Obama Claims #BadIranDeal Has "Strong Support" - Bipartisan Majorities Vote Against Iran Deal & 59% of Americans Disapprove of His Handling of Iran

Today in Washington, D.C. - Sept 14, 2015:
The House is not in session today and will reconvene tomorrow at  3 PM.

The Senate is not in session today and will reconvene again tomorrow at 1 PM. At 6 PM on Tuesday, the Senate will vote again on cloture on the McConnell substitute amendment to H.J. Res. 61, which is the resolution of disapproval of the Iran deal. Democrats will have the opportunity to drop their partisan protection of the president and let the Senate have an up-or-down vote on the resolution of disapproval.

Following a filibuster in the Senate by a minority of senators, all Democrats, President Obama declared, “Today, the Senate took an historic step forward and voted to enable the United States to work with our international partners to enable the implementation of the comprehensive, long-term deal that will prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. . . . Today, I am heartened that so many Senators judged this deal on the merits, and am gratified by the strong support of lawmakers and citizens alike.”

To begin with, those senators voted to prevent an up-or-down vote on a resolution of disapproval of the president’s deal with Iran, so his description of the vote is not accurate. And, as anyone who’s paid attention to the deal and the debate over it could tell the president, the contention that it will prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon is dubious at best.

But the president’s assertion that his Iran deal has “the strong support of lawmakers and citizens alike” just doesn’t mesh with reality.

To begin with, a bipartisan majority of 58 senators voted to disapprove of the deal. And a bipartisan majority of 269 House members voted to reject a resolution approving of the deal. In each case, only a partisan minority supported the deal.

And even among the Democrats in Congress who announced that they’d vote for the deal, their statements were tepid and replete with deep skepticism of the deal. Democrat senators said things like, “this deal has clear flaws and substantial risks,” “this agreement could set a dangerous precedent,” “This agreement with the duplicitous and untrustworthy Iranian regime falls short of what I had envisioned,” and even “This is not the agreement I would have accepted at the negotiating table.” The president thinks this is “strong support”?

The American public is even more skeptical. Politico writes today “Fifty-nine percent of Americans disapprove of Obama’s handling of America’s relationship with Iran, according to a new CNN/ORC poll released Sunday, and 49 percent said Congress should reject the deal. Most of those polled said they do not trust Iran to abide by the terms of the agreement: 37 percent said it was ‘extremely likely’ that Iran would violate the deal and 23 percent said it was ‘very likely.’”

Last week the Pew Research Center found similarly, explaining that “public support for the deal has declined. Currently, just 21% approve of the agreement on Iran’s nuclear program reached between the United States, Iran and other nations. Nearly half (49%) disapprove of the agreement . . . .”

How does President Obama look at those results and call it “strong support”?

Glenn Kessler, the Washington Post’s “Fact Checker,” also can’t find evidence to support the president’s contention. He writes, “On the face of it, support by 42 members of the Senate out of 100 indicates minority support. . . . [S]upport for the agreement consistently dropped over the summer, even as the White House was picking up enough votes from Democratic lawmakers to thwart a resolution nullifying the agreement. . . . [T]he polls also reflect declining support among Democrats. By the beginning of September, there was barely a poll that, outside the margin of error, indicated majority support for the deal, let alone ‘strong’ support.”

Kessler concludes, “Anyway you slice it, it is difficult to support the claim that there is ‘strong support’ for the Iran deal among lawmakers and citizens. This is clearly a case of winning ugly, in the face of minority support among lawmakers and increasing opposition among American citizens. . . . Three Pinocchios.”

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