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The Senate Just Voted 53-45 AGAINST President Trump!


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This just in!

The Senate ruled earlier today 53-45 against Trump’s plans for an arms deal with Saudi Arabia.

Trump had declared an emergency of Iranian threats in an effort to bypass Congress in completing the $8 billion weapons sale, which the Senate rejected in their ruling.

Take a look at this breaking news on Twitter:

Although the Senate ruled against Trump, the president has vowed to veto Congress's ruling if they do not approve of the arms deal.

The New York Times has more details:

The Senate voted to block the sale of billions of dollars of munitions to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates on Thursday, in a sharp and bipartisan rebuke of the Trump administration’s attempt to circumvent Congress to allow the exports by declaring an emergency over Iran.

In three back-to-back votes, Republicans joined Democrats to register their growing anger with the administration’s use of emergency power to cut lawmakers out of national security decisions, as well as the White House’s unflagging support for the Saudis despite congressional pressure to punish Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman after the killing in October of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

A United Nations report released Wednesday made the most authoritative case to date that responsibility for the killing and its cover-up lies at the highest levels of the Saudi royal court.

No other foreign policy issue has created as large a rift between President Trump and Congress, and the vote to block the arms sales deepens the divide. It is the second time in just a few months that members of Mr. Trump’s party have publicly opposed his foreign policy, with both the House and Senate approving bipartisan legislation this spring to cut off military assistance to Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen using the 1973 War Powers Act, only to see it vetoed.

While the Democrat-controlled House is also expected to block the sales, Mr. Trump has pledged to veto the legislation, and it is unlikely that either chamber could muster enough support to override the president’s veto. Seven Republicans — not nearly enough to override a veto — broke from their party to disapprove of the sales to Saudi Arabia: Senator Susan Collins of Maine, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Senator Mike Lee of Utah, Senator Jerry Moran of Kansas, Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky and Senator Todd Young of Indiana.

CBS News also said:

The Senate voted Thursday to block the Trump administration from selling weapons to Saudi Arabia, launching a new challenge to President Trump's steadfast alliance with the country amid rising tensions in the Middle East.

The resolution passed, 53-45, which is not a veto-proof majority. The legislation would require 67 votes in the Senate to override the veto.

Mr. Trump has promised to veto the legislation. The White House said stopping the sales "would send a message that the United States is abandoning its partners and allies at the very moment when threats to them are increasing."

The Senate will hold two more votes Thursday on measures to stop the arms sales and these also are expected to pass. While the resolutions are also likely to be approved by the House, supporters of the measures there are well short of having enough support to overcome Mr. Trump's threatened veto.

The votes came against the backdrop of heightened U.S. tensions with Iran, spurred by the Islamic Republic's downing of a U.S. drone. Mr. Trump declared Thursday that "Iran made a very big mistake," and congressional leaders received a closed-door briefing on the situation at the Capitol.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo cited threats from Iran when declaring an emergency to approve the weapons sales in May. The Saudis have recently faced a number of attacks from Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.

"To reject these sales at this time and under these circumstances is to reward recent Iranian aggression and to encourage further Iranian escalation," said Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho, the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Risch added that blocking the sale would also "encourage miscalculation on the part of Iranians which will be disastrous."

Aljazeera commented on the situation:

The US Senate on Thursday delivered another strong rebuke of President Donald Trump's handling of the US relationship with Saudi Arabia, expressing disapproval the administration's move to bypass Congress to complete eight billion dollars in US weapons sales to the kingdom. 

The 53-45 vote rejects Trump's claim that "emergency" circumstances require the United States to provide Riyadh more precision-guided bombs because of "Iranian threats".

Senator Bob Menendez, a top Democrat leader on foreign affairs, and Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican and political ally of Trump, led the challenge to the Saudi arms sales. 

"These weapons won't counter Iranian threats. This is all about using them in Yemen," Menendez said in remarks to the Senate on Wednesday.

Trump and his advisers used the emergency declaration to bypass a requirement in the Arms Export Control Act that Congress approve such arms sales amid growing opposition by politicians to providing US precision-guided weapons to Saudi Arabia.

The planned sale also provides for co-production and manufacture of hi-tech bomb components in Saudi Arabia for the first time.




 

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