Gottheimer: Kaine ‘Flat Out’ Wrong to Accuse Israel of Killing Diplomacy, Iran Can Always Come to the Table and Disarm, They Didn’t
On Friday’s broadcast of “CNN News Central,” Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) stated that Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) is wrong to accuse Israel of wrecking diplomacy and said Iran has been insincere in negotiations and “Iran, as the president said this morning, is welcome to come back to the table today and actually disarm their nuclear program, diminish their capabilities that they continue to drive forward on, that they’ve been dishonest about, as we just saw from the IAEA yesterday about their capabilities.”
Gottheimer said, “Tim Kaine is just flat out wrong. The bottom line is, there was a 60-day deadline that the president put forth for Iran to negotiate. They’ve done what Iran always does all these times. They rope-a-dope, they come up with new excuses. The supreme allied commander made his comments, which showed no interest in actually finding a negotiated way forward. The United States made it clear that we were looking for ways to move forward. And, listen, Iran, as the president said this morning, is welcome to come back to the table today and actually disarm their nuclear program, diminish their capabilities that they continue to drive forward on, that they’ve been dishonest about, as we just saw from the IAEA yesterday about their capabilities. So, my perspective, Iran has proven time and again, not only are they a threat to democracy and freedom, not only between Iran, the IRGC, their military, and their proxies attacked the United States, killed Americans, attacked our bases, attacked our ships, but it’s time to show Iran that this is not acceptable behavior, and, moving forward, the nuclear program is unacceptable.”
He continued, “We need to make sure that their capabilities are diminished, and, of course, their terror capabilities are eliminated. And I think the actions that were taken yesterday from a point of self-defense, knowing that Iran, at least of what’s been reported, Iran was planning to move forward with attacks on Israel, so, you can understand from a self-defense perspective why Israel acted.”
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