years of the sequester but don t have any agreement at least we know of, not that he was able to tell us about, about how to do that and what mix would be achieved of cuts and revenue or other things to do that. so tick, tick, tick, 11 more days. how are we going to get that done. in the reporting over the weekend, a lot of reporting on health care and how it went off the rails. two them you hear. the president is angry. okay. i get that. the chief of staff gave de deadlines and cabinet didn t respond. there s a subtext. you did a lot of reporting for your book. what you follow up after the campaign through the white house you see cabinet government isn t working and the management itself so extraordinary during the campaign was not displayed getting his most important legislative priority to work. well, i think the president
by menendez, council on foreign relations impose sanctions or at least the threat of sanctions. where do you stand on that? the president is fight it tooth and nail. yes, andrea. two things. first of all, you know the expression right tonight rich is not in the agreement. it says you have to have a neutraly agreeable program. i think both would agree right to free speech dnd on being able to veto anything he said, you would not think that was a right to free speech. with respect to additional sanctions, we should be very careful. we need to tread very carefully here. the reason iran is at the table, the reason engaged in serious discussions, international community behind these sanctions have been effective. if partners in international community perceive the united states to be short-circuiting the diplomatic process, our ability to continue those effective sanctions will be
in part hopefully up to two years. that s a pretty narrow small target. even that has not been reached. we put forward proposals, one of which i tried to get a vote on seven times in the house of representative which would relass that sequester. cuts to special interest tax breaks. we ve been denied an opportunity to vote on that just like the comprehensive immigration bill. what about iran. president rouhani gave an interview over the weekend basically saying iran has it right and will have the right to enrich uranium. he s pocketing that as something achieved from the negotiations not something decided in the final agreement six months from now. what about congress pushing certainly in the senate pushed
source of his concerns. i think he has two kinds of concerns. one, he fears psychology are going to fray sanctions and reduce leverage. i think here you can address concerns by saying to him we re going to be vigilant on this and continue to work with you. from the beginning of the administration worked closely with israelis to identify sanctions that matter and ensure others wntd invading them and iranians weren t allowed to get around them. i would say lets maintain that close cooperation. we will work with you on a day-to-day basis to ensure sanctions don t fray. number two, i would try to address the concern he has about what s the end game. the big concern he and others might have, you produced a first step agreement, how do you know it s not the last step. if it s the last step freeze them at 20,000 centrifuges which means they will have a breakout capability. the way to address that make it
agreement is not that it somehow has transformed the situation, not that it produced a breakthrough we re going to be confident we re going to transform uranium nuclear program and turn it into one inherently a peaceful one nor somehow a loss on the brink of becoming a nuclear weapons state. what the agreement does is stop the clock. that creates the basis for pursuing diplomacy over the next six months without it being under the pressure of iranian nuclear program advancing. it does provide them limited relief. it doesn t change architect you re of the regime. in a sense what it does is provide a cap for a cap, gives us a chance to see if we can negotiate a deeper deal. i think the key to in insuring that, in fact, this doesn t become a first step that is a last step is maintaining the