The House votes to retain Trump on the war with Iran and sets up a confrontation with the Senate



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The House voted on Friday to prevent President Trump from engaging in a war with Iran without first obtaining Congressional approval, after more than two dozen Republicans joined the Democrats to include this provision in the draft. law on the annual defense license.

This decision probably puts in place a confrontation with the Senate over whether the restriction imposed on Iran, which provides for an exception for self-defense cases, will be included in the final bill negotiated between the two. bedrooms. Republican leaders in the House and Senate have argued that the wording would send a negative message to Tehran that the United States is divided, complicating the president's ability to deal with growing tensions.

The Iran amendment is just one of many well-known measures that lawmakers passed this week to include in the first defense clearance bill that has been passed in the House since the majority earlier this year. These measures, ranging from the suspension of US participation in the Saudi military campaign in Yemen to the lifting of President Trump's ban on transgender troops, have ensured the support of the Liberals' liberal Democrats. Congressional Progressive Caucus, who had previously warned that they could vote against the defense bill. .

But these measures were likely to make Democrats lose the declining support of Republicans to the House defense bill. Republican leaders accused the Democrats of playing politics in a "shameful" way, House of Commons Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) Said Friday morning.

"Our national security is not a game. But that's exactly how Democrats treat it," McCarthy said of the bill.

The chairman of the House Armed Forces Committee, Adam Smith (D-Wash.), Visibly upset by the prosecution, retorted that Republicans "can deal with this, that's fine, but we do not worry about national security. . . is a stealthy lie. "

"In fact, our bill is not just good, it's better than those the Republican party has put in place because we believe the Pentagon should be responsible," Smith said.

The opposition between Republicans and Democrats lies in a disagreement over the amount of money that Congress should allocate to the Pentagon and the army this year. Republicans and the Trump government want a $ 750 billion bill, the overall size of the defense clearance bill passed by the Senate last month. But the House bill is $ 733 billion – a figure Smith supported by the military leaders.

For Liberal Democrats, $ 733 billion was a big jump from the $ 717 billion allowed this fiscal year. In order to limit spending, they proposed a reduction of $ 16.8 billion in war funding authorized under the bill, but the effort was not passed by the House on Friday morning, after the Republicans and many Democrats opposed it.

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