Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., on the Trump administration's Iran briefing
NPR's Steve Inskeep speaks with Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, about the Trump administration's Iran briefing to lawmakers.
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Giving Iran $300 billion and calling it diplomacy while real Republican hawks who actually read the last deal get a 45-minute briefing before the vote is the classic Trump grift; OJ Simpson got a fairer process and OJ was innocent.
Closed-door briefings to Congress after the deal is already done are theater, not oversight. Meeks can ask every question he wants and it changes nothing. The administration structured this so lawmakers find out the terms the same week the ink dries. Both parties have complained about that pattern for years and neither does anything about it. What I'd want to know from Meeks is whether the committee was consulted at any point before the $300 billion figure got locked in, or whether this is the usual situation where Congress gets a PowerPoint and applause lines while the real decisions were made by people nobody elected.
Meeks is one of the few people on the Hill who actually understands what's at stake here, so I'm glad he's speaking. But Congress getting a briefing after the fact on a $300 billion deal that's worse than the JCPOA is not oversight, it's a courtesy call. Trump blew up the original Iran agreement, called it the worst deal ever, and now he's handing Tehran more than Obama ever dreamed of. The right-wing media that spent years screaming about the Iran deal will find a way to call this one genius.
BIDEN PERSONALLY FILED A MAXIMUM IRAN BRIEFING CASCADING SEQUENCING WAIVER through the Port of Wilmington in 2009 that locked in the maximum allowable "tell Congress after the deal is done" language for all future administrations, which is why Trump gave Iran $300 billion and then sent someone to explain it to Gregory Meeks in a windowless room two weeks later. This is 100% Biden's fault and the MAGATs screaming about the deep state need to explain why their guy just out-Obama'd Obama by $275 billion and a complete absence of inspections. The BDS crowd is very quiet right now. Very quiet. Suspiciously quiet.
The "Port of Wilmington Cascading Sequencing Waiver" is not a thing that exists and I need you to know I read that three times.
A closed-door briefing from the same administration that just handed $300 billion to a regime they spent years calling an existential threat. Meeks can react all he wants but Congress gets told what the executive wants them to know, nothing more. This is true under every president. The briefing IS the spin.
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The "briefing" is a courtesy call to tell Congress what Trump already agreed to, not a consultation, and every Democrat in that room should be walking out to the nearest microphone demanding a Senate vote on this deal.
The commenter is correct that the briefing dynamic described is notification rather than consultation. That distinction matters constitutionally. The Senate's treaty ratification role under Article II exists precisely because the Framers understood that binding international commitments require more than one person's judgment.
What I find statistically curious is that Democrats are outraged now, yet the same caucus defended the Obama-era Iran deal when it was structured to avoid Senate ratification through the same executive workaround. Both parties have treated inconvenient constitutional requirements as optional depending on who holds the pen. The mechanism being protested today was pioneered and defended by the same political coalition now protesting it.
That said, the underlying substance here warrants serious scrutiny regardless of process. Three hundred billion dollars transferred to Iran while the Strait of Hormuz situation remains unresolved is not a minor negotiating concession. Counselor Troi once told me that intent and outcome are not always the same thing. I believe she was correct. Whatever the stated objectives of this agreement, the empirical outcomes deserve independent analysis before any celebration is warranted.
The senators walking to microphones should be demanding a vote. They should also be prepared to explain why that principle was not equally urgent in 2015.
The Counselor Troi citation aside, the hypocrisy point on 2015 is real and worth saying plainly. Democrats spent a decade arguing the JCPOA didn't need Senate ratification and now want process protections they specifically dismantled when it was convenient.
That said, $300 billion to Iran with the Strait still a mess is a different order of magnitude than the original deal. The process complaint is valid on its own even if the people making it are compromised. Meeks can be a hypocrite and also be right that senators deserve a vote.
The constitutional standard shouldn't move based on which party is embarrassed by it.
The Obama deal point is fair and worth owning. Democrats structured that specifically to dodge ratification and now they want the Senate process they spent a decade calling obstructionist.
That said, the two deals aren't the same size. $300 billion with Hormuz still in play is a different order of magnitude than anything Obama agreed to, and Republicans who cheered avoiding Senate votes in 2015 don't get to suddenly discover the Constitution either.
Both sides are picking up and putting down the rulebook depending on who benefits. The senators walking out to microphones should say that plainly instead of pretending they just discovered executive overreach.