AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
President Trump on Friday said he has an agreement to import millions of tons of diesel from Russia. The idea is to lower prices at the pump for Americans, but analysts say the amount that would be released from Russia won't really make a difference in the U.S. market. So who is this deal really helping? We're joined now by senior national political correspondent Mara Liasson. Good morning, Mara.
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Good morning.
RASCOE: The president pretty recently signed in new sanctions against Russia. There's a 2022 law against importing any oil or petroleum products until Russia ends its war against Ukraine. So what is the president doing?
LIASSON: Well, one thing he's doing is struggling, without much success, to bring down diesel and gas prices. He's tried a lot of things. The latest now is removing sanctions on Russia, even though, as you just said, that might not make much of a difference in prices. Then the sanctions that Trump signed off on less than a month ago targeting Russia's energy revenues, which helped Russia fund its war against Ukraine - now the U.S. is going to be adding to those revenues. And Congress, with big bipartisan support, passed a law just a couple of days before that giving Trump expanded tariff powers specifically in hopes he would use them to put more economic pressure on Russia. Now he seems to be doing exactly the opposite thing.
And then yesterday he went even further against Ukraine, saying that its leader, President Zelenskyy, should be replaced with someone more willing to make a deal with Russia. He has asked Ukraine to stop bombing Russian oil refineries. He has not applied similar pressure to Russia to stop bombing Ukrainian energy grid assets or civilian targets. He has blamed the bombing of Russian oil refineries by Ukraine on high gas prices, even though it's the Iranian war that has had a major impact on prices.
RASCOE: Well - and speaking of Iran, isn't Russia helping Iran in the war?
LIASSON: That's right. According to U.S. intelligence, Russia is providing real-time tracking data to Iran, which helps them strike U.S. targets in the Middle East. So the lifting of these Russian oil sanctions - Trump is helping an important ally of Iran's.
RASCOE: The Pentagon said last week they'd be livestreaming the execution of Nidal Hasan, the former Army psychiatrist who, in 2009, killed 13 people and wounded 32 at Fort Hood, Texas. Vice President Vance seemed to walk that back on Friday. What can you tell us about that?
LIASSON: Well, the execution is supposed to be livestreamed, according to the Pentagon. There hasn't been a public execution in the U.S. since 1936. There hasn't been a military execution since 1961. So this is a remarkable decision. And public executions like this happen in places like Iran or Afghanistan or Somalia, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, not in the Western world. And this is something that makes even the vice president of the United States a little squeamish. JD Vance said he defended the execution of Hasan - who, by the way, is in a wheelchair - but he said he wouldn't be watching. And President Trump was also asked if he was going to watch it, but he didn't answer.
RASCOE: You've been watching - switching gears here, you've been watching campaign ads, which are really saturating markets in states like Texas and Ohio. When it comes right down to it, do we know if people vote based on ads or, especially at this point, based on their pocketbooks?
LIASSON: Well, if polls are accurate, they're voting their pocketbooks because Republicans have had a tremendous financial advantage to run as many ads as they want to on social media. They're only limited by 24 hours in a day in terms of buying ads on television. But those ads do not seem to be changing the dynamic of these races, which are leaning towards Democrats in many places where Trump won by double digits in 2024.
People are just sour on the economy. They feel that their pocketbooks are being squeezed. They can't afford the things they used to be able to afford. And even though in the past, the vast majority of races where one candidate spends more, that candidate tends to win, we're going to find out in November how important money is in this election.
RASCOE: That's NPR's Mara Liasson. Thank you so much.
LIASSON: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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