Congress recently passed a bill called the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), which allows victims of the 9/11 attack to sue the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia "for its alleged, but unproven, support of the hijackers who flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon."
Obama vetoed the bill, but that didn't stop Congress. Though this was Obama's 12th veto, this was the first time in his presidency that his veto was overridden. Congress overwhelmingly overrode it, with the House of Representatives and the Senate voting 348-77 and 97-1 against it, respectively.
Since passing the bill, Congress has gotten some heavy backlash — and for good reason. Opponents argued that the bill would make "any nation vulnerable to suits by the citizens of another," and that this would motivate other countries to sue the U.S. for the things it actually does, such as killing civilians in drone strikes. John Earnest, an Obama spokesperson, even said, "I would venture to say that this is the single most embarrassing thing that the United States Senate has done, possibly, since 1983."
Congress, ever the one to point fingers, scrambled to find someone to lay the blame on. Naturally, that blame landed on Obama. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told reporters, "I wish the president — I hate to blame everything on him, and I don’t — but it would have been helpful had he, uh, we had a discussion about this much earlier than last week."
Senate Republican Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) went a step further by saying, "What’s so remarkable to me is the detachment of this White House from anything to do with the legislative process. They were basically missing in action during this whole process."
This is pretty rich, seeing as Cornyn was not only one of the sponsors of JASTA, but also because he was so angry at Obama in April for trying to kill the bill.
You'd think that the act of vetoing would be a pretty clear sign that passing the bill might not be such a good idea after all, but seeing as Congress refused to pass a federal spending bill to help fight the Zika virus, maybe we're expecting too much.
