Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri is exactly the kind of Democrat that President Obama needs to persuade to secure congressional approval of his nuclear deal with Iran.
Judging from comments she made Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” it sounds as if so far, his argument is winning.
“It’s not a perfect deal,” she said. “Obviously, we don’t trust Iran. But I think too many people are judging this deal against the status quo and not what the new situation would be on the world stage,” if the U.S. backed out of the deal it brokered with Tehran and five other world powers.
“Remember the world is united in this deal … it’s going to have to be a status quo where the rest of the world also stays united or the sanctions regime falls apart,” McCaskill said, picking up on President Obama’s theme that there is no guarantee that the international sanctions that have wrecked havoc on Iran’s economy and brought the Islamic Republic to the negotiating table would stay in effect.
McCaskill finds her Republican colleagues’ insistence on a 60 days review of the deal disappointing in light of their apparent bias against the agreement from the outset.
It seems many “made their minds up about the agreement in about five minutes,” she said. “I hope that all of my colleagues are doing what I’m doing, and that is doing our homework.”
McCaskill said she doesn’t feel pressured either by Obama to support it or by Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who is in line to replace Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada as Senate Democrats’ next leader, to reject it.
One of McCaskill’s colleagues who also hasn’t made up his mind yet, Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., said that Democrats will not base their votes on party loyalty. Suggestions by the White House and other prominent Democrats that Schumer should be denied the minority leader position in 2017 because of his break with Obama on this legacy issue are improper, he added.
“It’s not a party loyalty test,” he said. “And yes, I think it is inappropriate” to make it one.
“This is a consequential vote, a very important vote for the security of our country, and each member is laboring,” Cardin, who is Jewish, told CNN on Friday. “I have not made a decision yet but I can tell you this: We respect how each of our members are going about this and the fact that they have to make their individual judgments.”
For his part, Cardin said he is just now finding time to dig into the agreement’s details.
“[W]e’re just in the first parts of those 60 days,” he said. “I want to take the time to make the right decision. And I think taking this time will allow me to sort through this—give the people of Maryland an opportunity and make a decision that I think is best for our country.”
