White House spokesman defends Obama comments on Iran, GOP

White House press secretary Josh Earnest on Thursday defended President Obama’s comparison of GOP critics of the Iran deal to Iranian extremists.

“The fact is the president made a pretty passionate case for a deal that he believes is critical to one of our chief national security priorities, which is preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon,” Earnest said. “I would concede that the president was not pulling punches yesterday.”

Republicans have argued that the president’s comparison, made during a speech at American University on Wednesday, went too far. Obama drew a parallel in the speech between hard-liners in Iran and hard-line Republicans in Congress.

“It’s those hard-liners who are most comfortable with the status quo,” Obama said. “It’s those hard-liners chanting ‘death to America’ who have been most opposed to the deal. They’re making common cause with the Republican caucus.”

Earnest noted that most Republicans and Iranian hard-liners oppose the nuclear deal the Obama administration negotiated with Iran and five other countries last month.

“I think what he did was he made the point that they are making the same argument, that it’s hard-liners in Iran suggesting they should kill the deal, and it’s Republicans here in D.C. that are suggesting that the deal should be killed too,” Earnest said.