WASHINGTON
Republican presidential hopefuls rallied tea party opposition to the Iran nuclear deal on Wednesday as lawmakers prepared to vote on the accord.
Real estate mogul Donald Trump, who is currently leading the prospective GOP presidential pack by a large margin, assailed the internationally brokered pact, saying that he has never seen a deal “so incompetently negotiated as our deal with Iran”.
“We are led by very, very stupid people,” Trump told a crowd of thousands assembled on the west lawn of the U.S. Capitol. “We can’t beat anybody. Our vets are being treated horribly. It will change. We will have so much winning if I get elected that you may get bored with winning.”
Fellow Republican presidential hopeful, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said the “catastrophic” deal is “the single greatest national security threat facing America,” arguing that Iran will not honor its commitments.
“If Iran will not stop its nuclear program, we will stop it for you,” he said.
White House spokesman Eric Schultz told reporters aboard Air Force One that many of the arguments used to oppose the Iran deal “date back to the 2002 decision to invade Iraq."
President Barack Obama previously made the same claim.
But even as crowds rallied outside the Capitol building, inside House Republican lawmakers wrangled over opening debate on a congressional resolution of disapproval.
Some Republicans broke from the rest of the pack with the resolution looking unlikely to pass the Senate where Democrats backed by the White House have secured 42 votes opposed to the action.
House Republican leaders scheduled a meeting for later Wednesday to discuss next steps.
World powers and Iran agreed to provide Iran with billions of dollars in sanctions relief in exchange for unprecedented access to and curbs on Iran’s nuclear program.
Congress has until Sept. 17 to vote on the agreement.
