Monday night concluded with Joe Biden versus Senate Republicans.
The vice president fired back at 47 Republican lawmakers, writers of a letter sent directly to Iran’s leaders, warning them any nuclear deal the U.S. makes with the country has to be approved by Congress.
In a statement released by the White House Monday night, Biden described the letter as “beneath the dignity of an institution I revere.”
“In thirty-six years in the United States Senate, I cannot recall another instance in which Senators wrote directly to advise another country — much less a longtime foreign adversary — that the President does not have the constitutional authority to reach a meaningful understanding with them. This letter sends a highly misleading signal to friend and foe alike that that our Commander-in-Chief cannot deliver on America’s commitments — a message that is as false as it is dangerous,” he said.
“The decision to undercut our President and circumvent our constitutional system offends me as a matter of principle. As a matter of policy, the letter and its authors have also offered no viable alternative to the diplomatic resolution with Iran that their letter seeks to undermine,” Biden, who presides over the Senate, also said.
The letter, spearheaded by Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and signed by 46 other senators, was released publicly Monday. It made its way to the hands of Ayatollah Khamenei (Iran’s supreme leader), Hassan Rouhani (Iran’s president) and Javad Zarif (Iran’s foreign minister).
Zarif also responded to the letter Monday, calling it “propaganda play.”
“I wish to enlighten the authors that if the next administration revokes any agreement ‘with the stroke of a pen’ … it will have simply committed a blatant violation of international law,” he said in a statement.
