Senator Richard Blumenthal

speaker

81 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 22 Jul

Senator Richard Blumenthal’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.

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The Journal. · Do Sanctions Still Work? · 22 Jul 2026 podcast

So it is an economic measure, but obviously it has an underlying political purpose as well.

It's an economic tool.

but it has a very clear political effect, which is to defend freedom and make sure Ukraine has the support that we can provide economically.

Enforce is the key word.

Listen, for most of my career, I was a prosecutor.

I was the United States Attorney in Connecticut for four and a half years.

I was Attorney General of the state of Connecticut for 20 years.

The law is dead letter if it's not enforced.

All too often, sanctions simply haven't been enforced.

And I've been critical of the Department of Treasury in the Obama administration, in the Trump administration, in the Biden administration for being too lax and laggard.

These sanctions have the potential to change the course of this war, literally to throttle Putin's economy, which already is on its heels.

But enforcement is absolutely key.

And you can bet I'll be all over this administration, like a wet blanket, watching what they're doing, watching like a hawk, to change the metaphor.

And enforcement is going to be absolutely necessary.

That's the key question here.

And the answer is no.

Only the top five purchases, only the top five purchases of oil, the top five purchases of gas, with an exemption for countries that are buying less than 15% of Russia's total export of gas.

if they are making significant efforts to stop those purchases, which means European countries would not be covered.

And in addition, very importantly, top five facilitators of evasion.

Going to your point about enforcement, we're not ignoring the pass-throughs, the countries that enable evasion.

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