WASHINGTON — Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and Tea Party Republicans came together Wednesday to denounce a landmark foreign policy deal that is quickly becoming a major 2016 campaign issue: the Iran nuclear agreement. “We are led by very, very stupid people,” Trump told several hundred Tea Party members gathered on the west lawn of the U.S. Capitol, calling the Iran deal “incompetently” negotiated. Saying Iran will not honor its commitment to forgo nuclear weapons, Cruz told the crowd that the Iran deal represents “the single greatest national security threat facing America.” Cruz, a Texas senator, noted that the deal eliminates economic sanctions on Iran, providing it millions of dollars to finance terrorist activities, and effectively making the Obama administration “the world’s largest financier of radical Islamic terrorism.” Both Republican candidates made campaign pitches as part of their anti-agreement speeches.
Trump pledged to negotiate better agreement on a variety of topics, from trade to foreign policy. “We will have so much winning if I get elected, that you may get bored with winning,” the New York businessman said at one point. For his part, Cruz, a senator from Texas, said “a new president” will confront Iran over its misbehavior. Obama and aides said the agreement — in which the U.S. and allies reduce sanctions as Iran gives up the means to make nuclear weapons — is the best way to prevent the Tehran régime from obtaining a nuclear arsenal. White House officials said Cruz and other speakers at the rally are using false arguments to defame the agreement.
Opponents “have gone to great lengths to derail this deal,” said White House spokesman Eric Schultz. “They’ve done so by using many of the same arguments that date back to the 2002 decision to invade Iraq.” The Tea Party rally came the same week that Obama secured enough congressional voters to block Republican attempts to void the Iran agreement. While Cruz and other speakers denounced Obama’s push for the agreement, they also sought to put pressure on Republican congressional leaders to somehow stop the deal from going into effect. In a Senate floor speech earlier Wednesday, Cruz said the “terrible deal” with Iran “will not stop a virulently anti-American and anti-Israeli régime from getting a nuclear bomb.” Several hundred opponents of the agreement gathered in 90-plus-degree weather to hear Cruz, Trump, and other Tea Party leaders denounce the Iran nuclear deal as members of the House and Senate debated it. Earlier in the day, former secretary of State and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton endorsed the agreement.
If Iran cheats, Clinton said that as president she would “not hesitate to take military action” to block Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. All the Republicans oppose the Iran deal. The Tea Party rally, however, brought together two Republican presidential candidates in Cruz and Trump who have spoken well of each other in an otherwise fractious race. Jeb Bush and other Republican White House hopefuls have criticized Trump, who leads early Republican polls. Cruz has not, saying the media only wants GOP candidates to fight among themselves.
The crowd booed not only mentions of President Obama, but also Republican congressional leaders John Boehner and Mitch McConnell. Another Republican presidential candidate also spoke at the rally: Former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore, who said the agreement will not stop Iran’s nuclear ambitions. “The deal is not the end of the Iranian danger,” he said. “It is the beginning.” Tea Party members chanted “U‑S-A,” waved flags, and held up signs assailing various politicians during the rally that featured more than a dozen speakers. Echoing long-standing Tea Party protests, people at the rally criticized politicians from both parties for refusing to stand up to Obama and his Iran deal, and attacked the news media for whitewashing the potential impact of the agreement. Daryl Brooks, 45, who drove down from Trenton, N.J., to join the mid-day rally, said he wanted politicians within the U.S. Capitol building and beyond to “feel watched” as they considered the Iran agreement.
“We want the Obama administration to know that we’re all watching and we’re out here,” Brooks said. Brooks said he opposes the Iran deal because the general public has not been given enough information on the details. He said the Obama administration is ignoring protests by the Israeli government, while “the Iranian president and the people want to destroy Israel.“Barb Bullock, 63, from Delaware, said the media is also partly to blame for the lack of transparency surrounding the Iran agreement. “I don’t think the press is doing enough or paying enough attention to the deal,” Bullock from Delaware said. “We get treated like children and they don’t tell us the bad things about the deal just the good things. We want the details we want what’s actually in the deal.” Bullock said she’s written letters to her congressional representative but received only a “form response,” so she wanted to express her protest in person. Some Tea Party members said they realize the Iran agreement will go into effect, but wanted to make their voices heard.
Rose Prescott — dressed from head-to-toe in red, white, and blue, and carrying a punching bag depicting President Obama — said “we know it’s a done deal,” but Congress needs to listen to the critics. “We will never vote for these politicians who voted yes again,” she said. “I want to show the world that we want to be represented.” Not all at the rally opposed the Iran agreement. Michael Avender, 20, a student from Northeastern University and representative from CODEPINK, an anti-war group at the rally to support the Iran deal, said he was hoping to engage with people at the protest to start a conversation and promote peace. “We’re trying to initiate dialogue with people… but people aren’t listening. They just hear what the extremists are saying,” he said.
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