The Obama Administration is busy running a full court press on behalf of its terrible nuclear deal with Iran. Yesterday, the President sat down with Thomas Friedman of the New York Times for a softball interview, and today, he hosted a press conference to answer critics’ concerns about the contents of the deal, and the Administration’s posture toward Iran’s overall behavior.
Via Fox news:
President Obama on Wednesday staunchly defended the newly struck Iran nuclear deal, using a press conference to lecture critics and assembled media on the agreement — even admonishing a reporter who questioned his resolve on U.S. prisoners left behind that “you should know better.” The president met the press as his national security team, and Vice President Biden, began to lobby skeptical lawmakers in Congress to back the agreement. Obama already faces bipartisan resistance to the deal, but on Wednesday challenged critics to present an alternative. “I’m hearing a lot of talking points being repeated about ‘this is a bad deal,'” Obama complained, speaking at the White House. He said he doesn’t expect Republicans to get behind the deal, but asked of critics, “What is your alternative?” Obama claimed the alternative is war.
They “should know better?” The release of American prisoners held in Iran has remained at the forefront of the debate over whether or not we should even be “dealing” with Tehran in the first place, but we’re not allowed to ask for a statement on why there were no provisions in the deal advocating for them?
It’s vintage Obama.
When asked if support for the deal by Middle East dictators—and opposition by the majority of Congress and Benjamin Netanyahu—gave him pause, the President “It does not give me pause that Mr. Assad or others in Tehran may be trying to spin the deal in a way that they think is favorable to what their constituencies want to hear. That’s what politicians do… My hope is that everyone in Congress evaluates this agreement based on the facts.” Diving deeper into the question, he blamed the dissent in Congress partly on politics, and all but accused Republicans of spreading misinformation about the deal as part of an opposition campaign.
The battle on the Hill is just beginning, of course. Congressional Republicans are running offense against approval of the deal, and some outlets are reporting that GOP leadership could potentially pull off the impossible:
In turn, I expect the White House to present a great deal of easily-digestible propaganda supporting the deal. They released this graphic this morning:
As I reported previously, the fact that major key players (including Hillary Clinton) have come out in support of the deal suggest that Obama and his Democrats are supremely confident that they’ll be able to hold off conservative efforts to torch the deal via a veto override.
MarketWatch did a decent job liveblogging the presser.
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