Kevin Cramer, Republican of North Dakota, that aired on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" on Oct. 18, 2026. MARGARET BRENNAN: Welcome back to Face the Nation. We go now to North Dakota Republican Senator Kevin Cramer, who joins us from Bismarck.
Good morning to you, Senator. SENATOR KEVIN CRAMER (R-ND): Good morning. MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to ask you about Ukraine.
I know you just recently traveled there. A number of your departing, some retiring, Senate Republican colleagues have made clear they were very upset with President Trump's decision to waive the Lindsey Graham sanctions off of Russia and buyers of Russian oil. Senator Cornyn said Lindsey would be appalled.
Senator Tillis said it is beyond irresponsible, unconscionable to capitulate to Vladimir Putin. CRAMER: Well, Margaret, on this topic and a whole bunch of others, I think capitulating to a bully generally means they're going to make more demands going forward. That's the problem with taking sort of a business negotiation approach to negotiating with a thug, which is what Vladimir Putin is.
So I share those colleagues' positions on it. However, I also have to acknowledge that we are few weeks or a couple weeks from an election. One of the important topics of the election is the cost of diesel fuel.
It's really an important issue here in North Dakota. As Representative Turner pointed out, and I was cheering him on, our allies throughout Europe have been buying energy from Vladimir Putin and funding his war machine for decades and they should stop right now. Having said all of that, I expect this will be a short-term pause, and I certainly hope so, because one of the things that President Zelenskyy asked of us when I was with him on last Thursday, I think it was Thursday or Friday, was that the president would fully enforce the Lindsey Graham sanctions bill.
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