Lindsey Graham: ‘For Some Reason’ Trump Has Tough Time ‘Pushing Back Against Putin’

Last week, the Trump administration announced it was expelling 60 Russian diplomats from the United States and closing a Russian compound in Seattle in response to a nerve agent attack on an ex-Russian spy in the United Kingdom. The president also finally imposed some sanctions against Russia over election meddling and cyber attacks during the 2016 election.

At the same time, Trump continues to be reluctant to say anything negative about Russian President Vladimir Putin, going so far as to congratulate Putin on his sham election victory. During an appearance on Fox News Sunday this morning, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was asked by host Chris Wallace about Trump’s deference to the Russian leader.

Noting that Trump spoke glowingly about his recent call with Putin and that the two would meet in the near future, Wallace asked Graham if there should be a Trump-Putin summit or if the president should take stronger actions against Russia.

“Let’s go back to the Reagan playbook,” the South Carolina Republican said. “He went to the Berlin wall and said ‘Tear this wall down.’ He wound up meeting with Gorbachev to try to reduce the number of nuclear weapons.”

He continued, “I think the problem is that Russia is running wild. Whatever we are doing is not working and the president for some reason has a hard time pushing back against Putin directly.”

Graham went on to say that there should be economic isolation of Russia as they can’t survive for long if other countries don’t buy their oil and gas.

Watch the clip above, via Fox.

[image via screengrab]

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Follow Justin Baragona on Twitter: @justinbaragona

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