Ted Lieu and Justin Amash team up to try to stop Donald Trump
Democratic Congressman Ted Lieu and far-right Republican Congressman Justin Amash don’t have much in common, beyond the fact that they both think Donald Trump’s crime spree is bad for America and they want to put a stop to it. They both support Trump’s impeachment, and while that isn’t happening yet, they’ve teamed up on bipartisan legislation to shut down a key piece of Trump’s corrupt agenda.
Ted Lieu and Justin Amash have introduced a bill that would stop Donald Trump from going forward with his plan to sell billions of dollars of weapons to Saudi Arabia and its murderous Crown Prince. It’s not clear how many House Republican votes the measure will receive, but it’ll pass the House easily. Remarkably, it might pass the Senate as well.
Although the Senate is controlled by Donald Trump’s Republican Party, even some of his biggest cheerleaders like Lindsey Graham and Rand Paul are actively trying to find a way to block Trump from going through with the sale to Saudi Arabia. Trump’s pals have no problem with him being a Russian puppet, but apparently being a Saudi puppet is a bridge too far. In fact the GOP Senate has been working today on measures in opposition of the arms sale.
This leads to two questions. First, will enough House and Senate Republicans defy Donald Trump on this issue to make it veto-proof? This appears to be the rare issue where the GOP is willing to kneecap Trump. Second will Trump go ahead and try to veto it? If so, he’ll be hanging the Saudi murder scandal around his neck heading into 2020.
Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report