House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy on Sunday criticized President Obama for his administration’s rift with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, joining a chorus of Republicans skeptical of the president’s management of relations with Israel and Iran.
“This administration should be better than this,” McCarthy said in an appearance on CBS Sunday from Bakersfield, Calif., which is in his district.
Citing the United States’ “unique relationship” relationship with Israel, McCarthy said that “we should build that rather than trying to make it personal.”
“They’re trying to make this about the prime minister,” McCarthy said of the Obama administration. Instead it should be “about the mutual concern we have for Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon.”
The Obama administration this week criticized Netanyahu for rhetoric he used relating to the Palestinian territory on the campaign trail in Israel. It also claimed progress toward a deal in nuclear negotiations with Iran.
That deal, McCarthy said, should be subject to review not only by the Senate, but also by the House.
“I think the House should have some responsibility” for a negotiated deal with Iran to prevent the regime from acquiring nuclear weapons, McCarthy said. He declined to say, however, that the House should vote on any deal.
“We will continue to be able to review where we go forward,” the Republican leader said.
In the interview, McCarthy also broadened his criticism to encompass all of Obama’s foreign policy, which he said was a mistaken “redirection” away from confronting enemies toward trying to engage with them.
“The president has been consistently wrong about this,” McCarthy said, stating that the Obama administration was wrong to declare the Islamic State the “JV team,” to claim that al Qaeda had been destroyed, and to name Yemen a model for his foreign policy.
