The truth is Senator Corker opposed the Iran nuclear deal and tried to stop it. Trump and others are simply lying.

It you repeat a lie long enough and loud enough, soon most people will believe it to be true. That is what has happened with the claim that somehow Senator Bob Corker was responsible for the disastrous Iran nuclear deal.  Bombastic radio talk show hosts first made that claim and now it has taken on a life of its own. Most recently President Trump made that claim in an attack on Corker. People who make that claim may be innocently repeating a lie or purposely lying, but ether way it is a dirty lie.

The truth is that the Iran deal did not have to be passed as a treaty. The deal was undoing sanctions that were imposed by the United Nations and executive order.  There was absolutely nothing to compel President Obama to submit the Iran deal as a treaty. Corker was successful in forcing the administration to allow Congress to weigh in on the deal but unfortunately, Republicans could not muster the votes to stop it. If not for Bob Corker the Senate would have not even had a chance to stop it. Corker should be hailed as a hero who tired and failed rather than being unfairly denounced as a facilitator of the deal or even worse. I watched the events unfold in real time. I watched the news and the hearing televised on CSPAN. There is simply no basis for the lie that Corker was somehow responsible for the Iran deal. 

You may have policy differences with Corker on some issues or simply may not like his personality, but the truth matters.  

The following from USA Today tells the truth.

Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, opposed the nuclear deal and spoke out frequently against the international pact, which was negotiated by the administration of President Barack Obama in 2015.

In one particularly memorable exchange, the Tennessee Republican hauled then-Secretary of State John Kerry before his committee, grilled him about the deal and then proclaimed bluntly: “I believe you’ve been fleeced.”

In Congress, Corker led the opposition to the agreement and authored legislation that put in place a process for lawmakers to review and eventually vote on the deal. Obama had planned to implement the agreement without congressional approval before Corker’s bipartisan legislation.

In addition to giving Congress a say in the deal, the Corker-authored bill required that the president certify every 90 days that Iran is complying with the terms of the nuclear agreement. (link)

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