Democratic Senator Robert Menendez (NJ) hinted broadly that he intends to oppose the Iran nuclear deal, in an interview Thursday on MSNBC. He said he will listen to his constituents in New Jersey, though, before deciding how to vote.
Menendez stated that he has "serious reservations" about the deal. “I have tried to have them assuaged. And what I see is, we didn't end Iran's nuclear program, we actually preserved it. We have a set of circumstances that, we don't stop Iran from being a nuclear threshold state, and in time, they will have the option if they choose to ultimately move towards a nuclear weapon, and our choices then will even be more limited than they are today.”
The deal “ultimately leaves me very concerned that we haven't... achieved the goal that we started these negotiations off [with], which was to ensure Iran doesn't have that capacity,” he explained.
Menendez said that “unless in the short period of time I get answers to some of these serious questions, I'm not quite sure how it's going to be possible to be supportive of the agreement, but I'm still going to work at it and we'll see.”