Menendez: Deal Didn’t End Iran Nuclear Program — It ‘Preserved It’

Thursday on  MSNBC ‘s “The Rundown With José Díaz-Balart,” Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) dismissed the effectiveness of President Barack Obama’s deal with Iran in ending the rogue regime’s ability to produce a nuclear weapon.

Menendez said, “Well, look, I’ve been to so many hearings, classified briefings, independent briefings and I have serious reservations. And I will be deciding. I’ll be going back to New Jersey, listening to constituents and then I will come to a conclusion. But those serious reservations. I have tried to have them assuaged. And what I see is we didn’t end Iran’s nuclear program, we actually preserved it. We have a set of circumstances that we don’t stop Iran from being a nuclear threshold state, and in time, they will have the option if they choose to ultimately move towards a nuclear weapon and our choices then will even be more limited than they are today.”

“So as someone who looks at this issue for the better part of 20 years since I was in the House of Representatives sitting on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and following Iran then, I have seen a progression that seriously worries me,” he continued. “And a deal that ultimately leaves me very concerned that we haven’t ultimately achieved the goal that we started these negotiations off, which was to ensure Iran doesn’t have that capacity.”

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