Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) slammed Democrats and President Obama ahead of a second vote on the Iran nuclear deal, saying they are OK with “winning ugly” and that they are “ignoring reality” on the agreement.
“How could [Obama] justify blocking a vote now on an issue of such immense magnitude as the Iran deal? It’s part of a larger retreat to campaigning instead of engaging on this important issue. … Simply ignoring reality when it becomes inconvenient,” McConnell said. “This is clearly a case of winning ugly.”
{mosads}The Kentucky Republican was referring to a Washington Post fact check of Obama’s statement that the Iran deal has the “strong support of lawmakers and citizens alike.”
The Washington Post gave Obama “Three Pinocchios” which, according to the Post’s guidelines, means the president’s statement had “significant factual error and/or obvious contradictions.”
The Republican leader’s remarks come as the Senate is scheduled to take a second vote on a resolution disapproving the Iran deal on Tuesday evening. Sixty votes are needed to move forward and Democrats are expected to block the resolution for a second time.
McConnell acknowledged as much, saying that if Democrats “share the president’s determination to win ugly on this important issue, then they have sufficient numbers to do that, apparently.”
Republicans would need to win over two more Senate Democrats in order to pass a resolution of disapproval on the Iran deal. They had hoped that senators would face backlash from constituents after last week’s failed vote on the resolution, though top Senate Democrats predicted supporters of the deal would hold firm.
McConnell — who said the agreement would subsidize terrorist groups including Hezbollah and Hamas, as well as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad — added that “a strong bipartisan majority” in the Senate would reject the agreement if Democrats would allow a vote.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) previously offered Republicans a deal that would allow lawmakers to skip over procedural votes and go straight to a final vote on the Iran nuclear deal, but only if McConnell agreed to a higher threshold for final passage.
Reid fired back at McConnell on Tuesday, suggesting his remarks against the deal had “nothing to do with intellectual credibility.”
“I would suggest in the future realistically the Republican leaders should be factual on what the agreement was,” he added. “Because what he just outlined has nothing to do with what the actual facts are.”