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absolutely, chris. again, i think everyone would say that the congressionally mandated sanctions are what helped in a strong way get iran to the table. and so, certainly we should approve this deal. we should approve what we see prior to those being lifted. and, look, i ve talked to the negotiators. no one, no one has said that congress weighing in would have any effect on this deal. as a matter of fact, what we know is just quite the contrary. we know that during the negotiation the fact that congress was likely to weigh in was something that the administration, the other western countries were able to use to ensure that this deal isn t worse than it is. so the fact that they knew congress would weigh in was helpful in the negotiation. certainly the american people want to know that someone is teasing out all of the details, especially as they see iran reporting one thing in their country and the u.s. something else here. ....
There is strong bipartisan support for a binding vote by congress. this is not something look, the president needs to sell this to the american people and congress needs to be involved in this way. all right. let me ask you the second question. the white house has said that the president would veto the kind of legislation you re proposing. if he does, you don t need 51 votes or even 60 votes, you need 67 votes which means 13 democrats to override his veto. do you have 67 votes? well, i don t know whether we have 67 votes or not, just with co-sponsors and if every republican supports it, we ll see how that all shapes out. but we have 64 or 5 that we re aware of today if that were the case. i talked to a number of democrats over the weekend, and i think that there are many more that are considering this. look, i think the american people want the united states senate to go through this deal. ....
So, look, this is the place where sober and thoughtful people to dig in. look, i want to see a negotiated agreement. i know that a lot of water has to go under the bridge over the next 90 days. it s very important that congress is in the middle of this, understanding, teasing out, asking those important questions, just like the ones that you begun to ask this morning. but, senator, foreign minister zarif of iran said yesterday if there is no deal or if the west backs out then iran will be freed and continue to resume and build back its nuclear program. and president obama says that sanctions, the existing sanctions prior to this negotiation, didn t stop iran from developing its nuclear program. for instance, 19,000 centrifuges. then the president said this do you really think that this verifiable deal, if fully implemented, backed by the world s major powers is a worse option than the risk of another ....
Committee, the senate foreign relations committee will meet on april 14th, that s just nine days from now, to consider legislation that you have already introduced. and let me put up on the screen what that legislation would call for. the president would be prohibited from suspending, not even ending, but even suspending any congressional sanctions for 60 days while the house and senate review the deal, but president obama says this if congress kills this deal, not based on expert analysis, and without offering any reasonable alternative, then it s the united states that will be blamed for the failure of diplomacy. international unity will collapse and the path to conflict will widen. senator, couple of questions. will your committee actually vote on your bill on april 14th? and will you insist on congressional review? ....
War in the middle east? first of all, your reaction to foreign minister zarif s comments about their ability to continue their nuclear program if the west backs out and secondly, what about the president saying the sanctions don t work and if you kill this deal we are going to end up with a war? well, look, there s always this straw man, as has been said, chris, we would be better off today with the interim deal continuing as it is today if we think that we re moving to a bad deal. one of the things that most americans may not be aware of, but we would be releasing about $130 billion to the iranian government once we make this deal over time. their economy is going to flourish. so, again, i think to pose this straw man of a war, the fact is that congress has a rightful role to play in this. we know that we ve already played a positive role. ....