Today in Politics: Iran Showdown Brings Obama and Congress to New Low
Good Tuesday morning from Washington, where the clock is ticking ahead of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s email news conference and possible Republican presidential candidates are lining up to face the firefighters. The Senate would rather discuss human trafficking than the attorney general nomination of Loretta E. Lynch, but after Republicans in the chamber tried to derail negotiations with Iran, foreign policy is the biggest hot spot between Congress and the White House.
The escalating fight over a potential Obama administration nuclear deal with Iran has sent relations between President Obama and congressional Republicans plummeting to a new low as the White House on Monday accused Senate Republicans of actively undermining administration foreign policy.
In a remarkable statement, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. was unsparing in his criticism of an open letter from 47 Senate Republicans to the Iranian government warning that any agreement could be overturned by the next administration. Mr. Biden, a senator for more than three decades, called the letter offensive and said that undercutting “a sitting president in the midst of sensitive international negotiations is beneath the dignity of an institution I revere.”