[I]n a historic success for Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Senate approved the resolution he authored to end U.S. military assistance in the Yemen war by a vote of 56-41, on Thursday.
The vote, which was the first time a chamber of Congress has invoked the War Powers Resolution, comes as a rebuke of U.S. involvement in Yemen but also of President Donald Trump’s refusal to take action against Saudi Arabia for its role in the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
“Finally the U.S. Senate has come together to use that authority for the first time and say that the responsibility for war, the constitutional responsibility for war, rests with the U.S. Congress, not with the president, whether the president is a Democrat or a Republican,” Sanders said in his post-vote remarks outside the Senate.
The immediate impact of the Senate’s passage of the resolution is largely symbolic as House leadership moves to quash another version of the measure introduced in the lower chamber by Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., all but assuring the measure will not make it to the president’s desk before the new year. The incoming Democratically controlled House is expected to move on the legislation early next year.
After the senators voted on the resolution, they approved a resolution to hold the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammad Bin Salman, personally responsible for Khashoggi’s killing. The nonbinding measure calls on Saudi Arabia to curb its “erratic” foreign policy and urges an end to U.S. air-to-air refueling of bombers operating in Yemen.
In floor remarks on Thursday afternoon, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., commended his colleague for his leadership on ending U.S. military involvement in Yemen. He also said the civil war has descended into a “catastrophe that the United States shares blame in causing.”
Leahy, who has long been a critic of how Trump has dealt with Khashoggi’s killing, said the Saudi royal family is still lying about its involvement in the journalist’s murder and that the Senate is finally taking action that the president has refused to take.
“The vote today is the Senate’s first response to the Saudi royal family and to the Trump administration,” Leahy said. “We have to make it clear that the U.S. is not for sale that our integrity is not for sale and the administration has got to stand up and speak out.”
The vote came just hours after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis briefed House lawmakers behind closed doors. Republicans and Democrats in the House remained split over Saudi Arabia, according to the Washington Post. A number of GOP members continue to defend the crown prince.
In November, Pompeo and Mattis had urged senators to oppose the resolution. Pompeo had argued the measure would thwart U.S. efforts to negotiate a ceasefire.
Trump has long defended Saudi involvement in Yemen, and administration officials have said there is no reporting that definitively links the Saudi prince to Khashoggi’s murder. That statement is at odds with an assessment by U.S. intelligence agencies.
Before the vote, Sanders praised the bipartisan support for the resolution, saying that senators on both sides of the aisle recognize the human cost of the crisis in Yemen and the need to take action to remedy it.
“It is time for the U.S. Congress to tell the despotic government of Saudi Arabia that we do not intend on following their leads in their military adventurism,” Sanders said.
