Corker pushes back on Trump’s claim he’s to blame for Iran deal
‘Nothing he said in his tweets today were truthful or accurate, and he knows it,’ Senate foreign relations chair says
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WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump again blamed Senator Bob Corker for the Iran nuclear deal on Tuesday, setting off an intra-party war of words, with the Tennessee Republican fending off the US president’s claims and saying Trump can’t be trusted to tell the truth.
“Same untruths from the same untruthful president #AlertTheDaycareStaff,” Corker tweeted on Tuesday.
Then, in an impromptu interview in the halls of Congress with CNN’s Manu Raju, Corker said: “Nothing he said in his tweets today were truthful or accurate, and he knows it. People around him know it. I would hope the staff over there would figure ways of controlling him when they know that everything he said today was absolutely untrue.
“We grew up in our family not using the L-word, okay? But they’re provable untruths — provable. On the Iran deal, everybody knows the role I played there.”
Same untruths from an utterly untruthful president. #AlertTheDaycareStaff
— Senator Bob Corker (@SenBobCorker) October 24, 2017
Corker was responding to a series of tweets Trump sent out earlier Tuesday that accused the senator of trying to block his efforts on implementing tax cuts.
“Bob Corker, who helped President O give us the bad Iran Deal & couldn’t get elected dog catcher in Tennessee, is now fighting Tax Cuts,” he said.
This is not the first time Trump has ascribed blame on Corker, who is also the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, for the pact.
Roughly two weeks ago, he tweeted that Corker was “largely responsible for the horrendous Iran deal!”
That argument is predicated on the fact that Corker, who was a strong opponent of the deal, authored a bipartisan bill with Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland that gave Congress additional oversight of the accord’s implementation.
The Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act (INARA) gave Capitol Hill lawmakers 30 days to review the deal after it was reached. It also required the White House to report back to the legislative branch every 90 days verifying Tehran’s compliance.
Initially antagonistic toward the legislation, then-president Barack Obama eventually accepted it as a compromise. In May 2015, it passed the Senate 98-1 and the House 400-25, and became law.
Once the deal was ultimately struck between the United States, Iran, and world powers, Corker urged his colleagues to vote against it and also tried to push through an amendment that would prohibit the US president from lifting sanctions against Iran. That did not muster enough support to overcome a Democratic filibuster.
Two weeks ago, Trump decertified the Iran nuclear deal under INARA, the same law Corker shepherded through Congress in 2015.
That move alone does not undo the pact. Rather, it punts a decision to Congress over whether to renew sanctions on Iran after a 60-day review period.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told reporters at the time the administration wants lawmakers to amend the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act (INARA), a domestic law that forces the White House to report to Congress every 90 days on whether Iran is abiding by the accord.
They will ask the Senate to use the two-month window to unilaterally impose new “triggers” on the deal that would outlast the JCPOA’s sunset provisions and prohibit Iran from developing and testing ballistic missiles.
The White House has explained this plan as an attempt to extend its focus on Tehran beyond the nuclear realm to the Islamic Republic’s other destabilizing activities.
While Trump has said that he may very well just walk away from the deal on his own if Congress fails to enact the changes he seeks, the US president has stressed that he hopes this plan can succeed.
Corker, meanwhile, as the leader of the Senate foreign relations panel, will likely be one of the key senators whose support he needs.
The Times of Israel Community.