The California Republican said Obama’s draft authorization for the use of military force, or AUMF, could not win the 218 votes needed to pass the lower chamber, and suggested key GOP-led committees could draft an alternative.
“I do not see a path to 218 with what the president sent up because the world has become more dangerous since he laid out Yemen as the strategy of how to move forward,” McCarthy told reporters in his office. “This would weaken our ability to respond to our current situation.”
Administration officials have held up the U.S.’s counterterrorism efforts in Yemen as a model for success in battling Islamic extremists, though ongoing fighting there prompted the U.S. to close the U.S. embassy and evacuate military personnel.
McCarthy’s declaration, which was unscripted and came during his first pen-and-pad with reporters as House majority leader, means it’s now unlikely that Obama’s war powers measure will even get a vote on the House floor.
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