New Jersey governor and presidential hopeful Chris Christie once again didn’t mince his words while discussing President Barack Obama, this time as he slammed the recent Iran nuclear deal.
Speaking to a crowd at a campaign stop in Franklin, New Hampshire late last week, Christie criticized the deal, saying oversight of Iran’s nuclear problem would be compromised by an arbitration process.
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“I wouldn’t let this guy buy a car for me, let alone negotiate an arms deal with Iran,” Christie said of Obama.
While nuclear negotiations regarding Iran’s proposed program have been going on for a decade, the recent deal was announced on Tuesday after a marathon 18 day session, when Iran and a group of countries known as the P5+1 — the US, Russia, Britain, China and France, plus Germany — came to an agreement that is intended to limit Tehran’s nuclear ambitions in exchange for relief from crippling international sanctions.
Christie told the crowd in Franklin that Obama had mis-characterized the situation to the public, describing the deal as “not built on trust, it is built on verification.” Christie said that if United Nations investigators want to go to a uranium enrichment site, they have to request access from the government.
“If they object, it then goes to an arbitration panel, and the Iranians have a vote on the arbitration panel, as do the Russians and Chinese,” Christie said, adding that the panel will then have another 24 days to make a decision. He compared the potential situation to asking for a search warrant and then having to wait 24 days to gather evidence.
Related: Critics Say Nuclear Deal Will ‘Fuel Iran’s Terrorism’
“I got to tell you the truth, if you were engaged in that crime, I got a feeling when I came back 24 days later that evidence would be gone,” said Christie.
The governor was just the latest to join in among Republican presidential candidates who have criticized the president for agreeing to the deal. Immediately after it was announced, Mike Huckabee called the deal “evil” on Twitter, and wrote that if needed he would consider using the military to topple the “terrorist Iranian regime.”
Rand Paul, who previously said he would have an open mind about the deal, said he is against the agreement for multiple reasons.
“While I continue to believe that negotiations are preferable to war, I would prefer to keep the interim agreement in place instead of accepting a bad deal,” he said on Facebook earlier this week.
Jeb Bush was not as defiant as his peers, and according to CNN he told a crowd that if elected president he would not destroy the current deal as soon as he’s sworn in.
“One thing I won’t do is just say as a candidate: ‘I’m just going to tear up the agreement on the first day.’ That sounds great, but maybe you ought to check in with your allies first. Maybe you ought to appoint a secretary of state, maybe a secretary of defense,” he said. “You might want to have your team in place before you take an act like that.”
Bush, however, is far from supporting the deal, which he said left him “deeply worried,” according to CNN. He also said “every aspect of this deal, I think, is headed south.”
Across the globe in Iran, the country’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei came just short of endorsing the deal and framed it as a win for Iran.
“After 12 years of struggling with the Islamic republic, the result is that they have to bear the turning of thousands of centrifuges in the country,” Khamenei said according to the New York Times. While Khamenei’s statements may make the deal more likely to be approved in that country, it could cause problems in the US, if his statements are seized by the deal’s opponents.
The US Congress has 60 days to review the deal before sanctions can be lifted, and could potentially hold up its progress up even longer.
