White House persuades Congress to ease up on Saudi Arabia

The White House successfully pushed Congress to remove language in the annual defense bill that would have imposed concrete penalties on Saudi Arabia for the war in Yemen and the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The House amended the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) 240-185 in July to block US funding for the Saudi-led coalition fighting Yemen’s Houthi rebels. At the same time, the House passed another NDAA amendment 405-7 in a veto-proof vote to sanction Saudi officials complicit in Khashoggi’s murder.

While both amendments had some degree of bipartisan support, Democrats agreed to remove the substantive impact of each Saudi provision from the final version of the bill during negotiations with the Republican-held Senate. Al-Monitor has learned that Republican negotiators successfully fought to keep the Saudi provisions out of the final defense bill after the White House marked it as a red line.

“I have been dismayed by how much defense Congress has given the White House to help draft the NDAA,” said Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., who spearheaded the dead Yemen amendment. “It’s another example of Congress outsourcing our own power, our own responsibilities, to the executive branch. This has largely proven to be negotiations with the White House, and we capitulated to every White House and Pentagon demand.”