The White House on Monday claimed that the U.S. did not have to make concessions in the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran.
The comments came as presidential press secretary Josh Earnest compared President Obama’s negotiations with Iran and the deal reached to try to prevent Tehran from attaining a nuclear weapon to President Kennedy’s diplomatic talks with the Soviet Union and other world powers that resulted in the Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty in 1963.
Earnest, however, argued that the two international agreements also are significantly different because with the Iran deal the U.S. doesn’t have to make “any concessions.”
“In the Kennedy era, President Kennedy signed up to for the U.S. to make some significant concessions … some significant reductions in U.S. nuclear activity,” Earnest said. “The difference in the case of our negotiations with Iran [is] the U.S. doesn’t have to make any concessions.”
Earnest made the statements during his regular daily briefing with reporters Monday. Earlier in the day, the White House announced Obama’s plans to deliver a major address on Iran at American University on Wednesday morning.
President Kennedy delivered an address at the same school 52 years ago in which he announced his negotiations with the Soviet Union and other world powers to suspend nuclear weapons testing.
Obama’s address is set to take place two days before the Senate joins the House in leaving Washington for their districts and states for the entire month of August. Pro-Israel groups opposed to the Iran deal are planning an aggressive lobbying push in key states and districts targeting undecided Democrats on the deal.
In stark contrast to Earnest’s assertion that the U.S. made no concessions in the Iran deal, opponents argue that the Obama administration made far too many concessions, including agreeing to lift some restrictions on a conventional weapons ban and allowing Tehran 24 days before giving international inspectors access to suspicious sites.
Obama and top administration officials are clearly worried that opponents will break away a significant number of Democrats over the recess period.
Obama held a conference call with supportive progressive organizations on Thursday railing against the “relentless” tactics of the other side and imploring them to contact their lawmakers and make their support for the deal clear.
Earnest on Monday said the White House remains confident that there are enough Democratic votes in the House of Representatives to sustain a presidential veto of a GOP-led effort to kill the deal when Congress returns in September.
He did not, however, indicate how worried Obama and the administration is about votes in the Senate.
“We do feel confident … we have enough support in the House of Representatives to sustain that veto,” Earnest said Monday. “But we don’t take those votes for granted.”
A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, released Monday, found that opposition to the Iran deal has doubled since June, with the public now divided nearly evenly between those supporting the agreement and those opposed.
The survey found 35 percent in favor of the deal, 33 percent against it and 32 percent not knowing enough to have an opinion.
In mid-June, the same survey found that 36 percent of the public supported the deal while 17 percent opposed it and 46 percent said they didn’t know enough to have an opinion.
