CNN’s Jake Tapper, in the latest fact-checking video with FactCheck.org, deconstructs President Donald Trump’s misleading claim that Sen. Bob Corker was “largely responsible” for the Iran nuclear deal.
Corker, the Republican chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, opposed the nuclear deal with Iran that was brokered by the Obama administration.
However, some conservative critics argue that Corker negotiated a bill that paved the way to deny Congress an up-or-down vote on ratification of the deal.
That legislation, the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, which passed in the Senate 98-1, allowed Congress 30 days to review a nuclear deal, and potentially — if it had enough veto-proof votes — to kill it.
The latter scenario never happened. Republicans tried multiple times, but weren’t able to secure the votes to overcome a Democratic filibuster and squash the deal.
Corker defended his bill, saying: “This legislation actually took power back from the president, and without it, he could have unilaterally implemented the deal immediately. The president never would have been forced to submit the agreement to Congress and there would have been no review and no debate on this critical national security issue.”
Two policy experts we consulted agreed with Corker.
Watch Tapper break it all down here, and read “Trump Misleads on Corker” for more background on the congressional review of the Iran deal.
All of our video collaborations with “State of the Union” are available on FactCheck.org.