WASHINGTON — Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Bob Corker (R-TN) told reporters Tuesday that his Republican colleagues’ letter to Iran was not “constructive” to the goal of ensuring Congress plays a role in the approval of a nuclear agreement.
“I knew of the letter but it just wasn’t something — I immediately knew that it was not something that, for me anyway, in my particular role, was going to be constructive,” Corker said in the Capitol. “And I just didn’t even realize until this weekend that it had the kind of momentum that it has.”
The letter from Sen. Tom Cotton and signed by 46 other Senate Republicans, including the party’s leadership, informed Iran’s leaders that a deal to halt its nuclear program could be blocked by Congress or nixed by President Barack Obama’s successor.
“I did not think the letter was something that was going to help get us to an outcome,” Corker said. “My role as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee is to get us to an outcome. And I did not think the letter was something that was going to help get us to an outcome that we’re all seeking, and that is Congress playing that appropriate role in striking a deal with Iran negotiations.”
Corker said he wasn’t worried that the intense backlash to the letter, from the White House to Democrats to certain media outlets, would undermine his efforts to secure a veto-proof majority for legislation that requires Congress to sign off on any deal with Iran.
“The administration has pushed back on Congress having any role,” he said, pointing out that Obama has threatened to veto his bill, which has the support of numerous Democrats.
Some of those cosponsors — Sens. Bill Nelson (D-FL), Tim Kaine (D-VA) and Angus King (I-ME) — strongly criticized the GOP letter on Tuesday. Kaine said it raises questions as to whether the Republican-led Congress is capable of handling national security in a “mature and responsible way.”
Corker responded, “I think this Congress is plenty mature.”
Even a stopped clock in a Republican chamber is right twice a day.
Constructive??? Where did Corker get the idea that ANYTHING that the REPUDS do is meant to be Constructive?
Not if they keep changing where the hands point, it isn’t.
Well, exactly. What’s alarming is that ‘Senate collegiality’ has already ensnared Kane, Nelson and presumably a few other Democratic Senators. Maybe this stupid backfiring letter will help put the kibosh* to Corker’s bill.
[Some figure the word kibosh derives from the Arabic word qurbāsh, meaning a “nothing” that starts at the end of something.
E.g. if you want a hot dog no more than 1 foot long, you have to do something to limit its length. Using a ruler or directing your cook or enforcing a regulation, anything to ensure the dog doesn’t go beyond that outer limit limit of 1 foot, could constitute ‘putting the kibosh’ to the length of the dog – IOW you’d be acting to ensure there’s ‘nothing’ beyond that limit.]
This letter and the Netanyahoo thing is all about the Jewish vote in Florida in 2016.