by Chris White
President Donald Trump vetoed a bipartisan congressional resolution Wednesday that would have curbed his ability to direct military action against Iran.
“This was a very insulting resolution, introduced by Democrats as part of a strategy to win an election on November 3 by dividing the Republican Party,” Trump said Wednesday as he signed the veto. “The few Republicans who voted for it played right into their hands. Congress should not have passed this resolution.”
Republican and Democratic lawmakers sought to restrict the president’s war powers in February and March after Trump killed Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani in January. Sens. Mike Lee of Utah, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, and Rand Paul of Kentucky were three of eight Republicans who voted in support of the resolution, which passed 55-45 in the Senate.
Similarly, Republican Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Francis Rooney and Matt Gaetz of Florida all voted to pass the resolution.
Neither chamber is expected to have the two-thirds majority necessary to override the veto, Axios noted in its report on Trump’s move.
The president vetoed a bipartisan resolution in 2019 that would have forced an end to American military involvement in Saudi Arabia’s civil war in Yemen. Trump’s veto of that resolution effectively struck down an attempt to pull the United States away from a nearly four-year military operation that killed thousands of people.
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Chris White is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
Photo “Ali Khamenei” by Khamenei.ir. CC BY 4.0.
