Twelve US lawmakers have voiced support for Iran deal -White House

“In 15 years or less, Iran is permitted to have an unlimited quantity of centrifuges of unlimited quality”, Sherman said in statement Friday “… we must force modifications of the agreement, and extensions of its nuclear restrictions, before it gets ugly”.

The administration took a blow Thursday night, when Sen. Michigan Rep. Sander Levin has endorsed the deal. The deal is an executive political agreement and not a formal treaty, he noted.

Television commercials blasting the agreement as “a bad deal” are running in more than 35 states, said Patrick Thornton, a spokesman for Citizens for a Nuclear-Free Iran, a group backed by AIPAC. Far from taking this as bad news, I’d say it’s a very good sign that the Iran deal will survive when it goes to Congress.

When asked how Congress might be able to work with the White House on possibly amending the deal to make it more palatable to lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, Sherman sounded skeptical about any such changes.

“That’s why I would describe this as an announcement that was not particularly surprising to anybody here at the White House, even if it was disappointing”, Earnest said.

Engel is a top Democrat in the House and, like Schumer, is an influential Jewish figure.

President Barack Obama is defending his criticism of Republicans against his Iran nuclear deal.

Schumer’s leanings on the deal had been closely watched since the plan to loosen sanctions on Tehran in exchange for access to potential nuclear sites was announced in early July. Other Republicans, like Pennsylvania Sen. Schumer was one of those undecided Democrats. “Schumer have had getting all the way back to 2003″, Earnest said at a daily press briefing, referring to the two Democrats’ opposing positions on the Iraq war.

In a statement explaining his concerns, Schumer said the inspections regime was inadequate.

Schumer had been under consistent pressure in New York by pro-Israel supporters of the deal. Obama has said he would veto such a measure, which is expected to prompt an attempt by lawmakers to override him.

This moral certainty powered his speech Wednesday at American University, chosen as a venue to evoke President John F. Kennedy’s famous address there that laid the foundations for detente with the Soviet Union.

A subtext of the Iran issue is the tension between Schumer and the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, Dick Durbin of Illinois, and the implications for next year’s choice of a successor to Reid.

Schumer’s opposition was first reported by the Huffington Post.

“It is true that Iran has a large number of people who want their government to decrease its isolation from the world and focus on economic advancement at home”.

The majority of Republican leaders in the House and Senate have also promised to disapprove the nuclear deal when the resolution is presented for a vote in mid-September.