Politics

Senate Fails To Override Trump Veto On Withdrawing US Support From Yemen

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The U.S. will not withdraw support in Yemen after a Senate attempt to override President Donald Trump’s veto of legislation demanding an end to U.S. involvement in the country failed Thursday.

Republican Utah Sen. Mike Lee and Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders co-sponsored a resolution demanding the U.S. withdraw its support for foreign military operations in Yemen. The resolution passed through both chambers of Congress in early 2019, only for President Donald Trump to veto it. Senators attempting to override that veto fell more than 20 votes short, The Washington Post reported.

“This resolution is an unnecessary, dangerous attempt to weaken my constitutional authorities, endangering the lives of American citizens and brave service members, both today and in the future,” Trump said when he vetoed the resolution.

The bad news today: we were unable today to override Trump’s veto regarding U.S. intervention in this horrific war in Yemen. The good news: for the first time in 45 years, Congress used the War Powers Act to reassert its constitutional responsibility over the use of armed forces.

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) May 2, 2019

The Senate voted 53-45, falling 22 votes short of the 67 required to overturn a presidential veto.

“Involvement in Yemen is far from being in the best interests of the United States. … Every day it only becomes clearer and clearer that Saudi Arabia is not an ally that deserves our unwavering, unflinching, unquestionable support in military intervention,” Lee said, reported The Hill.

Lee and Sanders’s push came after the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi allegedly at the hands of Saudi agents in 2018. Khashoggi lived in the U.S. and had been published in WaPo, leading many to argue the U.S. had a responsibility to punish the Saudis in some form.

Trump yielded to these pressures and halted air-refueling missions for Saudi’s military coalition in Yemen as well as enforcing sanctions against several Saudi officials. Proponents of the Senate resolution argued these measures weren’t enough, however.

“So long as the United States participates in the military campaign with the Saudis, while not offering any meaningful pressure to get to a political settlement, we are complicit in those doubts. A quarter million people are going to die in the next several months inside Yemen from starvation and disease and malnutrition due to a military campaign that we are a part of,” Democrat Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy said.

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