acted under a warrant a judge approved. It is part of the probe of her citizenship (see The question).
- The video
The FBI, part of the Justice Department, published a video criticizing Abdul El-Sayed, a Democratic Senate candidate in Michigan, and other Democrats.
- The ultimatum
The Justice Department gave California election officials 48 hours to check the citizenship of 20,000 people. If they did not, it would sue. The analysis does not say how the department chose those 20,000 names.
The 60- or 90-day quiet period before an election is unwritten custom. The written rule is Justice Manual §9-85.500.
Justice Manual §9-85.500The written rule
- RuleIt bars timing any step to help or hurt a candidate.
- Sign-offWhen a step might look that way, it requires sign-off from the department’s Public Integrity Section.
- CongressSearching a member of Congress’s property needs that section’s approval first.
A department official told the Guardian no rule bars acting close to an election. That is true of the calendar, but the department’s own manual bars timing any step to help or hurt a candidate.
“This administration pushed those experts out of the department, and employees seeking guidance are now directed to political appointees loyal to the president.”Stacey Young, former Justice Department attorney
On Oct. 28, 2016, FBI Director James Comey told Congress the bureau was reviewing new emails tied to Hillary Clinton.
| Monmouth national poll | Clinton | Trump |
|---|---|---|
| Oct. 18, 2016, before the letter | 46% | 39% |
| Oct. 28 | 45% | 41% |
| Nov. 2 | 45% | 43% |
A peer-reviewed study controlling for other events estimated a 0.121-point drop in Clinton’s two-party share. That is too small to tell apart from zero.
What next: voting ends Tuesday, Nov. 3.
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Meta says heavy reading by a Claude AI tool set off the automated shutdown of the No Kings Instagram account on Saturday, Oct. 17, and has apologized.
Meta said on Sunday, Oct. 18 that its security system wrongly took the account offline after a Claude AI tool, Anthropic’s chatbot, read its profiles, posts and hashtags at about four times normal volume, per Bloomberg. The anti-Trump coalition was holding nearly 3,000 early-voting events that day.
Metaabout an hour until an automated re-review restored the account
No Kingsabout 90 minutes the page was unavailable
No Kingsabout four hours organizers could not reach its backend, until 5:33 p.m. Eastern
The Guardian reported “several hours,” with no figure, so it has no bar.
Each bar starts at zero on one 0–4 hour scale. Every length is “about,” as each side gave it; only the lockout’s end, 5:33 p.m. Eastern, is a clock time.
- Saturday, Oct. 17
Spokesman Andy Stone first blamed very frequent posting and wrote that the action “was clearly taken in error… we sincerely apologize.” Organizers said members “posted only a handful of times.”
- Sunday, Oct. 18
Stone said the bursts “resembled automated bot traffic,” and Meta blamed a Claude AI tool’s heavy reading of the account.
Still open: Meta has not said which tool it was or who ran it. Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, has called for an investigation, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent, blamed “billionaire ownership of the media.” No Kings had not answered Bloomberg on the Claude explanation. It plans a national organizing call on Wednesday, Oct. 21.
No Kings began in 2025, with its first major protests on June 14, 2025, and Indivisible, a progressive organizing group, helps run it, per Newsweek; the Guardian says its demonstrations have drawn millions of people. Automated enforcement is a known weak point at Meta: in June, Meta’s Oversight Board, the outside panel that reviews its moderation, said Meta does not publicly list all the restrictions it can place on Instagram accounts before disabling them, and warned against appeals that only rerun automated decisions, MediaNama reported.