EXCLUSIVE: Republicans would pull out every stop to block a Harris administration from negotiating another Iran deal, according to the House’s No. 3 Republican, Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York.
“We would block that at every turn,” the GOP Conference chairwoman vowed in an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital.
“Biden and Kamala Harris have given hundreds of billions of dollars straight to Iran, the greatest sponsor of terror, and the dollars are going to support proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah, which are attacking Israel every single day.”
Two separate agreements last fall that included a prisoner swap allowed Iran to access up to $16 billion of its previously frozen assets.
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Middle East watchers have predicted that Vice President Kamala Harris would be much more likely to take to the negotiating table to try to prevent Iran from creating a nuclear weapon than using military deterrence and financial sanctions.
In 2019, Harris said she favored rejoining the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) aimed at limiting Iran’s nuclear programs.
“President Trump’s unilateral withdrawal from an agreement that was verifiably preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon — against the warnings of our closest allies and without any plan for what comes next — was beyond reckless,” she said.
She said she would seek to rejoin the deal “so long as Iran also returned to verifiable compliance.”
Iran has a growing stockpile of uranium enriched to just below weapons-grade, and some fear it could create a nuclear weapon before the end of the year.
Trump recently warned that sanctions should be used “as little as possible” to “continue to have [the U.S. dollar] be the world currency.”
“I use sanctions very powerfully against countries that deserve it, and then I take them off because, look, you’re losing Iran, you’re losing Russia. China is out there trying to get their currency to be the dominant currency.”
In a wide-ranging interview on the House GOP’s national security priorities, Stefanik, a member of the Intelligence and Armed Services committees, said if the GOP keeps control of the House next Congress, it would continue to work to defund the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) and “address these foreign dollars going into universities, put a stop to that.”
President Biden signed an appropriations package in March that banned funding to UNRWA for one year after some of its employees were found to have ties to Hamas.
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The chairwoman declined to say whether the House would authorize more funding for Ukraine or Taiwan once this year’s foreign aid packages dry up but noted concerns about oversight of U.S. aid in Ukraine.
“I have major concerns about the lack of accountability for the billions of dollars that have gone to Ukraine,” she said. “We are continuing to get more reports from the Pentagon that they can’t account for — to the tune of billions of dollars.
“The only person who can solve that conflict is Trump,” Stefanik added. “If you look at modern-day presidents, [Russian President Vladimir] Putin invaded other countries during every modern president except for President Trump.”
And on the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Stefanik revealed she is not confident the U.S. is equipped to prevent another similar tragedy.
“If you look at the attack against Israel, the Iranians [are] on the march. The same terrorists that are chanting ‘Death to Israel’ are also chanting ‘Death to America,’” she said. “We have individuals on the terrorist watch list who have crossed our open borders. … That is a national security threat.”
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