The White House on Wednesday dismissed a remark from Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), a vulnerable senator up for reelection who labeled President Obama the “drug dealer in chief” over a $400 million payment to Iran.
{mosads}”I don’t think that rhetoric is consistent with the views of most people in Illinois about the efforts of President Obama to advance our interests around the world and prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.
“I know there’s a temptation, particularly for those politicians that are on the ballot, to say outrageous things to try to gain attention,” Earnest added during a daily briefing for reporters.
Kirk was recently quoted in Springfield, Ill., newspaper editorial board interview as saying “we can’t have the president of the United States acting like the drug dealer in chief … giving clean packs of money to a … state sponsor of terror.”
Kirk’s Democratic Senate opponent, Rep. Tammy Duckworth, on Tuesday called the incumbent “unhinged” over the remark and said he should apologize, according to the Chicago Tribune, which noted that Kirk apologized last year after saying the Iran accord was the result of a president who wanted “to get nukes to Iran.”
Kirk has stood by his latest statement on Obama, telling reporters during a stop in Quincy, Ill., “I would say it is unhinged to give $400 million in cash to terrorists.”
Kirk has vowed to hold a hearing in September to dig into the $400 million in cash sent to Iran as three Americans were released from the country, a payment Republicans have panned as a ransom.
The White House has insisted the $400 million wasn’t ransom. The Obama administration has said the money was part of a $1.7 billion payment to Iran to resolve a failed arms deal from the 1970s.
Earnest said Wednesday that Kirk’s rhetoric is “certainly no way to run a country and it’s certainly no way to confront issues that are as important as preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, securing the safe return of U.S. Americans that are detained unjustly overseas and settling a 35-year-old financial dispute with an adversary of the United States in a way that saves taxpayers potentially billions of dollars.”