WASHINGTON — The Senate on Thursday did not overturn President Trump’s veto of a decision looking for to dam him from taking additional navy motion
WASHINGTON — The Senate on Thursday did not overturn President Trump’s veto of a decision looking for to dam him from taking additional navy motion in opposition to Iran with out express approval from Congress, falling quick in its newest effort to curtail his unilateral strikes on issues of battle and peace.
The unsuccessful override try, the second in two years geared toward limiting Mr. Trump’s war-making powers, was defeated on a 49-44 vote, a margin nicely beneath the constitutionally required two-thirds majority that will have been wanted to enact the measure over his veto. However the bipartisan assist for doing so underscored lawmakers’ deep skepticism concerning the president’s penchant for defying Congress on navy issues and his expansive authority to wage battle with out consulting a coequal department of presidency.
“Congress wanted to face up in a bipartisan method to make plain that this president mustn’t get right into a battle with Iran, or any battle, and not using a vote of Congress,” stated Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia and the sponsor of the measure. “Congress has expressed what’s the standard will.”
Mr. Kaine launched the decision after the president ordered a strike against Iran’s top security commander, Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, a provocation that brought the United States to the brink of war with Iran and unleashed a bitter dispute in Congress. Lawmakers were furious at the White House’s failure to confer with them before the strike, as well as a classified document notifying them of the move that provided no information on future threats or an imminent attack — the justification the president initially cited for the strike in the first in a series of shifting explanations.
“We live in a hostile world of evolving threats, and the Constitution recognizes that the president must be able to anticipate our adversaries’ next moves and take swift and decisive action in response,” Mr. Trump said. “That’s what I did!”
Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, on Friday praised the strike as sending a strong message to Iran.
“We must maintain the measure of deterrence we restored with the decisive strike on Suleimani,” Mr. McConnell said. “That starts today with upholding the president’s rightful veto of a misguided war powers resolution.”
Republican senators were initially resistant to back the measure, but a small group eventually threw their support behind it after growing angry about the administration’s apparent disregard for their input and an attitude among top officials that suggested that raising questions about the Suleimani strike amounted to emboldening Iran.
A small group of Republicans have crossed party lines in recent years to join Democrats in trying to curb the president’s war powers, arguing that Congress must reclaim its authority as the branch of government empowered to make war. But legislative remedies have failed to garner the support necessary to survive a veto.
A measure similar to Mr. Kaine’s, passed by the Democratic-led House, was voted down in the Senate last year, after lawmakers were spooked by the president’s admission that he had called off a military strike against Iran.