Republicans in Congress hit the panic button, begin voting against Donald Trump
This evening the House passed a resolution to reject “president” Donald Trump’s “emergency” declaration. What will happen with this resolution in the Senate? If the resolution receives 51 votes in the Senate, it goes to Trump’s desk, where we all know he will immediately veto it. It is unlikely that enough votes will be secured to override Trump’s veto, but for him, the damage will be done.
As reported earlier, both Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski have indicated that they will vote for the resolution to pass. On Monday, Thom Tillis (R-NC) indicated that he will join Collins and Murkowski, leaving only one more Senate Republican vote needed to thoroughly rebuke and embarrass Trump. Interestingly, Tillis is using President Obama’s time in office to vote against the resolution. According to Politico, he said “There is no intellectual honesty in now turning around and arguing that there’s an imaginary asterisk attached to executive overreach – that it’s acceptable for my party but not thy party.” Wow. An honest Republican — at least one unlike Mitch McConnell, who seems to have forgotten all the blocking he did when President Obama was in office.
While Tillis has been willing to publicly support his rebuke of “president” Trump, some others continue to waffle, even though they disagree with Trump’s declaration. Those who spoke out publicly against the declaration prior to it being made are Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Mitt Romney (R-UT), and Roger Wicker (R-MS), who thinks the “emergency” is “bad law” according to the Huffington Post. None of them have said yet if they will support the resolution. Of course, the die-hard Trump bootlickers stand firm, including John Cornyn of Texas and Chuck Grassley of Iowa.
Either way this goes, I find it very interesting that some of the Republican Senators appear to be growing some you-know-whats and are speaking up for their constituencies (for a change). Even if this is a short-lived bipartisan endeavor, the ramifications could loom large for Trump. This should signal to him that not everyone is willing to just silently go along with his nonsense, and he does not have control over his party members.
Shirley is a former entertainment writer and has worked in the legal field for over 25 years