Fox News anchor Chris Wallace argued President Trump could be tougher on Russia, and argued his sanctions were “neither bold nor swift” because he delayed their implementation past January, when many lawmakers were hoping they would take effect.
The veteran commentator was responding to former White House press secretary Sean Spicer, who went on the network earlier in the day and praised the president’s action on Russia.
“You’ll see the president continue to take bold and swift action to make sure the United States won’t sit idly by,” Spicer said.
In response, Wallace commended Trump’s sanctions as one of the “toughest” things he’s done since taking office, but said it still wasn’t as tough as Spicer thought.
“The fact is that these were sanctions that were passed overwhelmingly, I think the vote was 98-2 in the Senate,” he noted, while pointing out there was bipartisan concerns over the president’s delay on imposing these approved sanctions.
“He invoked some of them yesterday, but there are major sanctions that were still in his arsenal that were still approved by Congress to go after the defense industry and other industries in Russia that the president did not impose yesterday,” Wallace said. “So, this was a middle step, stronger than what he’s done, but not nearly as far as he could have gone.”
The White House announced this week that it will be imposing sanctions on Russian individuals and entities for meddling in the 2016 election.
