John Shinkle/POLITICO Dems: Bibi speech was an 'insult' to America, Obama

Scathing Democratic reviews of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress came pouring in just minutes after the address ended: An “insult to the intelligence of the United States.” A “stick in the eye of the president.” An exercise in “circular reasoning.”

Netanyahu’s address to Congress did little to move Democrats toward his position of rejecting a nuclear deal with Iran that is nearing completion, and for many members deepened the rift between the Democratic Party and Israel’s political leadership under Netanyahu.


“This speech was straight out of the Dick Cheney playbook,” said Rep. John Yarmuth, a Kentucky Democrat. The Jewish lawmaker added: “I resented the condescending tone that he used, which basically indicated that he didn’t think anybody in Congress or the country understood the threat that a nuclear, weaponized Iran poses to his country, to the region and to the world.”

The Democratic reactions to Tuesday’s address were far more diverse than the response from congressional Republicans, who were uniformly united in their vigorous support of Netanyahu’s speech and his hawkish message. Senate Republicans said they will try to put a bill on the floor next week that would require Congress to approve any Iran deal, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said. The proposed legislation has a handful of Democratic supporters, but it’s not clear if it can survive a Democratic filibuster.

Consideration of further congressional sanctions on Iran could also be considered, which will test Democratic lawmakers’ loyalty to Obama while negotiations continue.

Some Democrats said they felt it was premature for the Israeli prime minister to label a possible agreement a “very bad deal” and denounce it as paving the way for Iran to obtain a nuclear bomb since it was still being negotiated and provisions haven’t been made public.

Netanyahu had said the concessions he was criticizing weren’t secret and could be found on Google.

“I don’t usually trust things that I find on Google. So I want to actually see the deal,” said Sen. Gary Peters, a Michigan Democrat.

Many of Peters’s Democratic colleagues were less restrained, led by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who was visibly agitated during the speech. She said afterward that she was near tears, “saddened by the insult to the intelligence of the United States” and the “condescension toward our knowledge of the threat posed by Iran.”

During the speech and its myriad applause lines, many Democrats chose to stay seated as Netanyahu criticized the administration’s pursuit of an international accord that would curb Iran’s nuclear program.

After the speech, Democrats seemed to fall into two camps: Those who believed much of the rhetoric was targeting President Barack Obama and those who heard no such characterizations but still scratched their head over Netanyahu’s rhetoric.

“He seemed to say that there was no way [to] ever trust Iran. Which says to me you can’t have a deal with Iran. And then he said, ‘Well, why don’t you work for a better deal?’ So it was confusing,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). “I think he had circular reasoning.”

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Several House Democrats who opposed Netanyahu coming to the House chamber to speak – including some who formally boycotted the address – held a news conference to criticize both Netanyahu and Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), who invited the Israeli leader without first consulting the White House. Two of the House Democrats derided the speech as “political theater.”

“I was hoping to hear something from the prime minister that would justify why he came in the first place to give this speech, two weeks before his election, and why he arranged this speech totally behind the back of the White House with Speaker Boehner,” said Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) “And why he wanted to make a decision that put at risk what has always been a strong bipartisan approach towards Israel and turn it into a partisan battlefield. Frankly, I came away from the speech disappointed.”

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said he was concerned that many who heard the address would assume the United States had already agreed to the terms Netanyahu criticized, when in fact the provisions are still under negotiation.

“I thought it was a stick in the eye of the president. I really worry about the consequences of some of the rhetoric he used,” Murphy said. “If I had faith that every member of the House Republican Caucus was going to sit down and read the deal and look upon it without Obama-colored glasses, I wouldn’t be as worried.”

Still, Netanyahu had some defenders among Democrats.

California Rep. Brad Sherman, a hawkish Jewish Democrat and senior member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said he disagreed with Pelosi’s characterization of Netanyahu’s speech as “condescension.”

“Every speech contains passages which remind the audience of facts they already know, and conclusions with which they already agree. That is not condescension; that is oratory,” Sherman said. “The prime minister’s speech did contain some new insight that Congress should carefully consider, though it did not contain a clear road map of to how to force Iran to accept a reasonable deal.”

But some liberal Democrats also expressed concern that Netanyahu’s warnings were tantamount to a call for military action, with Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), another Jewish Democrat, telling reporters: “What I heard today felt to me like an effort to stampede the United States into war once again.”

“What you were witnessing today was a very old concept: if you can make the people afraid, you can make them do anything,” said Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.). “And that’s what prime minister Netanyahu was doing. He was trying to make people afraid and somehow saying that the president wasn’t doing his job.”

Several Democrats, even those who held back direct criticisms of the prime minister, said they wished that Netanyahu had taken Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) up on his offer to speak privately to Senate Democrats. But Netanyahu spurned that invitation, leading to the Democratic boycott by liberals like Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and many members of the Congressional Black Caucus. Republicans filled some seats reserved for Democrats to obscure the image of partisanship.

Durbin, who disagreed with Netanyahu’s “characterization of the negotiations,” said he reached out to the Senate historian to see if there was any precedent to the approximately 60 Democratic members skipping the speech. He said there was not.

“It’s the first time in history that so many members of Congress have stepped forward to say that they would not attend a joint session. So that’s never happened before. It was much more partisan and political than it ever should have been,” Durbin said.