US Senate attempt to block Iran deal fails - live coverage
US Senate
US Senate attempt to block Iran deal fails - live coverage
- Majority of senators opposed to deal but lack numbers to formally disapprove
LIVE Updated 4m ago
Republican leaders in the Senate have insisted they will try to overturn the deal through the courts if Thursday’s vote fails. Photograph: Alex Wong/Getty ImagesBen Jacobs in Washington
Thursday 10 September 2015 16.25 EDTLast modified on Thursday 10 September 201516.35 EDT
Key events
14m ago16:25
McConnell is also announced that the Senate will revisit the Iran deal next week and that there will be at least one more vote to end debate on the legislation.
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15m ago16:24
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid is already celebrating the failure of the motion to end debate.
In a statement, Reid said “the Senate has spoken with a clarion voice and declared that the historic agreement to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon will stand.”
It is worth noting that the “clarion voice” which Reid celebrates is only 42 senators.
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16m ago16:22
Mitch McConnell is now on the floor saying that he won’t give floor time for anti-Iran deal legislation that comes from the House, unless it has “enough co-sponsors to override a presidential veto.”
He’s making clear that he’s not interested in symbolic legislation and feels confident that the American people will weigh in on the issue in the 2016 presidential election.
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20m ago16:18
Already, one presidential candidate has weighed in on the vote. Bernie Sanders, who leads in the polls for the Democratic nomination in both Iowa and New Hampshire, issued a guarded statement in support of giving the deal “a chance to succeed.”
Sanders said in a statement:“I voted to support the Iran nuclear deal today because it is my firm belief that the test of a great nation is not how many wars we can engage in, but how we can use our strength and our capabilities to resolve international conflicts in a peaceful way. Does the agreement achieve everything I would like? No, it does not. But it is far better than the path advocated by Dick Cheney and the neo-cons who took us into Iraq in 2003. If Iran moves toward a nuclear weapon, all available options remain on the table. I think it is incumbent upon us, however, to give the negotiated agreement a chance to succeed.”
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26m ago16:12
Republicans fail to block Iran deal
As expected, Republicans failed to muster the 60 votes necessary to end debate on a motion to disapprove of the Iran deal on Thursday.
The goal of blocking the nuclear agreement was far-fetched but the GOP was hoping to at least pass a resolution of disapproval which would then be vetoed by Barack Obama and register a symbolic victory. Instead, opponents of the deal fell two votes short by a margin of 58-42.
Updated at 9.15pm BST
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34m ago16:04
It’s worth noting that because of a quirk of Senate rules, Mitch McConnell, the Republican majority leader, will eventually have to vote against ending debate on the bill.
Under Senate rules, if he votes for the motion to end debate and it fails, he will not be able to bring back up again. Thus, McConnell, as the vote winds down, will change his vote so he has the option to bring up the legislation in the future. It won’t be a sign of the top Senate Republican suddenly sympathizing with the Obama Administration’s foreign policy. Instead, it will simply be yet another weird quirk of the Senate’s arcane rules materializing.
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48m ago15:51
Vote begins on ending debate on Iran deal bill
The Senate is now holding the key vote on whether to end debate on legislation to disapprove of the Iran deal. This has a 60 vote threshold and, with 42 Democrats opposed, is expected to fail.
Updated at 8.52pm BST
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51m ago15:47
The one hope of Republicans was that they would succeed in wooing two Democrats who supported the Iran deal to vote to end debate and allow the measure to move to final consideration. They are not going to get one.
As Niels Lesniewski of Roll Call scoops, Delaware senator Chris Coons, who had previously expressed a willingness to break with his party on this procedural vote, will not.“I will vote against cloture today,” Coons said. “What that means is that debate will continue. Hopefully over the next several days … as debate continues, Leader McConnell will hear from enough members — Republicans and Democrats — and members will hear from enough constituents that they want us to take a final up-or-down vote, and the leader will reconsider and we will have an up-or-down vote with a 60-vote margin next week.”
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54m ago15:44
Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio just finished expressing his opposition to the deal and warning that it will lead to doom.
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1h ago15:39
One long-shot Republican presidential candidate, former Virginia governor Jim Gilmore, criticized fellow GOP hopefuls like Ted Cruz for voting Corker-Cardin amendment yesterday.
In an interview with the Guardian during the anti-Iran deal rally in front of the U.S. Capitol yesterday, Gilmore said that Corker-Cardin, which was approved 98-1 by the Senate “put us into this.” He condemned his four Republican opponents who voted for that provision, which guaranteed a vote in Congress.
The anti-Iran rally marked the first public event of Gilmore’s presidential campaign, which he launched in July. The former Virginia governor’s poll numbers are so low that he has excluded from the CNN debate to be held next week.
