In a powerful rebuke to President Trump, 12 Senate Republicans joined Democrats and voted to block his declaration of a national emergency, further complicating Trump’s quest to seek more funding for his long-promised border wall.
Sens. Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Rand Paul, Mitt Romney, Mike Lee, Lamar Alexander, Jerry Moran, Pat Toomey, Rob Portman, Roger Wicker, Roy Blunt, and Marco Rubio joined with Democrats and voted to block Trump’s national emergency, leading to a final 59-41 vote.
Trump is expected to veto the resolution.
The development marks the first time in history that Congress has voted to terminate a president’s national emergency.
The vote come on the heels of another major bipartisan rebuke to the Trump agenda. On Wednesday, the Senate voted for a second time to end America’s military assistance to Saudi Arabia in the war in Yemen. The 56-46 vote condemned the nearly four-year conflict which has killed thousands of civilians and sparked a devastating famine.
Both votes signal a significant curtailing of presidential power at the hands of the Senate.
“The United States Congress is going to reassert its constitutional responsibility over issues of war that have been abdicated for presidents, Democrats and Republicans, for too many years,” sSenator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said according to The New York Times.
Trump’s declaration of a national emergency in February was designed to obtain the funds needed for his long-promised wall on the US-Mexico border — a declaration that some Republicans warned Trump against making.
“Such a declaration would undermine the role of Congress and the appropriations process; it’s just not good policy,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) said in a statement before Trump’s declaration. “It also sets a bad precedent for future Presidents — both Democratic and Republican — who might seek to use this same maneuver to circumvent Congress to advance their policy goals.”
Responding to the rebuke, Trump took to Twitter and declared that the Senate’s vote is “a vote for Nancy Pelosi, Crime, and the Open Border Democrats!”
A vote for today’s resolution by Republican Senators is a vote for Nancy Pelosi, Crime, and the Open Border Democrats!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 14, 2019
In a later tweet, Trump simply wrote in all caps, “VETO!”
Featured image via Flickr
