Barack Obama to meet with Jewish leaders to push Iran nuclear deal

Home Top

Bankrupt 50 Cent's mansion costs him $70k a MONTH to maintain: Broke rapper's new filing reveals the extraordinary costs of his luxury life (and all previous owners of his home went bankrupt too!)
Sons of 9/11 victim grew up poor and were never told they were worth $1m: Their dad died in the kitchen of Windows on the World - then their payout bounced between bureaucrats for a DECADE
'Do you believe in love at first sight... or should I walk around you three more times?': The five cringe-worthy pick up lines that actually DO work revealed
More than 450 civilians, including 100 children, have been killed by US-led coalition airstrikes against ISIS, claims report
Six-year-old girl killed alongside another spectator in circus tent collapse that left another 15 injured in New Hampshire
Trump wins by NOT showing up at final warmup before first GOP debate - as rivals squabble without naming him and new poll gives him 26 per cent of primary voters
Democrats save Planned Parenthood from being stripped of cash - for now - after horror abortion videos as Republicans vow to push measure through
Obama to meet with Jewish leaders to push Iran nuclear deal as poll shows American public opposes pact with ayatollahs
Jeb Bush tells how he has lost 'lost 40 pounds in six months' on the Paleo diet
Jeb is miserable at my rise, crows Trump: Republican frontrunner laughs at claims Bush is happy at The Donald hurting rest of field
Joe Biden IS considering run for presidency White House admits as it says he needs time to consider taking on Hillary
President Obama goes without his wedding ring for the weekend
Marry Mia Farrow? I've scotch older than her: That's what Dean Martin told Sinatra. If only he'd listened!
Is this why women wear their coats in the office? Air conditioning temperatures in the office are based on the preferences of a middle-aged male
It's not Viagra he needs... it's testosterone: Many men think those little blue pills are all it takes to pep up a flagging love life. But new research suggests they're VERY wrong
Could pears be the best hangover cure going? Fruit's juice can reduce effects of a night's drinking by up to a fifth
Apple's Siri set to transcribe messages so iPhone users never have to listen to another voicemail
Father Bobby Brown is nowhere to be seen at final goodbye for Bobbi Kristina: Cissy Houston and Dionne Warwick lead the mourners as she is buried next to her mother in New Jersey cemetery
Two shot at J. Cole concert: Hunt for gunman who opened fire and left two victims fighting for life after argument in parking lot in New Jersey
Brown and Houston families at WAR as photo of Bobbi Kristina in her casket 'is sold for six figures' with both sides blaming one another for the leaked picture
PIERS MORGAN: The best tribute Whitney and Bobbi Kristina's greedy, grasping, fame-hungry relatives and friends could pay them is to shut the f*** up
London to New York in just ONE HOUR: Airbus files patent for a hypersonic jet more than double the speed of Concorde
Ease the AGONY of sunburn: It can be a sign of significant skin damage. Here's how to reduce the redness and pain
'Every time I sat down to eat I was thinking - skinny or fat?' From living off diet coke and tins of tuna, food author reveals how she quit fad diets and started eating to feel good

Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz was dispatched on Friday to lobby leaders of influential Jewish organizations
Told reporters he thought was a 'very good meeting'; clearly it didn't go well enough - now Obama is meeting with them at the White House
Biden spent an hour on the phone with Jewish Americans several days after the deal was announced making the administration's case
Several prominent Democrats on Capitol Hill have not said how they'll vote
New poll shows that just 28 percent of Americans want the deal; 57 percent are opposed

By Francesca Chambers, White House Correspondent For Dailymail.com

Published: 18:28 EST, 3 August 2015 | Updated: 19:21 EST, 3 August 2015

View
comments

President Barack Obama will meet with prominent leaders in the Jewish community tomorrow behind closed doors, the White House announced today on the heels of another poll showing resistance from the public to the nuclear deal the executive branch negotiated with Iran.

Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz was dispatched on Friday to lobby leaders of influential Jewish organizations, and he said at a subsequent briefing with reporters he thought was a 'very good meeting.'

Apparently, it wasn't good enough, as the the president is now making himself available to answer questions about the deal that his spokesman openly acknowledged today is a source of concern for strong supporters of Israel, the sworn enemy of Iran.

'The president will come prepared to make a strong case....about how he believes that historic agreement.... isn't just in the best interest of the United States,' White House spokesman Josh Earnest said, 'it's clearly within the national security interests of our closest ally in the region, Israel.'

Earnest did not say who specifically the president was meeting with tomorrow, and the White House was not ready to make that list public when asked for it later in the day by DailyMail.com.

Among the 31 named attendees of a previous meeting at the White House with Obama in April to discuss the pending deal were Abe Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, Steve Rabinowitz, a Democratic strategist and alumnus of Bill Clinton's White House press office and Rabbi Julie Schonfeld.

Other attendees included Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, and Robert Cohen, the president of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

AIPAC has come out against the agreement while J Street, a liberal, Jewish-American group, is backing it and has been pressing its members in Congress to do the same.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been begging world powers and American legislators to oppose any deal with Iran since before the the accord in question came to fruition, however, and his words hang heavy in the air for Jewish lawmakers.

'It's a zealot country,' Netanyahu said in an appearance on NBC News a day after the accord, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, was inked. 'It's killed a lot of Americans. It's killing everybody in sight in the Middle East.'

Netanyahu said in his opinion, 'Iran has two paths to the bomb: One if they keep the deal, the other if they cheat on the deal.'

Vice President Joe Biden was the first administration official tasked with persuading Jewish Americans to ignore Netanyahu's warnings after negotiations concluded last month, hosting a call that the Jewish Telegraphic Agency says attracted more than a thousand listeners on July 20.

Biden, it said, spent an hour defending the deal from common criticisms. He did not take any questions afterward, it said, but his national security adviser, who was at that time on the ground in Israel with Defense Secretary Ash Carter, did

Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz was dispatched on Friday to lobby leaders of influential Jewish organizations, and he said at a subsequent briefing with reporters that he thought it was a 'very good meeting.' Apparently, it wasn't good enough, as the the president is now making himself available to answer questions about the deal

Next up was Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz. The MIT professor-turned-cabinet member characterized his dealings with the Jewish leaders as 'a very good discussion.'

'I felt that we made real progress in terms of clarification of issues in terms of how this agreement was ultimately good for our security and for the security in the region,' he said.

Moniz acknowledged that participants came to the meeting with 'very, very different perspectives' but said, overall, he thought 'it was a very, very good meeting.'

The energy secretary's meeting with reticent Jewish leaders topped off a tough week for the administration in terms of securing support for the international agreement that Moniz and Secretary of State John Kerry had a heavy hand in bringing about.

CNN released a poll taken several days after the public announcement of the deal showing that 52 percent of Americans wanted Congress to vote down the deal.

Kerry likewise took fire on the Hill, from Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate, during a set of congressional hearings.

Today, the administration received more bad news as Quinnipiac University published a survey of its own, taken during the same, rough time period as CNN's, in which a mere 28 percent of Americans said they approved of the deal. A majority, 57 percent, said they did not.

Even worse was that a bare-majority of the president's own party members, 52 percent, voiced their support for it.

Similar percentages of respondents told poll-takers they believed the accord would make the world less safe and President Obama was mishandling Iran.

Several prominent Democrats on Capitol Hill have since fallen in line and said they would be voting against a resolution of disapproval.

Prominent Jewish Democrat Adam Schiff, the ranking member on House Armed Services committee, and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren both threw their support behind it today as the best the way to prevent Iran from building a bomb.

Still silent: New York Senator Chuck Schumer, left, who is in line to lead his party after Harry Reid retires, and Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, right. Schultz represents Florida in Congress

Still silent though, are New York Senator Chuck Schumer, who is in line to lead his party after Harry Reid retires, and Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Schultz represents Florida in Congress.

Schumer's been the target of an aggressive lobbying campaign to oppose the deal. He told Politico in an interview published yesterday, 'I’m doing what I’m always doing when I have a very difficult decision: Learning it carefully and giving it my best shot, doing what I think is right.'

'I’m not going to let pressure or politics or party get in the way of that,' he said.

Last week during a call with progressive activists, the president had said some Democratic lawmakers were getting 'squishy' on the deal under pressure from its critics.

The White House declined to tell DailyMail.com whether the president had spoken to Schumer directly last week and it played coy when it may a similar inquiry into the president's plans to meet with Schultz one-on-one during a working reception he was hosting at the White House for House Democrats that evening.

The House subsequently adjourned for a six week break. The Senate will take its leave at the end of this week.

Earnest said during his briefing today that the president could meet with meet with additional senators before they leave town. He may also meet with 'other stakeholders who have shown interest in this particular issue,' in the coming days, as well, Earnest said.

Lawmakers will return from their summer vacation the second week in September. The White House will have, at most, 12 days after that to win over Democratic hold-outs.

The legislative branch has until September 20 to approve or disapprove of the deal or it doesn't get a say at all.

If it passes a resolution of disapproval, it starts the clock for President Obama to authorize a veto, which he has said he will. Congress would then have 10 days to come up with the support to override his decision before the accord could take effect.