It's "appropriate" for President Donald Trump and other administration officials to have conversations with Russia, but adequate preparations must be made for those discussions, Sen. Rob Portman said Sunday.
"The president chose to postpone the potential meeting here in the United States that he had talked about," the Ohio Republican told NBC "Meet the Press" anchor Chuck Todd, referring to plans for Russian President Vladimir Putin to meet with Trump at the White House. "That's appropriate, because I assume we were not going to be prepared to have those discussions."
Portman said he had been concerned about Trump's public statements after his closed-door meeting with Putin in Helsinki "not being consistent and clear with our policies."
At the same time, Trump's policies with Russia are "a lot tougher than previously," and they are "probably not making the Russians very happy," said Portman.
Meanwhile, Russia and the United States are two major superpowers, and "we have a lot of nuclear weapons aimed at us, [so] we need to talk," the senator added.
"Let's be clear, because if you're gonna end up with a better relationship it's only going to happen through being consistent and clear, and being matter-of-fact about the very real issues that exist between us."
During hearings this past week, the Foreign Relations Committee, on which Portman sits, grilled Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on the issue of Russia. He said Sunday he thought Pompeo did a "terrific job," even though the meeting at time became heated.
"I was there for practically the entire hearing and it lasted several hours," said Portman. "What I liked about it is that he laid out very clearly and consistently what our issues are with Russia, the fact that, you know, we continue to have policies in place that are very tough. Tougher, frankly, than the previous administration, the toughest sanctions since the Cold War."
The United States is now arming Ukraine, said Portman, noting that he'd pushed both the Trump administration and former President Barack Obama's administration to do.
"We just gave them another $200 million," he said. "We're sending more troops to Europe, we're doing exercises in Eastern Europe, not making the Kremlin happy."
In addition, the Global Engagement Center is pushing back on disinformation and propaganda coming from Russia, which is "long overdue," said Portman.
"I commend Secretary Pompeo because he's put that in place and is using it aggressively," said Portman.
The senator did ask Pompeo why sanctions against Russia don't seem to be working, including in terms of Russia not backing off from the annexation of Crimea and from the actions at the Ukrainian border, where there are casualties every week.
Russia also hasn't backed off its support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime, said Portman.
"My question is, how can we be more effective and more targeted in the sanctions?" said Portman. "My sense is that the better way to approach this is to actually go after folks in Russia who are influential, including some of the oligarchs who support President Putin and really to be more effective in targeting those sanctions."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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