Republican-controlled U.S. Senate votes to rebuke Donald Trump over Yemen war

This is an encour­ag­ing devel­op­ment:

The Sen­ate vot­ed Wednes­day to end U.S. sup­port for the Sau­di-led mil­i­tary cam­paign in Yemen, its lat­est rebuke of the Trump administration’s con­tin­ued embrace of the Sau­di monar­chy despite grow­ing frus­tra­tion among law­mak­ers with its actions on the world stage. The 54-to-46 vote marks the sec­ond time in recent months that the Sen­ate has reject­ed the Unit­ed States’ con­tin­ued par­tic­i­pa­tion in Sau­di Arabia’s bomb­ing cam­paign against Yemen’s Houthi rebels, waged in the name of hold­ing back Iran’s expan­sion in the region.

This is not the first time the U.S. Sen­ate has vot­ed to end U.S. sup­port for Sau­di Ara­bi­a’s uncon­scionable cam­paign of destruc­tion in Yemen; it did so at the end of the last Con­gress. But giv­en that there are now more Repub­li­cans in the Sen­ate, it is sig­nif­i­cant that this vote went against Don­ald Trump… Indi­vid­ual Num­ber One.

Sev­en Repub­li­cans crossed over to sup­port the mea­sure, S.J.Res. 7 As Amend­ed, includ­ing Lisa Murkows­ki of Alas­ka and Steve Daines of Montana.

The roll call from the Pacif­ic North­west was as fol­lows:

Vot­ing Aye: Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­a­tors Pat­ty Mur­ray and Maria Cantwell (WA), Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley (OR), Jon Tester (MT); Repub­li­can Sen­a­tors Lisa Murkows­ki (AK) and Steve Daines (MT)

Vot­ing Nay: Repub­li­can Sen­a­tors Mike Crapo and Jim Risch (ID), Dan Sul­li­van (AK)

The oth­er Repub­li­cans to vote aye were Susan Collins of Maine, Mike Lee of Utah, Jer­ry Moran of Kansas, Rand Paul of Ken­tucky, and Todd Young of Indiana.

Top Repub­li­cans Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn vot­ed against the resolution.

Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­a­tor Chris Mur­phy of Con­necti­cut hailed the out­come.

“I start­ed rais­ing the alarm about this issue four years ago, and I was a lone­ly voice in Wash­ing­ton [D.C.]. When Sen­a­tor Paul and I first brought up an effort to block arms sales to Sau­di Ara­bia, only about a quar­ter of the Sen­ate vot­ed in favor.”

“We’ve come a long way since then. Sen­a­tors from both par­ties have made clear that the Saud­is can’t take their alliance with the Unit­ed States for grant­ed. The Sau­di-led war in Yemen has caused 85,000 chil­dren to starve to death.”

“85,000 chil­dren.”

“Today we said enough – enough with this dis­as­trous and uncon­sti­tu­tion­al war, enough with facil­i­tat­ing this human­i­tar­i­an dis­as­ter, enough with giv­ing the Saud­is a blank check. I hope the Sau­di lead­er­ship is pay­ing attention.”

“Today the Sen­ate sent a strong mes­sage that only Con­gress is allowed to decide if our coun­try goes to war. Not the Pres­i­dent. Not the Pen­ta­gon. Not defense con­trac­tors. I’m proud to work with Bernie Sanders on the War Pow­ers Res­o­lu­tion to end the civ­il war on Yemen,” said U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Ro Khan­na, the point per­son in the House Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus for end­ing the war in Yemen.

Khan­na says the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives will take up the res­o­lu­tion soon. (The House recent­ly passed its own sim­i­lar res­o­lu­tion.) The House, which is now under Demo­c­ra­t­ic man­age­ment, eas­i­ly has the votes to pass S.J.Res. 7 As Amended.

It is thus des­tined to end up on Trump’s desk, where it will be sure­ly be vetoed. But it is sig­nif­i­cant and impor­tant that Con­gress — both hous­es of Con­gress — will have vot­ed to rebuke Trump’s abus­es of power.

(The Sen­ate is expect­ed to vote tomor­row to ter­mi­nate Trump’s fake nation­al emer­gency, which will force him to issue his first veto. The Yemen res­o­lu­tion will prob­a­bly end up being the sec­ond veto.)

NPI con­grat­u­lates the Sen­ate on S.J.Res. 7. It is sore­ly need­ed. How­ev­er, it’s still appalling that most Repub­li­cans con­tin­ue to put their par­ty ahead of coun­try. This could have and should have been an over­whelm­ing bipar­ti­san vote.