The party needed all of its members in town for the vote in order for it to pass, but Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) was in South Korea for a conference, putting them a vote down. Leadership knew about his trip for weeks ahead of time.
“I don’t think anything went wrong. We just needed more votes,” Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said. “We weren’t sure how the votes would come down, but we knew there would be absences.”
“It was a win-win either way. If we won the vote, it was a good win like we won the Canada vote,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told reporters Thursday.
Here’s the motion if anyone’s curious: https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1191/vote_119_1_00226.htm
Every D voted in favor of lifting the tariffs, to be fair. McConnell is a soon to be corpse that everybody knew wasn’t gonna vote. This was a fuckin shoo-in. However, out of the blue, Whitehouse decided to go chill in a PC Bang somewhere in South Korea. Somehow, super conveniently, Democrats didn’t have enough to get this shit to pass. By 1 (one) vote. Democrats aren’t just useless. They are just useless enough.
Gang, if you still don’t believe that Dems are controlled opposition, I don’t know what to tell you.
I’m a little confused. If the resolution was to terminate the national emergency and stop the tariffs, why were Dems voting Nay and Republicans voting Yea?
Cuz it’s a motion to table a motion to reconsider terminating the national emergency by which Donny introduced the tariffs. Lots of double negatives here.