Both Ron Johnson and Tammy Baldwin Uneasy About Deal To End Iran War
After calling on Trump to finish the job, Johnson says ‘I don’t like the outcome here.’ Baldwin says the president ‘has not reached a deal.’
Tammy Baldwin and Ron Johnson
As President Donald Trump touts his deal with the Iranian government to end the ongoing war and resume oil shipments, Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson and Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin say they don’t like the outcome.
During a press conference at the G7 Summit in France Wednesday, Trump discussed some of the terms in a memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Iran. He said Iran will get access to $300 billion for reconstruction, but clarified the money wouldn’t come from America. Economic sanctions against Iran will be dropped, Trump said, and the country will be allowed to have “some” of its ballistic missiles. Those have been used to attack Israel and neighboring countries.
Trump said Iran will not be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon and the 60-day deal will allow hundreds of millions of dollars worth of oil to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.
Johnson and Baldwin have been miles apart on where they stand on Trump’s war with Iran, but both of them have voiced frustration about the proposed agreement.
Baldwin: ‘President Trump has not reached a deal with Iran’
During a virtual press conference Wednesday, Baldwin called the military conflict an “illegal war” of choice from Trump that is driving up costs of fuel and fertilizer for Wisconsin residents and farmers. She said the memorandum of understanding isn’t anything more than a “deal to keep talking about a deal over the next 60 days.”
“Now he’s claiming victory without even sharing what his plan is for a temporary solution,” said Baldwin. “That’s why Donald Trump’s wink and nod promise is simply not enough. Wisconsin families need details and a guarantee that this expensive and unnecessary war is over once and for all.”
She criticized Trump for backing out of the Iran nuclear deal negotiated by former Democratic President Barack Obama in 2015 during the Republican’s first presidential term.
Despite the current military actions being paused, Baldwin said she and her fellow Senate Democrats will continue pushing votes on a war powers resolution to force the war to a close. A vote on that resolution failed in the Senate Tuesday.
Johnson: ‘I don’t like the final outcome here’
Johnson and other Republicans have claimed Iran has been at war with the U.S. for nearly 50 years. He’s said he appreciates that Trump made the tough decision to take military action and called on the president to “finish the job” last month.
During a Tuesday interview with Bloomberg, Johnson said he hoped the war would have weakened the regime enough that the Iranian people would rise up and topple it.
“That didn’t happen,” said Johnson.
At the time of his Bloomberg interview, Johnson said he hadn’t seen the terms of the deal, but mentioned the Trump administration will be unfreezing Iran’s financial assets.
“I don’t like the final outcome here,” said Johnson. “I’m sure President Trump doesn’t like the outcome. He would have liked unconditional surrender. It didn’t happen. The Iranian people weren’t able to rise up, and we would have had to introduce American ground troops, and there simply wasn’t the support.”
Johnson said the U.S. did degrade Iran’s nuclear capability, navy, ballistic missiles and drones, but “didn’t eliminate them” or the country’s Revolutionary Guard or Basij police force.
“We can keep them in a box,” said Johnson. “We’ve got to continue to be wary of them. We have to keep monitoring them. They make a move toward those nuclear sites, we ought to bomb the crap out of them again.”
Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson and Tammy Baldwin uneasy about deal to end Iran war was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.
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