White House spokesman Josh Earnest slammed senators for voting to override President Obama’s veto Wednesday, and called the vote the “single most embarrassing thing the Senate has done” in years.
Obama believes that the underlying legislation, which would allow relatives of the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to sue Saudi Arabia, would open the floodgates to lawsuits against the U.S. government for lethal actions it has taken around the globe against terrorists.
On Tuesday Earnest mocked congressional Republicans for their inability to override a single Obama veto before now, and chalked it up to their inability to pass much legislation.
“So the fact that the president hasn’t vetoed that many bills I think is a pretty damning indictment of the effectiveness of Republicans in Congress,” he added.
Earnest said the override is dangerous because lawmakers do not appreciate the unintended consequences the bill could have.
“At least one prominent Republican senator” admitted he wasn’t “quite sure what the bill actually did,” Earnest said.
Having “members of the United States Senate only recently informed of the negative impact of this bill on our service members and our diplomats is in itself embarrassing,” he said.
The senators, including most Democrats, abdicated “their basic responsibilities as elected representatives of the American people,” Earnest said. “Ultimately these senators are going to have to answer their own conscience and their constituents as they account for their actions today.”
