White House: Senate override of veto of September 11 bill 'embarrassing'

The White House today slammed the Senate’s nearly unanimous vote to reject President Barack Obama’s veto of legislation allowing relatives of the victims of the September 11 2001 attacks to sue Saudi Arabia’s government.

“This is the single most embarrassing thing this United States’ Senate has done possibly since 1983,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters in a briefing, referring to the last time when the chamber so overwhelmingly overrode a president’s veto.

Earnest said some lawmakers had only recently been informed about potential drawbacks to approving the legislation.

“For those senators to then move forward in overriding the president’s veto that would prevent those negative consequences is an abdication of their basic responsibilities as elected representatives of the American people,” he said.

Earlier today, the house voted 97-1 to reject Obama’s veto.