Late night congressional vote fell short of the votes needed to block weapon sales to Israel as it continues its war in Gaza in response to the October 7th attacks.

But in a dramatic shift, more than half of Democrats supported the measure, reaching its highest level of support to date.

Senator Gene Shaheen is the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. She was

one of those yes votes, and she joins us now from Capitol Hill. Senator, welcome back to the

News Hour. Thanks for joining us. Nice to be with you. So back in April, you voted against the

weapons block. Last night, you voted for it. Why the change? I think the humanitarian situation in Gaza is dire.

All you have to do is watch the news reports coming out of Gaza to see the people who are desperate

for food. Israel needs to open up those humanitarian corridors.

We need to get food in. We need to get it distributed in a way that doesn't harm

Palestinians in the process of getting the food. And so I think it's important to send the message to

Prime Minister Netanyahu and his government that things need to change.

So is this about sending a message at this moment in time, or does this represent some bigger policy shift?

Well, I think we have to wait and see how the government responds.

But right now, they have made some slight progress in the last week,

really, since the weekend and are talking about allowing more humanitarian aid in. But we need to see

many more aid convoys in.

And we need to make sure that the food gets distributed in a way that doesn't have Hamas

or some other group taking that food away from the people who really need it, who are starving.

Back in April, you cited not wanting to upset what you

called the delicate negotiations to restore the ceasefire as part of the reason that you didn't

support the weapons sales block now. Should we take your yes vote now to mean that you don't

have confidence in any ceasefire talks being restored? Well, sadly, as we've seen in the last week or so, the ceasefire

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