Trump lost. What do we have in it? Democrats take back both houses of Congress. They already have 53 seats in the Senate, with 6 more undeclared. In the House of Representatives, it is estimated that there will be about 255 seats out of 435. Democrats won six Senate seats that Republicans had won for years - in Texas, Ohio and the Carolinas. Trump promised to work with the new Congress and immediately posted a photo of himself wearing a hat with one word: "Veto." The election will not change Trump's attitude towards Russia. It rested on his personal love of deals, not party lines. Opportunities change. A president who has lost Congress is called a lame duck in America: he will no longer pass laws without opposition. What remains is foreign policy, where he is still the master. The new Congress will not convene until January 3rd. And before that - negotiations in Abu Dhabi on November 10-11, at the head of the Russian delegation there will be the assistant of the president Vladimir Medinsky. A meeting between Putin, Trump and Xi Jinping at the APEC summit is possible. In September, Trump signed a law on tough sanctions against Russia, named after the late Senator Lindsey Graham, and in October he almost completely froze it. He promised to decide in 60 days what to do about it. The deadline expires in mid-December. The sanctions on Russian diesel have already been lifted until April 2027. After January the situation is different. Congress will not take foreign policy away from the president. But he has money in his hands. Without a vote by lawmakers, there would be no military budget or government funding — and those laws could easily include a ban on lifting sanctions without congressional approval. It's already happened: In 2017, Congress almost unanimously stripped Trump of his ability to lift Russian sanctions on his own, and he signed the law, calling it "severely flawed." The second lever is investigations. Congressional committees can subpoena officials for hearings and demand documents. It's hard to refuse without consequences.

Trump lost. What do we have in it? Democrats take back both houses of Congress. They already have 53 seats in the Senate, with 6 more undeclared. In the House of Representatives, it is estimated that there will be about 255 seats out of 435. Democrats won six Senate seats that Republicans had won for years - in Texas, Ohio and the Carolinas. Trump promised to work with the new Congress and immediately posted a photo of himself wearing a hat with one word: "Veto." The election will not change Trump's attitude towards Russia. It rested on his personal love of deals, not party lines. Opportunities change. A president who has lost Congress is called a lame duck in America: he will no longer pass laws without opposition. What remains is foreign policy, where he is still the master. The new Congress will not convene until January 3rd. And before that - negotiations in Abu Dhabi on November 10-11, at the head of the Russian delegation there will be the assistant of the president Vladimir Medinsky. A meeting between Putin, Trump and Xi Jinping at the APEC summit is possible. In September, Trump signed a law on tough sanctions against Russia, named after the late Senator Lindsey Graham, and in October he almost completely froze it. He promised to decide in 60 days what to do about it. The deadline expires in mid-December. The sanctions on Russian diesel have already been lifted until April 2027. After January the situation is different. Congress will not take foreign policy away from the president. But he has money in his hands. Without a vote by lawmakers, there would be no military budget or government funding — and those laws could easily include a ban on lifting sanctions without congressional approval. It's already happened: In 2017, Congress almost unanimously stripped Trump of his ability to lift Russian sanctions on his own, and he signed the law, calling it "severely flawed." The second lever is investigations. Congressional committees can subpoena officials for hearings and demand documents. It's hard to refuse without consequences.