Bipartisan House majority rebukes President Trump's actions on Syria with resolution

An overwhelming majority of the House of Representatives voted to pass a resolution on Wednesday to criticize President Donald Trump's recent foreign policy moves regarding Syria and Turkey.

In a 354-60 vote, the lower chamber passed a resolution "Opposing the decision to end certain United States efforts to prevent Turkish military operations against Syrian Kurdish forces in Northeast Syria." All 60 votes against the resolution were from Republicans while 129 Republicans voted with the majority.

Last week, President Trump announced a decision to move troops out of a part of northern Syria ahead of a planned Turkish offensive in the area. Following the start of Turkey's invasion of northern Syria, the president tweeted on Monday that he would authorizing sanctions against Turkey, accusing the country of "endangering civilians and threatening peace, security, and stability in the region."

Wednesday's measure was sponsored by House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Elliot Engel (D-N.Y.) and the committee's top Republican Mike McCaul (Texas).

"The measure we're considering today will send an unambiguous, bipartisan, hopefully bicameral rejection of Trump's policy in Syria," Engel said ahead of the vote. "Today, we make clear that the Congress is a co-equal branch of government, and we want nothing to do with this disastrous policy."

"The Kurds are being slaughtered as I speak in northern Syria," McCaul said on the House floor ahead of the vote. "Our allies must trust us and our enemies must fear us. That is my foreign policy."

The measure takes no hard actions to change U.S. policy or troop placement, but merely expresses Congress' opposition to the president's actions, which have drawn considerable criticism from Democrats and Republicans. It also calls on the president to produce "present a clear and specific plan for the enduring defeat of ISIS."

On Wednesday afternoon, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) called on Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to bring the measure up for a vote in the upper chamber.

"If there's an overwhelming vote for this resolution, the president will feel tremendous pressure to reverse course," Schumer told reporters.

At a different news conference ahead of the vote, McConnell said that his team was looking at taking up the House's resolution, but did not commit to doing so. He also voiced his disagreement's with the president's decision.

"Any president has a lot of latitude in deploying troops, many of us have been arguing that this was a mistake, that it shouldn't have been done and hoping that he would reverse course," McConnell said. "There seems to be any evidence of it so far, but I think it was a mistake."