President Donald Trump heads to Clemson, South Carolina, on Wednesday night to rally for Senator Darline Graham, five days after he froze the Russia sanctions law her late brother, Senator Lindsey Graham, spent the last year of his life trying to pass. Graham, a Republican Trump helped put in the Senate, is locked in a closer race than anyone in her party expected in a state Trump won by nearly 18 points in 2024. She also helped pass the law that carries her brother's name, and she has said she disagrees with the president's decision to shelve it.
"Personally, I would choose to keep the pressure on Russia," Graham told reporters Saturday, according to the , "because I don't trust [Vladimir] Putin and I don't trust Russia." Newsweek has reached out to the Graham campaign and the White House for comment. Lindsey Graham died suddenly on July 11 at 71, from an aortic dissection. A four-term senator and one of Trump's closest foreign policy allies, he had just come back from Kyiv and announced a deal with the White House to move his sanctions bill forward.
He first introduced it in April 2025 and liked to call it an "economic bunker buster" aimed at Russia and the countries buying its energy. Colleagues renamed the measure in his honor after his death. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, it cleared the Senate 86-11 on August 7 and the House 262-159 on September 16.
Trump signed it two days later. Under the law, the president can slap tariffs of up to 100 percent on the five biggest buyers of Russian oil or natural gas. Russian President Vladimir Putin, officials in his government, oligarchs and Russian banks also face sanctions.
Governor Henry McMaster appointed Darline Graham, a former commissioner on the South Carolina Commission for the Blind, to the seat after Trump lobbied for her. She worked to get the bill through the Senate. During a debate this month, she said it "gives the president tools he can use if he so chooses to end the war through economic sanctions," and she has described its passage as one of her proudest accomplishments.
Trump waived the sanctions late Friday, October 16, in an executive order that cited national security concerns and set no end date. Most of the law's provisions were supposed to kick in that Sunday. The order does not undo Russia sanctions imposed under earlier executive orders, Newsweek reported.
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