the deal. and i have been told tonight that the president of the united states, barack obama, has communicated to these senators that he will veto this if it were to pass, which is new news, and i think very important. i ve heard from another very senior administration official who is arguing that bob menendez, if he gets the way he wants to go, is going to trip us into a war. so the stakes, as you ve defined them, are very, very high. and this is not just another crank at the wheel on sanctions. this is a very important historic moment in u.s. diplomatic history, to systemically change the relationship of the united states with another key nation that has been problematic for us for three decades. this is a nixon goes to china moment. and it would be like the u.s. senate handicapping and kind of cutting the legs out from underneath richard nixon in normalizing china. that s how big this is. because of the domestic pressures, and it s groups like aipac leading the way. they ve been s
course on the democratic side leading are people like chuck schumer, but particularly robert menendez, and they want to kill the deal. and i have been told tonight that the president of the united states, barack obama, has communicated to these senators that he will veto this if it were to pass, which is new news, and i think very important. i ve heard from another very senior administration official who is arguing that bob menendez, if he gets the way he wants to go, is going to trip us into a war. so the stakes, as you ve defined them, are very, very high. and this is not just another crank at the wheel on sanctions. this is a very important historic moment in u.s. diplomatic history, to systemically change the relationship of the united states with another key nation that has been problematic for us for three decades. this is a nixon goes to china moment. and it would be like the u.s. senate handicapping and kind of cutting the legs out from underneath richard nixon in normalizing c
hunting and killing. because john brennan has been so involved in the killing part of the cia, of counterterrorism operations since 9/11, is it kind of a nixon goes to china moment, by putting him in charge of the cia right now, give up some of those capacities. is it possible he s there because he has the credibility to say i m not a softy, i m not afraid of killing people. he certainly has the president s support. he s one of president obama s closest advisers. what he does and advocates would be considered to have a blessing of the white house. there are constituencies in the cia to want to dial back some of the operations and to go back to the espionage intelligence analysis that they ve been doing traditionally because they realize there s opportunity costs. as you put in the set-up piece,
either party in congress. republicans stand to take a bigger message hit because they are partially in charge and taking a strong stance on not raising taxs and no matter . what it is easy for public to understand and easy for public to see as standing in the way. we are not going to compromise because of this. i think the republicans will take a slight more message hit. republicans will say they have put taxes on the table and put out proposals and where they are willing to go along with some hikings. right, last sunday on fox news sunay , it was a nixon goes to china moment. senator pat toome said we are regular well to put tax revenue increases not in the marginal and close tax loop holes and get rid of subsidies.
right up to the edge of israel, and an iran that begins to flex its muscles globally. and i think it s a very, very nasty picture that john mccain is talking recklessly about. he seemed to be hinting afterwards he meant this metaphorically, to do something, rather than just exclusively mean this meant a strike against the nuclear facilities in iran. did he mean it metaphorically, or was there a dog whistle to the nuclear cowboy crowd at minimum here? with all due respect to senator mccain, this is what we used to see at the forefront of the george w. bush administration. less so in the latter part. a lot of swagger, a lot of attitude. toughness. not thinking like allegedly one of john mccain s former heroes, richard nixon, would have approached this with a lot more complexity, depth, trying to think how you shape the global order in a nixon goes to china moment. john mccain is talking about so ort bilaterally hitting iran on