This Tuesday, President Trump issued his second veto of his presidency. He vetoed a joint resolution where the Senate voted to end U.S. end military assistance to Saudi Arabian-led forces, who are participating in the fighting in Yemen’s ongoing civil war.
President Trump has just issued the second veto of his presidency, rejecting a resolution from Congress to end U.S. military support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen. Trump calls it a "dangerous attempt to weaken my constitutional authorities." pic.twitter.com/IgrxgE4943
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) April 16, 2019
President Trump called this joint resolution “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.”
Breaking: Trump issues the second veto of his presidency, rejecting a resolution from Congress to end US military support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen.
Trump calls the resolution a "dangerous attempt to weaken my constitutional authorities."
— Zachary Cohen (@ZcohenCNN) April 16, 2019
As it stands, Congress currently does not have enough votes to override President Trump’s veto.
Resolution on Yemen passed Senate 54-46 and House 248-177, not enough of a margin to override Pres Trump's veto.
— Mark Knoller (@markknoller) April 16, 2019
According to Fox News:
President Trump on Tuesday vetoed a joint resolution calling on the U.S. to end military assistance to Saudi-led forces fighting in Yemen’s ongoing civil war, calling it “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.”
It was just the second veto of Trump’s presidency and Congress lacks the votes to override him.
Both houses of Congress had invoked the War Powers Resolution of 1973 in a bid to end American involvement in the conflict, which has raged in the Middle Eastern country since 2015.
Congress has shown signs of uneasiness with Trump’s close relationship with Saudi Arabia as he tries to isolate Iran, a regional rival. Many lawmakers also criticized the president for not condemning Saudi Arabia for the killing of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi, who had been critical of the kingdom.
According to AP:
President Donald Trump on Tuesday vetoed a resolution passed by Congress to end U.S. military assistance in Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen.
The veto — the second in Trump’s presidency — was expected, and Congress lacks the votes to override it. But passing the never-before-used war powers resolution was viewed as a milestone for lawmakers, who have shown a renewed willingness to assert their war-making authority after letting it atrophy for decades under presidents from both parties.
“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 wrote in explaining his veto.
Congress has grown uneasy with Trump’s close relationship with Saudi Arabia as he tries to further isolate Iran, a regional rival.
Many lawmakers also criticized the president for not condemning Saudi Arabia for the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi who lived in the United States and had written critically about the kingdom. Khashoggi went into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last October and never came out. Intelligence agencies said Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was complicit in the killing.
President Trump maintained that the resolution was unnecessary since, with the exception of counter-terrorism operations against Islamic State terrorists and al-Qaida militants in the Arabian Peninsula, the U.S. is not involved in hostilities affecting Yemen.
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