WASHINGTON — (CNN) Secretary of State John Kerry sat before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday, continuing the Obama administration’s pitch to get senators to support the newly unveiled nuclear deal with Iran.
But many lawmakers weren’t buying what Kerry was selling.
“I believe you’ve been fleeced,” Sen. Bob Corker, the committee chairman, told Kerry. “In the process of being fleeced, you have turned Iran from being a pariah, to now Congress being a pariah.”
The Tennessee Republican recounted, in graphic detail, Iran’s maiming of American soldiers while making his case against the deal.
The panel’s top Democrat, Maryland Sen. Ben Cardin, followed with his own skepticism of the deal, but with much softer language.
“We singularly are trying to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power,” Cardin said.
Kerry insisted the deal was the best means of preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power.
“Folks, they already have what they want. They got it 10 years ago or more,” he said.
“This is a question of giving them what they want, this is a question of how do you hold them back.”
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