Inside Tom Cotton's pressure campaign on an Iran nuclear deal
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Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.). Photo: Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images
Sen. Tom Cotton is trying to build a public pressure campaign to encourage the Trump White House to hold the line on an Iran nuclear deal.
Why it matters: Key players hope President Trump's desire for a deal doesn't end with too much compromise. Cotton (R-Ark.) has influence in Trump circles but represents a hawkish brand of Republican going out of style in the MAGA movement.
Zoom in: Cotton urged senators in a closed-door lunch on Tuesday to join him in publicly applauding top officials who demand zero uranium enrichment to give the U.S. maximum leverage in negotiations.
- His team followed up the plea with an email to communications staff, saying they would use the conference platform to amplify any such posts.
- Sens. Katie Britt (R-Ala.), Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), Dave McCormick (R-Pa.) and others backed Cotton up in the lunch, stressing the importance of zero enrichment, according to attendees.
- Cotton has spoken directly with the White House's chief negotiator Steve Witkoff, a source close to the senator tells Axios, and used his super PAC and 501(c)(4) to poll the Iran nuclear issue.
Driving the news: 52 GOP senators — including Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) —signed a letter sent to the White House on Wednesday warning that the "scope and breadth of Iran's nuclear buildout have made it impossible to verify any new deal that allows Iran to continue enriching uranium."
- "If Iran's leadership rejects the olive branch and continues to attack their neighbors, then we will have no choice but to inflict massive maximum pressure," Trump said on Tuesday.
Zoom out: Cotton and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said at a press conference last week that ideally any Iranian deal would be voted on as a treaty, requiring a two-thirds vote in the Senate.
- The two senators, joined by Britt, have introduced a resolution outlining what an Iranian deal should look like, including zero enrichment.
What they're saying: "President Trump's got serious negotiating leverage," Mark Dubowitz, an Iranian expert and CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Axios.
- "I think Congress is saying you've got massive leverage, don't throw it away the way [former President] Obama did by conceding on enrichment and giving Iran exactly what they need to develop nuclear weapons," he added.
