REPORT: Trump puts the brakes on Haley’s announcement of new Russian sanctions and here’s why…

You may have heard that the Trump administration is getting ready to roll out new Russian sanctions, via Nikki Haley yesterday on CBS Face the Nation.

Here’s Haley:

Well apparently Haley put the cart before the horse on this one. A new report by the Washington Post says that Trump is now putting the brakes on these new sanction:

President Trump on Monday put the brakes on a preliminary plan to impose additional economic sanctions on Russia, walking back a Sunday announcement by U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley that the Kremlin had swiftly denounced as “international economic raiding.”

But as officials in Moscow condemned the planned sanctions as overly punitive, Trump conferred with his national security advisers later Sunday and told them he was upset the sanctions were being officially rolled out because he was not yet comfortable executing them, according to several people familiar with the plan.

Administration officials said the economic sanctions were under serious consideration, along with other measures that could be taken against Russia, but said Trump had not given final authorization to implement them. Administration officials said Monday it was unlikely Trump would approve any additional sanctions without another triggering event by Russia, describing the strategy as being in a holding pattern.

Sometime after Haley’s comments on CBS, the Trump administration notified the Russian Embassy in Washington that the sanctions were not in fact coming, a Russian Foreign Ministry official said Monday.

The Trump team decided to publicly characterize Haley’s announcement as a misstatement. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement Monday: “We are considering additional sanctions on Russia and a decision will be made in the near future.”

Privately, another White House official said Haley got ahead of herself and made “an error that needs to be mopped up.”

But other administration officials expressed skepticism that Haley had merely misspoken. They said Haley is one of the most disciplined and cautious members of the Cabinet, especially when it comes to her public appearances. She regularly checks in with Trump personally to go over her planned statements before she sits for television interviews.

Haley issued no clarifying statement on Sunday after news organizations, including The Washington Post, reported prominently that the new sanctions would be announced Monday based on her comments to CBS.

Asked Monday morning why it had taken 24 hours for the administration to walk back Haley’s comments, one White House official said only that there had been confusion internally about what the plan was.

Trump hadn’t yet authorized the new sanctions, which is why he’s pulling back on the announcement, according to the report. But that doesn’t mean he won’t still authorize the new sanctions, as Sanders indicated in her statement.

Sounds to me like they simply had confusion about the new sanctions. But I’m sure there’s more you can read into it if you want.


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