The White House on Tuesday formally threatened to veto a resolution disapproving the Iran deal, on the same day it secured enough Democratic Senate votes to prevent the bill from reaching the Senate floor for a full vote.
President Obama for months has made clear his intention to veto any congressional resolution to disapprove the Iran deal negotiated between the U.S., several other world powers and Tehran, but the White House drove home the point late Tuesday with a formal statement.
The White House Office of Management and Budget late Tuesday said Congress’ rejection of the deal would “greatly undermine our national security interests on multiple fronts.”
“It would effectively block the international community from peacefully and verifiably preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, allow for the resumption of an unconstrained and unchecked Iranian program, and lead to the unraveling of the international sanctions regime that was sustained because the administration sought to diplomatically resolve concerns regarding Iran’s nuclear program,” OMB said.
In addition, OMB said Congress’ rejection of the deal would “deal a devastating blow to America’s credibility as a leader of diplomacy and ultimately result in the exhaustion of alternatives to military action,” and make it harder to sustain a unified international coalition to combat Iran’s destabilizing activities in the region.
“The president has made clear that he will veto any legislation that prevents the successful implementation [of the Iran deal],” OMB concluded. “If the president were presented with [the House version of the bill], he would veto the resolution.”
Last week, the White House gained enough Senate Democratic votes to sustain his veto threat, and earlier Tuesday, the last holdout Democratic senators announced their support for the deal, bringing the number of Democratic senators that backing the agreement to 42.
That’s a critical number, as it’s enough for Democrats to sustain a filibuster of the bill and prevent it from receiving a full Senate vote. Democratic leaders, however, have yet to determine whether they will take such a strong stand against the resolution disapproving the deal.
The White House hasn’t come out and explicitly asked the 42 Senate Democrats to block Senate consideration of the disapproval resolution, but spokesman Josh Earnest on Tuesday made clear that is the administration’s preference.
“[W]e certainly would expect that those members of Congress who support the agreement to take the necessary steps in Congress to prevent Congress from undermining the agreement,” Earnest said.
He also sought to blunt anticipated GOP criticism of Democrats if they do filibuster the resolution, saying that the Nuclear Review Act established a 60-vote threshold for accepting or rejecting the underlying agreement with Tehran.
“There’s been no change to the procedure, this is exactly how everyone understood this — that the procedure for Congress to consider this agreement would” require 60 votes he said.
