WASHINGTON — Sen. Charles Schumer raised his hand to stop questions Tuesday when a Post reporter asked for his position on the Iran nuclear deal.
Approached in the basement of the Senate, New York’s senior senator — who is almost always available to the press — refused to answer where he stands on the agreement.
The Post on Monday had provided a list of 10 questions (re-presented at right) for him to consider.
“I’m studying [the issue], like I said before,” Schumer said tersely.
When the reporter tried to follow up, Schumer held up his hand to shield his face and walked into an elevator on his way to a Dem powwow.
As the presumptive next leader of Senate Democrats and a fierce defender of Israel, Schumer is considered the key to whether opponents of the deal will get a chance to block it in Congress.
Fourteen other Senate Democrats are either undecided or haven’t expressed an opinion — and many will be looking to Schumer’s move before taking sides when the deal comes before Congress in the fall.
The administration needs to lock in 34 senators to stop an override of a promised presidential veto if the vote goes against the president. A count by the Washington Post found 27 lawmakers are either with Obama or “leaning” in his direction.
Few of the undecideds showed much enthusiasm about discussing an agreement that would lift US and international sanctions in exchange for Iran giving up much, but not all, of its nuclear material and research.
“I’m going to go in here and I’ll talk to you later,” Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) said Tuesday.
When he emerged an hour later, the first-term senator jumped into an elevator and urged a reporter to “just call my office for a statement.” The statement said he would “carefully weigh” the deal.
“Can we talk about that later?” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand asked.
Several lawmakers contacted by The Post said they had read the actual agreement over the weekend, but none showed movement one way or the other.
The stakes are high: The Iran agreement is one of President Obama’s top foreign-policy achievements and is expected to have a big impact on Mideast security, with Israel and Iran’s Sunni-majority neighbors watching it particularly closely.
It is also an important political vote for lawmakers that will be watched for years.
“I got nothing to tell you,” said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), who then wondered: If “we don’t do the deal, what happens? I don’t think enough people around here are thinking about that.”
“I am going through this in a very thoughtful way,” said Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.). “I’ve got a lot more I want to do before I make a decision.”
The administration will continue its lobbying effort at a classified national-security briefing for lawmakers Wednesday and at public hearings on Thursday.
Obama is also keeping up his own public salesmanship, telling the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Pittsburgh Tuesday that some critics of the deal were “the same folks who were so quick to go to war in Iraq and said it would take a few months.”
Appearing on “The Daily Show,” Obama on Tuesday said critics seem to think, “If you had brought Dick Cheney to the negotiations, everything would be fine.”