US Senate Rejects Veto Override of Yemen War Resolution

The United States Senate Thursday voted down a bill introduced by Senator Bernie Sanders to override U.S. President Donald Trump’s veto of a previous bipartisan resolution to end U.S. support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen that has caused a humanitarian catastrophe in the country.

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The U.S. Senate, controlled by Republicans and led by majority leader Mitch McConnell voted Thursday on the override, but ended up shy of the 67 votes required to override a presidential veto. The votes were tallied at 53-45 with several Republicans voting with Democrats on the issue.

Following the vote, Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut vowed to continue working with his colleagues "to bring an end to our involvement in this humanitarian disaster."

Republicans who voted "no" to override the veto are following Mitch McConnell’s lead by saying that the entire idea is a based on the “false premise” that the U.S. is somehow involved in the Yemen War. "We're not parties to the civil war in Yemen," he said.

The United States has had a longstanding relationship supplying weapons to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In the Trump era, close senior White House advisors, like Jared Kushner have continued the trend by helping to carve out US$100 billion in weapons contracts with Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salman.

The war in Yemen has already, according to a United Nation’s report, cost 230,000 lives, many of those civilian, and has left almost 14 million people at increased risk of famine. Ahead of Thursday's vote, Sanders's staff delivered copies of the U.N. report to Republican senators in an effort to build support for the override and "make sure they understand the catastrophe that the United States is creating in Yemen."

After the vote, Sander said, "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."

The War Powers Act was enacted in 1973 during Richard Nixon’s term as a way to prevent any acting president from embroiling the United States into foreign conflicts without Congressional approval.