The U.S. Senate has once again failed to limit Donald Trump ‘s ability to enact military action against Iran. After the president vetoed a congressional resolution that would have kept him from using executive war powers in Iran on Wednesday, Democrats and some Republicans in the Senate aimed to override that veto on Thursday.
However, those in favor of limiting Trump’s ability to wage war in the country sans congressional approval fell short of garnering the required two-thirds majority of votes necessary to bypass a presidential veto. As reported by Politico , the final vote failed by a 49-44 count, with few Republicans breaking party lines in the attempt to override the president.
Trump had previously decried the move to limit his war powers — a resolution that passed the House of Representatives on March 11 after having cleared the Senate in February — as both an insult and an overt effort to divide the Republican Party and skew the general election in Democrats’ favor.
“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, via Politico . “The few Republicans who voted for it played right into their hands.”
“The resolution implies that the President’s constitutional authority to use military force is limited to defense of the United States and its forces against imminent attack. That is incorrect.”
Bipartisan efforts to keep Trump in check as relates to aggressive military action in Iran have been ongoing for almost a year. The Trump White House has undone diplomatic efforts that had been made by the Obama administration by nullifying a previous agreement to limit Tehran’s nuclear program. Since that time, the two nations have engaged in military activities against one another.
Tensions rose in January when the president ordered the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, who had commanded Iran’s elite Quds Force. In retaliation, Iran hit U.S. military bases in Iraq with missile strikes.
In response to the failed override, Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, who sponsored the resolution, offered some scathing words for Trump.
“What I find so notable about that statement is that the president could not see Congress expressing an opinion about war through any lens other than himself and his reelection. As everyone in this chamber knows, the bill was not a partisan bill.”
The actions to potentially provoke a nuclear power in Iran aren’t the only ones that have drawn criticism for Trump. As reported by The Inquisitr , a Yale scientist recently compared the president’s plans to reopen the American economy amid the COVID-19 pandemic to genocide.