Senate

Senate GOP launches preemptive strike against Iran pitch

by Jordain Carney - 07/22/15 12:25 PM ET

Senate Republicans took a preemptive strike Wednesday against the Iran nuclear deal, as top administration officials prepare to storm the Capitol to sell the agreement.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said that the Obama administration has the “burden of proof” to convince lawmakers and the American people that they should support the deal.

{mosads}”The onus is on the administration to explain why a deal like this is a good one for our country,” he added.

McConnell and a handful of other Senate Republicans lined up the floor Wednesday to voice their concerns about the agreement.

The comments come as Secretary of State John Kerry, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew and Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz are expected to meet with lawmakers on Wednesday, as well as testify before the Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday.

Sen. John Cornyn, the majority whip, suggested that the administration “had moved its own goalposts” during the Iran talks.

The Texas Republican compared a quote from Moniz who said earlier this year that “we expect to have anywhere, anytime inspections” to a quote from Kerry, who suggested that was never on the table during the talks.

“I don’t know whether Secretary Kerry or Secretary Moniz actually talked to each other or not,” he added, saying that if the inspections “were not on the table, why is this deal actually a good deal?”

Some Republican lawmakers have been vocal critics of the Iran deal, announced earlier this month. The administration’s decision to allow the United Nations to endorse the deal before Congress has a chance to review and vote on it has only bolstered that opposition.

Sen. John Barrasso, who leads the Republican Policy Committee, said the move is a sign that “the president is hoping to force Congress, to bully Congress, to go along with his plan, without giving it serious debate.”

The Wyoming Republican added that while “it remains to be seen” if the deal is a good deal, he said that “at this point I have serious doubts.”

Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.) echoed Barrasso, saying that “the more I read, the more my concern grows.”

The administration handed over the deal to lawmakers over the weekend, with Congress’s 60-day review period starting Monday. The Senate isn’t expected to take a vote on the deal until September.

Coats, acknowledging the coming pitch to support the deal, said that “we must ignore the coming public relations campaign that will trumpet this deal as a victory for diplomacy and the false premise that the deal is a choice between peace and war.”

Cornyn also rejected that choice, saying that it’s “simply unacceptable for the president to be misrepresenting what the options are to Congress and the American people.”

He wants to increase sanctions against Iran as part of an effort to get a better deal, but sanctions legislation would likely face an uphill battle in the Senate.

Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) added that “it’s not this agreement or war. It’s this agreement or doing the right thing for the American people.”

Tags Barack Obama Ernest Moniz Iran Jacob Lew John Kerry Mitch McConnell