Trump teams with Cruz to take down Iran deal

WASHINGTON – President Obama and any member of Congress who votes for his Iran nuclear deal will "bear direct responsibility for the murders carried out with the dollars" from lifted sanctions, if the agreement is allowed to stand, charged Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.

"You cannot wash your hands of that blood," Cruz warned, as he and fellow Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump headlined a large rally against the deal, at the foot of the Capitol steps on Wednesday.

"We are going to get nothing," said Trump. "They rip us off, they take our money, they make us look like fools."

President Obama is on the verge of enacting the deal after securing support from congressional Democrats.

But, Cruz cautioned, Obama was violating the law by not submitting the full text of the deal to Congress, and any bank that would unfreeze Iranian assets would be exposed to massive civil lawsuits. And that would be especially true, he believed, when the next president takes office.

Cruz also called out Democrats in the Senate for putting party loyalty above national security.

The rally was held shortly after House Republican leaders delayed a vote on the deal scheduled for Wednesday after hearing an earful from rank-and-file members during a morning conference meeting.

"We will continue the conversation on Iran from this morning and discuss strategy for the rest of the week," a GOP leadership aide told the Hill.

"If the deal goes through the Obama administration will become the world's leading financier of Islamic terrorism," said Cruz at the rally, referring to the at least $100 billion in Iranian assets that would be unfrozen.

Saying Iran will not honor its commitment to forgo nuclear weapons, Cruz told the crowd the Iran deal represents "the single greatest national security threat facing America."

While Cruz took the stage to a cannon blast of the Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again," Trump strode to the podium accompanied by R.E.M.'s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine.)"

Trump underscored his skills as a negotiator, noting, "I’ve been doing deals for a long time. I’ve been making lots of wonderful, great deals. Never, ever, ever in my life have I seen any transaction so incompetently negotiated as our deal with Iran."

"We are led by very, very stupid people. Very, very stupid people. We cannot let it continue," said the leading GOP presidential candidate.

Trump also guaranteed to secure the release of the four Americans being held hostage in Iran even before he takes office if he's elected president.

Trump and Cruz were joined by former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, conservative radio hosts Glenn Beck and Mark Levin, members of Congress, former Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., and about 40 other speakers on the West Lawn of the Capitol. Cruz helped organize the event, along with the Tea Party Patriots, the Center for Security Policy and the Zionist Organization of America, to help galvanize the opposition and sway lawmakers who may still be on the fence.

“The message, I think, from many of the speakers will be that this deal funds and arms the Nazi Germany of today,” said Morton Klein, the president of the Zionist Organization of America, a pro-Israel group.

“We’re going to be urging those [supporters of the deal] to rethink their position and try to make them recognize the future blood of innocent civilians who will be massacred because of this deal will be on their hands,” Klein told the Hill before the event. “Many of us will say it that bluntly.”

Conservative talker Levin warned "this enemy makes a grave error in confusing the appeasement of a president and a Democrat party and the capitulation of a Republican Congress with the strength and fortitude of the American people.”

"We are here to tell the world that we the American people reject the cowardice and surrender by our government to the genocidal terror regime in Iran. We are here to tell the world that the American people are more resolute than ever … to destroy those who threaten to wage war against us, our society, and our ally Israel," he exclaimed.

Sarah Palin then took to the podium to call the deal an "insane treaty" and Iran "crazy land."

“Remember in 2012 when Joe Biden told everyone ‘our president carries a big stick, I promise it’s a big stick,’” Palin said. “Little did we know he was talking about Obama’s selfie stick.”

The joint appearance with Trump may be the clearest sign yet of how Cruz is attempting to link himself to the GOP front-runner.

"I like Donald. He's a friend of mine. But when Donald arrives at an event, he brings an army of TV reporters," Cruz said of his move to invite Trump to the rally, according to CNN. "He brings an army of cameras that show up. And Donald's being there – he very graciously accepted – means the mainstream media will cover the event."

Trump, the author of the best-selling "The Art of the Deal," has called Obama's agreement "very dangerous" and "horrible" for America, while "perhaps catastrophic" for Israel. Cruz has vowed to undo the deal if he's elected president.

And, as he told WND, "If this deal is consummated, it will make the Obama administration the world’s leading financier of radical Islamic terrorism."

Bachmann called for a military strike to knock out Iran's nuclear weapons program.

"You take it out. That does not bring about World War Three ... that ensures peace on into the future."

"We're not going to bomb shopping centers. We're not going to bomb innocent people," she added.

Bachmann also said, by giving billions to Iran in unfrozen sanctions, whether Obama realized it or not, he was "fulfilling Islamic jihad."

Democrat presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton delivered a speech in support of the Iran nuclear agreement earlier in the day.

At the left-leaning Brookings Institution in the morning, Clinton – who had already endorsed the nuclear agreement – said the U.S. must either “move forward on a path to diplomacy or turn down more dangerous path leading to a far less certain and riskier future."

"I, too, am deeply concerned about Iranian aggression and need to confront it,” she said. “There is absolutely no reason to trust Iran."

Clinton insisted the agreement makes Israel safer and told Israelis that, if elected, "you’ll never have to question whether we are with you. The United States will always be with you."

The competing events followed Tuesday’s announcement that 41 Senate Democrats now favor the deal, giving the White House enough votes to prevent a resolution to kill the pact from reaching Obama's desk despite the overwhelming opposition in Congress and among the public.

Cruz and other conservative lawmakers aren't just blaming the president for what they consider a suicidal deal – they also blame their own GOP congressional leaders for enabling the deal.

In what many critics consider a colossal tactical blunder, the "Corker bill" allows the nuclear deal, effectively, to be approved by a minority of lawmakers.

That's because Congress did not insist upon pursuing the normal treaty process that requires such an important international agreement to be approved by two-thirds of the Senate. Instead, a bill from Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., requires Congress to submit a bill disapproving the deal, if lawmakers want to block it.

That means a bill blocking the deal would need two-thirds of both the Senate and the House to override a presidential veto. And, opponents of the deal, although in the clear majority, do not have that many votes.

But, Cruz charged, the administration has not even lived up to the terms of the Corker bill by failing to provide the full text of the agreement, and therefore the clock has not even begun on the 60-day review period called for in the law.

"There are two men in Washington, D.C. who can defeat this deal," Cruz said. "Their names are Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Speaker John Boehner."

"If Republican leadership decides that a show vote is more important than stopping this deal, then the single most important issue in 2016 will be stopping Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon," thundered Cruz. "This Iranian deal is catastrophic."

In a move that could not displease Obama, McConnell on Wednesday refused a request from Cruz to delay a vote on legislation to kill the deal.

Indeed, the White House seemed pleased.

"We certainly would expect that those members of Congress who support the agreement to take the necessary steps in Congress to prevent Congress from undermining the agreement," White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Tuesday.

The Obama administration has positioned the historic deal as the only way to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, and claims failure to act would lead the United States into another Middle East war.

“Let’s not mince words, the choice we face is ultimately between diplomacy and some form of war. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not three months from now, but soon,” Obama said in a speech last month.

Cruz has come to the opposite conclusion.

"This deal makes war a certainty," he has warned.

Cruz took to the Senate floor Wednesday morning to rail against the deal.

"This terrible deal will not stop a virulently anti-American and anti-Israeli regime from getting a nuclear bomb," he said.

The deal's most controversial provision has been kept secret, even from Congress.

A side deal between the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, and Iran lets the country's leaders decide which sites to inspect. It also lets Iran do its own inspections at a key site.

Iran nuclear deal negotiators

The Associated Press reported in August: “The agreement in question diverges from normal procedures by allowing Tehran to employ its own experts and equipment in the search for evidence of activities it has consistently denied – trying to develop nuclear weapons.”

The deputy IAEA director general in charge of the Iran probe from 2005 to 2010 told AP he could think of no similar concession with any other country.

The IAEA chief told Republican senators in August that he could not let them see the side deal.

In a nutshell, the secret side deal would:

Let Iran use its own inspectors to investigate the Parchin site, where experts suspect it has been developing nuclear arms.

Let Iran provide the IAEA its own photos and and videos of suspect locations, while “taking into account military concerns.”

Bar international inspectors from sites about which Iran says it has “military concerns.”

Prevent the IAEA from getting photo or video information from areas Iran says are off limits because the sites have military significance.

While a copy of a draft of the side deal (which sources said was virtually identical to the final document) obtained by the AP said the IAEA “will ensure the technical authenticity” of Iran’s inspection, it did not say how.

Iran has since confirmed it intends to decide where, and what, inspectors may inspect.

“Iran does not plan to issue permission for the [International Atomic Energy Agency] to inspect every site," said Iranian Defense Minister Brig. Gen. Hossein Dehqan last week.

That limitations on inspections directly contradict what the Obama administration had said.

As WND reported, Secretary of State John Kerry said in April that, under the deal, Iran would allow the IAEA to inspect anywhere it wants. He would later deny saying that, while testifying under oath to Congress.

After the deal was concluded, Kerry told senators on July 23 he “never uttered the words anywhere, anytime” regarding inspections of Iran’s facilities, and claimed “it was never part of negotiations.”

That’s not what the Obama administration said in April, and it contradicted what Deputy National Security adviser Ben Rhodes promised back then, when he said the International Atomic Energy Agency would have immediate access to any Iranian nuclear site.

ranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (2nd L) shakes hands with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (2nd L) shakes hands with Secretary of State John Kerry

Rhodes has since flip-flopped and directly contradicted himself.

On April 6, he said, “Under this deal, you will have anywhere, anytime, 24/7 access as it relates to the nuclear facilities that Iran has.”

On July 14, he said, “We never sought in this negotiation the capacity for so-called anytime, anywhere” inspections.

Parchin is just one of the sites where Iran has not permitted IAEA inspectors to go.

Iran has denied any nuclear weapons work was done at Parchin but has never allowed access to the site.

The IEAE suspects Iran experimented on nuclear detonators at Parchin, based on U.S., Israeli and other intelligence.

Work at Parchin stopped more than decade ago, but the IAEA has cited satellite image evidence of apparent attempts to clean the site.

Even top Democrats have come out against the deal.

Sens. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Bob Menendez, D-N.J., both plan to vote for the upcoming Senate bill disapproving of the deal.

J.B. Pritzker, a lifelong Democrat who chaired Hillary's 2008 campaign, wrote last week:

"Regrettably, the Iran deal fails to meet these goals and raises the prospects for war ... By legitimizing Iran’s nuclear program, removing the pressure of economic sanctions and allowing it to obtain conventional weapons and ballistic missiles, this agreement makes the prospect for war more likely, not less."

President Bill Clinton's CIA director, James Woolsey, also wrote last week:

"Congress must stop President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. The most important reason — Iran can threaten the existence of the United States by making an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack using a single nuclear weapon."

WND has worked extensively with one of the groups sponsoring the anti-Iran deal rally, the Center for Security Policy.

Clare Lopez, the group's vice president, is one of the top experts on Iran.

She told WND the Cruz and Trump rally is "a great development, because these two are among the sharpest, best-informed of the entire candidate lineup," and that the duo "speak out forthrightly about what they believe."

"To see them taking a public stance against this disaster of a deal is important and encouraging," concluded Lopez.

How Cruz wooed Trump, an opponent in the presidential race, to join him at the rally was chronicled by the Washington Post, which portrayed it as part of larger effort to ally the two campaigns and the start of a budding "bromance."

While other Republican presidential candidates were taking ineffective swipes at the front-runner, Cruz went the other direction, calling it "foolish" to "slap Donald Trump with a stick."

Last week, Trump came under fire from some corners when he seemed to be stumped by conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt. During the interview, Trump confused a question about the Quds Force — an Iranian special-forces unit — with the Kurds — an ethnic group in Iraq, Syria and Turkey.

Trump responded by blasting the host’s “gotcha” questions.

“This is a perfect opportunity for Trump to get more substantive on foreign policy,” Ron Bonjean, a GOP consultant, said in an email to The Hill.

“Both Cruz and Trump benefit from being on stage together at the moment,” he added. “Cruz especially benefits because he can become the candidate-in-waiting for conservative voters in case Trump eventually implodes.”

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