Sunday shows preview: Trump admin’s Russia deal, public execution plan spark pre-midterm backlash

This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. End of dialog window. President Trump struck a deal to lift sanctions on Russian diesel Friday, allowing the Kremlin to supply 300,000 tons of diesel to the U. S. and the global marketplace, sparking a feud between him and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The deal served to remedy rising energy prices fueled by the U. S.’s ongoing military operations in Iran and Russia’s war in Ukraine. But Zelensky saw the move as a way to help Russia earn more money to fund its military offensive against his country. Trump responded Saturday by decrying the Ukrainian president’s Russian oil refineries strikes and called for his replacement. “He wants to make problems for the world. He wants to make problems for our farmers, our ranchers with diesel fuel because Russia supplies a large portion of the diesel fuel throughout the world,” Trump said of Zelensky before traveling to Tennessee Saturday. The decision has already drawn criticism from Democratic lawmakers, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N. Y.), who accused Trump of “making a deal with the devil” — echoing Zelensky’s warning the deal may signal to Russia “it could simply keep attacking” Ukraine. In September, Trump had signed bills targeting Russia and Iran, which imposed tariffs of up to 100 percent on the top five purchasers of Russian energy or on countries helping the Kremlin evade sanctions. At the time, GOP lawmakers, such as Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and John Kennedy (R-La.), championed the legislation. Cruz and Kennedy, along with former Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway, are set to appear on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures” — where they will likely weigh in on the divisive deal. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also announced this week that convicted mass shooter Nidal Hasan’s execution by firing squad would be livestreamed on Dec. 3 in Texas amid a growing conversation surrounding the death penalty — brought back into the public eye after the late September botched lethal injection attempts against death row inmate Christa Pike. Hasan, a former Army psychiatrist, was convicted of fatally shooting 13 people and injuring 32 others in a 2009 attack against a Fort Hood, Texas military base. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N. C.), along with a slew of Democratic lawmakers, were quick to criticize Hegseth’s decision, with the North Carolina senator calling the proposal “beyond disgusting.” “Public executions are what oppressive dictatorships like Iran and Afghanistan do. It should not be happening in America,” Tillis wrote on social platform X. Pope Leo XIV weighed in on the debate Saturday, calling capital punishment “inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person” in a social media statement. Tillis will likely discuss his denouncement of Hegseth’s plan during his Sunday NBC’s “Meet The Press” appearance. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who similarly criticized the Pentagon chief’s decision to livestream the execution, is appearing on CBS’s “Face The Nation.” Along with facing these high-profile Trump administration controversies, some GOP lawmakers and candidates are beginning to split with the president’s aggressive immigration enforcement agenda with less than a month before November’s midterms. Multiple Republican senators told The Hill the feared these moves would impact the party’s electability. Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S. D.), who’s running for reelection this year, advised the Trump administration to ease off on immigrants who “are here and that have a court determination that [says] they can be here.” Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) broke records for the second Trump administration, with back-to-back months of arrests topping 50,000 in July and August, according to the Deportation Data Project. The group added that 55 percent of those detained had no criminal record, while another 24 percent had faced charges but were never convicted. Department of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin is appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union,” where he will likely discuss this escalation. He may also weigh in on the criticism agency received following a high-profile shooting in the Bronx this week, during which a 28-year-old man was shot in his car while his 5-year-old child was also inside. Following the shooting, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani slammed ICE’s actions in a statement, saying that he called Mullin and Trump for two hours after the incident. The mayor was “unsuccessful” in securing Belgal’s release from federal custody, he said. Mullin will be appearing on Fox’s “Fox News Sunday” and on CBS’s “Face The Nation.” It is one month until the 2026 midterm elections with the GOP entering a rocky midterm environment as the president’s approval rating continually declines and dissatisfaction with the ongoing conflict with Iran grows in the U. S. Trump is expected to travel to Alaska and other battleground states in an effort to boost the GOP’s chances this fall as the Senate is considered a toss-up by polling averages. Nonpartisan election forecaster Decision Desk HQ gives Democrats a 76 percent chance of flipping the House and a 56 percent chance of taking back the Senate. House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) has remained confident despite the polling. He told The Hill’s broadcasting partner NewsNation in September he believed Republicans could retain the House. While other GOP leaders, including Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) acknowledged the party needed to “do more” to lower costs for Americans to keep control. Emmer is set to appear on ABC’s “This Week,” while Barrasso will appear on CBS’s “Face The Nation.” Texas Democratic Chair Kendall Scudder is set to unpack Democrat’s odds for gaining control of the upper chamber on News Nations’s “The Hill Sunday.” Democratic Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed will also appear on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” while Democratic New Hampshire Senate candidate Rep. Chris Pappas (D) will be on CBS’s “Face The Nation.” See the full list of guests on the Sunday morning news shows below: NewsNation’s “The Hill Sunday”: Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R), Texas Democratic Party Chair Kendall Scudder, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller CBS News’s “Face the Nation”: DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, Senate Majority Whip JohnBarrasso (R-Wyo.), Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Rep. Chris Pappas (D-N. H.); Palantir Technologies CTO Shyam Sankar CNN’s “State of the Union”: DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin; Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft Fox News’s “Fox News Sunday”: DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, Iowa gubernatorial candidate Zach Lahn (R) NBC News’s “Meet the Press”: Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed (D-Mich.), Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N. C.); Michael Lewis, author and journalist Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures”: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), former Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway ABC News’s “This Week”: House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), Senate candidate and pastor Adam Hamilton (D-Kan.) Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. 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