Senate Republican leaders scheduled a Thursday afternoon vote on the Iran nuclear deal, the first of what is expected to be a flurry of action on the Hill over the agreement on Thursday and Friday.
Conservatives in the House and Senate split with Republican leaders this week, whom they have accused of “showboating” on the issue. Their own intra-party battle was punctuated by a major anti-Iran deal rally Wednesday led by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump.
It is highly unlikely that Republicans will succeed in blocking the deal outright — Democrats hold just enough votes in the Senate to block a vote and more than enough to sustain the veto President Barack Obama has promised for any measure against the deal. The fight instead has turned in large part to putting lawmakers on record with a series of tough votes on the issue.
Lawmakers are facing a Sept. 17 deadline for action before the deal automatically takes effect — 60 days from when the deal was presented to Congress — but even that deadline has been disputed by conservatives.
Cruz hit Democrats and Republicans in his speech at the rally Wednesday.
“If Senate Democrats decide that party loyalty matters more than national security and if Republican leadership decides that showboating is more important than stopping this deal, then the single most important issue in 2016 will be stopping Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon,” he said.
The question for House Republicans is how many votes will be held and when. Conservatives in the House stalled debate Wednesday, amid demands for the administration to produce more details on the deal, to which House Republican leaders promised to work on a legal challenge to the Iran nuclear deal.