They’re in lockstep now over President Joe Biden’s response to the Russian invasion of neighboring Ukraine, but Democratic U.S. Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan didn’t always see eye to eye on sanctions targeting the company behind a controversial pipeline that’s front and center amid the European crisis.
New Hampshire’s two senators both applauded steps taken by Biden last week in response to Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s full-scale assault on Ukraine.
“I appreciate President Biden’s swift response, first directly to (Ukrainian) President Zelenskyy in the aftermath of Putin’s barrage of violence, and today in coordination with our allies to inflict additional economic consequences on Putin and those responsible for these crimes against a free and sovereign nation,” Shaheen said on Thursday. The senator, who sits on the Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committee, was returning from Poland, as part of a congressional delegation to stand in solidarity with NATO allies.
Hassan called the economic sanctions “unprecedented in their scope and will severely impact Putin, his cronies, and the Russian economy. We must continue to work closely with our NATO allies and keep additional options on the table to address Putin’s aggression.”
Among Biden’s moves were sanctions on the company that overseeing the building of Russia’s Nord Stream 2 project, providing a major blow to the pipeline from Russia to Germany. The penalty against Moscow was one of a series of steps the U.S. and its allies have slapped on Russia after it recognized separatist territories in eastern Ukraine ahead of sending in troops.
“I have directed my administration to impose sanctions on Nord Stream 2 AG and its corporate officers,” the president announced on Wednesday, hours ahead of the Russian assault on Ukraine. “These steps are another piece of our initial tranche of sanctions in response to Russia’s actions in Ukraine.”
Nord Stream 2 is nearly 800-mile-long natural gas pipeline project that would allow Russia’s state-owned energy company, Gazprom, to send natural gas to Europe’s pipeline system by bypassing existing pipelines in Ukraine and Poland.
Bipartisan legislation signed into law by then-President Donald Trump to stop the development of the pipeline was reversed after Biden took over in the White House.
At the beginning of the year, as tensions between Russia and Ukraine were on the rise, the Biden administration resisted a push by many in Congress to reinstate the pipeline sanctions. One of the senators allied with the White House was Shaheen, who said in January that while “I have been a strong and long-standing opponent of Nord Stream 2 … right now, we’re in a different place on this.”
Shaheen, in making her case, said that the push to reimpose the sanctions “is coming at a time when the administration is exhausting every single diplomatic avenue to deter Putin from further violating Ukraine’s territorial integrity.”
Hassan disagreed and was one of 55 senators that supported the sanctions, which was five votes short of the 60 needed to overcome a Senate filibuster.
Hassan, along with U.S. Reps. Annie Kuster and Chris Pappas, will be on hand in on Saturday when Sen. Amy Klobuchar, of Minnesota, returns to New Hampshire.
Klobuchar is headlining next weekend’s New Hampshire Democratic Party dinner and fundraiser for former longtime state Sen. Martha Fuller Clark’s diamond birthday celebration.
Fuller Clark, a New Hampshire Democratic Party vice chair for a decade and a half, has been a delegate to every Democratic National Convention since 1996.
“The path to holding and expanding the Democratic majority in Congress runs through New Hampshire. I am thrilled to be back in the Granite State,” Klobuchar said in a statement announcing her return to the crucial battleground state where the GOP aims to flip a Senate and a House seat in November’s midterm elections.
While Klobuchar’s mission is all about helping Democrats running in 2022, her trip does spark a touch of 2024 buzz as speculation persists that 79-year-old Biden may not seek reelection for a second term, even though he’s repeatedly said he’ll run again.
Klobuchar will become the latest alum of the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination race to return to New Hampshire, the state that for a century has held the first primary in the country in the race for the White House.
Klobuchar, who had a solid third-place finish in the 2020 New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary – just a few points behind Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and now Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
Buttigieg also made a stop in the state in December to showcase the benefits of the recently passed $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure measure, which was a top domestic achievement of the Biden administration.
Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, who suspended his presidential campaign in January of 2020, came back to New Hampshire in December to headline a major state party fundraising dinner.
Vice President Kamala Harris, who ended her struggling White House campaign two months before the start of the primary and caucus calendar, traveled to the Granite State last April to highlight the Biden administration’s investments in broadband.
And the president, holding a November event in front of a red-listed bridge in New Hampshire, made the state his first stop to sell the landmark infrastructure legislation after signing the bill into law just two days earlier.
There has been plenty of chatter and speculation over whether the president will run for reelection in 2024. Biden made history in 2020 when he became the oldest person ever elected president. If he campaigns for reelection in 2024 and wins, Biden would be 82 at his second inaugural and 86 at the end of his second term.
Asked last March at the first formal news conference of his presidency about his 2024 plans, Biden said, “My answer is yes. I plan on running for reelection. That’s my expectation.”
He said in an interview with ABC News in December that “if I’m in the health I’m in now, if I’m in good health, then in fact, I would run again.”