The White House says the decision of one of the top Democrats in the U.S. Senate to oppose the nuclear deal between Iran and world powers was “disappointing but not surprising.”
New York Senator Chuck Schumer, one of the leading Jewish voices in the Senate, announced on August 6 that he will vote against the nuclear deal when Congress debates the accord next month.
Representative Eliot Engel, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, also said he will vote against the deal.
But White House spokesman Josh Earnest said on August 7 that President Barack Obama had made a persuasive case for the treaty and that 12 members of the U.S. Congress have already declared that they will support the deal.