Vice President Joe Biden will be on Capitol Hill today meeting with lawmakers in an effort to sell President Obama's nuclear deal with Iran, which was reached yesterday. As the terms of the deal become known, the details get increasingly alarming. It's going to be a tough sell.
Throughout the course of the nuclear negotiations with Iran, the world's largest state-sponsor of terror, lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle have remained skeptical about the terms of a deal with the rogue regime. In fact, one of the President's biggest critics on the Iran issue has been Democrat Senator Bob Menendez, who has already denounced the deal.
"The deal doesn't end Iran's nuclear program; it preserves it," Menendez said yesterday. "This does not guarantee that Iran will not achieve a nuclear weapon in the future."
Congress will debate the terms of the Iran deal and take an up or down vote on the measure sometime over the next 60 days. Yesterday during an address to the nation, President Obama warned Congress against sabotage.
"It would be irresponsible to walk away from this deal," Obama said yesterday.
According to The Hill, Republicans are coming up with a plan to bring the deal down.
Republican leaders in Congress are crafting their attack plan against the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran.
The GOP could seek to move a measure of disapproval, but it will be difficult to win a filibuster-proof 60 votes, much less the 67 required to overcome a presidential veto.
Republicans believe they will win the public relations battle on the deal, which largely unites the GOP and threatens to divide the Democratic Party.
Some Senate Republicans are thinking about moving a motion of approval of the deal, believing it would put Democrats in a tough spot ahead of next year’s elections. Such a move in the upper chamber could lead to less than half of the Senate backing the president, allowing for more favorable headlines for the GOP. The House, however, is more likely to pass a resolution of disapproval.
A third option is to move legislation sponsored by Menendez and Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) placing new sanctions on Iran, which the Banking Committee passed earlier this year and has Democratic support.
Earlier this year, Republican Senator Tom Cotton sent a letter directly to Iranian leaders warning that if the Obama administration made a deal with the regime without the consent and approval of Congress, that the deal would be temporary and could change or be removed under a future president. Now that a deal has been reached, Cotton is vowing to kill it.
"This proposed deal is a terrible, dangerous mistake that's going to pave the path for Iran to get a nuclear weapon while also giving them tens of billions of dollars of sanctions relief, even lifting the arms embargo at a time when they're destabilizing the entire middle east," Cotton said in an interview with MSNBC yesterday. "The American people will repudiate this deal and I believe Congress will kill the deal."