‘Not what resistance to Trump looks like’: Bernie Sanders rips Senate for passing $738 billion Pentagon budget

"Rep. Ro Khanna is right—this is not what resistance to Donald Trump looks like."

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SOURCECommon Dreams
Image Credit: William Thomas Cain/Getty Images

Sen. Bernie Sanders condemned passage of a massive $738 billion Pentagon spending bill in the U.S. Senate on Tuesday, declaring: “this is not what resistance to Donald Trump looks like.”

The final vote in the Senate was 86 in favor, 8 voting against, and 6 members—including Sanders, out on the campaign trail—who did not vote.  Also not voting were the other three U.S. Senators still running as 2020 presidential candidates: Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, and Amy Klobuchar. Having already cleared the U.S. House, the bill is now head to President Donald Trump’s desk where he is expected to sign it.

“Congress just passed a $738 billion defense package,” tweeted Sanders following the vote, along with a video denouncing the enormous sums devoted year after year to military expenditures. “We spend more on defense than China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, India, the U.K., France, Japan, Germany, South Korea, and Brazil  …combined.  We need to fundamentally change our priorities as a nation.”

Following the vote, Sanders also shared a video featuring Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) who condemned the passage of the NDAA in the U.S. House last week. In the wake of the House vote, Khanna called the NDAA’s approval “an astonshing act of moral cowardice” and a “complete capitulation to the White House” by Democrats. Khanna has endorsed Sanders in his 2020 presidential bid and acts as national co-chair for the campaign.

In his tweet of the video, Sanders said, “Rep. Ro Khanna is right—this is not what resistance to Donald Trump looks like.”

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