In a historic bipartisan rebuke to the president and a marked shift in America's long-standing alliance with Saudi Arabia, the Senate voted Thursday to force the Trump administration to end its military support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen.
Although the measure will stall in the House for now, the Senate's 56-41 vote still carried extraordinary significance marking the first time the Senate has invoked Congress' war powers to challenge U.S. military involvement abroad. The step was both a condemnation of Saudi Arabia's execution of the Yemen war which has killed thousands of civilians and created a humanitarian catastrophe and of the kingdom's role in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.
Today, we tell the despotic regime in Saudi Arabia that we will not be a part of their military adventurism, said Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who championed U.S. withdraw from the Yemen conflict along with Sens. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and Mike Lee, R-Utah. "The United States Congress ... is sick and tired of abdicating its constitutional responsibility on matters of war," Sanders added.
Senators also unanimously approved a separate, nonbinding resolution naming Saudi Arabia's crown prince, Mohammed Bin Salman, as responsible for Khashoggi's death. The Washington Post columnist was killed inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2 by a team of Saudi operatives, many of whom have been tied to the crown prince.
The resolution, introduced Thursday by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., calls on the Saudi government to ensure appropriate accountability for all those responsible for Jamal Khashoggis murder and urges the kingdom to moderate its increasingly erratic foreign policy, among other steps.
"The United States Senate has said the Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman is responsible for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi," Corker said. "That is a strong statement. ... I think it speaks to the values that we hold dear."
The two Senate votes were a direct challenge to President Donald Trump, who downplayed evidence that Saudi Arabia's crown prince was involved in Khashoggi's murder and said the incident should not damage U.S.-Saudi relations. His administration, through his son and adviser Jared Kushner, has cultivated close ties to the kingdom.
"Today is a watershed moment for Congress," Murphy said. "We are reasserting our responsibility to be a co-equal branch with the Executive (Branch) in foreign policy-making."
It was also a watershed moment for Sanders, Murphy, and Lee an odd-bedfellows trio who have been trying for three years to curb American support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen. Their first effort, on a measure blocking arms sales to the Saudis in 2016, garnered only 27 "yes" votes.
On Thursday, seven Republican senators joined all the chamber's Democrats and its two independents in passing the Yemen resolution, which would require the United States to stop providing intelligence, targeting assistance in bombing and other military support to the Saudi government and its allies in the Yemen conflict.
Before the Senate vote, House GOP leaders blocked a similar measure from coming up for a vote in that chamber. Proponents vowed to revive the issue when Democrats take power in January.