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DNI Avril Haines also noted significant impacts from the recent leak of classified Pentagon documents.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Tag: Senate
Avril Haines told a Senate panel it’s “almost a certainty” China and Russia would use a U.S. debt default to demonstrate “chaos” in the United States.
Total Wine magnate makes his bid for open Maryland Senate seat official
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His primary competition is likely to include Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, who hired a campaign manager earlier this year and is expected to jump into the race soon. Alsobrooks, an ally of Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, will probably have the support of EMILY’s List. Another possible competitor: Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who could easily run in the progressive lane. While in office, Trone has cast a more centrist profile. He is a member of the New Democrat Coalition and often touts his bipartisan credentials.
His district, which spans from the outskirts of Montgomery County to the state’s border with West Virginia, is the most competitive in the state. President Joe Biden won it by 10 points in 2020. Trone won reelection in 2022 against Republican Neil Parrott by 10 points.
Yet in an interview ahead of his launch, Trone repeatedly described himself as a progressive, just one with a pragmatic streak.
“I’m a progressive through and through,” he said, “but at the same time, you can be a progressive, and you can work with folks that are on the other side of the aisle to accomplish things.”
But his biggest asset is perhaps his bank account. Trone spent more than $13 million in 2016 in an unsuccessful attempt to win a House seat in the Washington, D.C. suburbs, losing in the primary to Raskin. Two years later he spent some $17 million in a neighboring seat and won.
Trone is willing to invest tens of millions of dollars into his statewide run, according to a person familiar with his plans who was granted anonymity because they were not at liberty to discuss them.
The congressman declined to detail how much he would be willing to invest but said that he thought voters would approve of his ability to eschew corporate PAC or lobbyist donations.
“It’ll take significant resources,” he said.
Trone’s campaign manager will be Dan Morrocco, who led Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont’s successful reelection bid in Connecticut in 2022.
The biggest remaining question mark is whether Raskin will enter the race. A progressive star who developed a national profile from his role investigating the Jan. 6 attacks, Raskin previously said he had been receiving encouragement to run. He just finished chemotherapy treatment for lymphoma and said the cancer was now in remission.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )Top Senate GOP recruit privately casts doubt on power of Trump endorsement
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“There is another 20 percent that care about who he endorses but that’s not going to be the decision maker. And then there’s probably another 60 percent of the party that doesn’t care who he endorses,” said LaRose, according to a recording of his remarks obtained by POLITICO.
LaRose said he suspects that, should he enter the race, he would earn Trump’s support. But he didn’t think that “begging for it” would prove useful.
“There’s also this game some play where they hire a bunch of former Trump people and then they think, ‘Oh, if I hire this person, I’ll get their endorsement.’ The president is generally smarter than that, he’s not going to fall for that,” LaRose said at a Cuyahoga Valley Republicans event in late April. “He’s going to endorse the candidate who has the best chance of beating Sherrod Brown.”
LaRose is considering entering the Republican primary to take on Brown in the 2024 Senate election in Ohio. Brown is seeking his fourth term but is widely seen as one of the more vulnerable Democrats up this cycle. Moderate Ohio state Sen. Matt Dolan and Cleveland businessman Bernie Moreno for the GOP’s have already announced they are seeking the nomination.
Trump hasn’t endorsed in the contest. But he did publicly encourage Moreno, whose daughter is married to former Trump White House official and freshman Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio), to get in the race.
The recording offers rare insight into how top Republicans running for office privately think about Trump and that sway he has in the party. It also provides a window into how political courtship can work. In his private remarks, LaRose said he believed Miller, who he called a personal friend, is trying to help his father-in-law win Trump’s support.
“Max has been making trips down to Mar-a-lago saying hey Mr. Trump, President Trump, can you endorse my father in law? Notice that [Trump] didn’t endorse him but he said nice things about him,” LaRose said in the recording.
“Knowing how this goes,” he continued, “I can even picture it in my mind they’re sitting in the president’s office in Mar-a-Lago and he says, ‘You know, I’m not ready to endorse yet, you got a lot more time, you don’t have strong name ID, you haven’t any raised money yet, I’ll just say some nice things about your father in law on Twitter or Truth Social or whatever and then let’s talk about an endorsement six months from now.’”
LaRose declined to comment. A person close to LaRose, who was granted anonymity to speak about the secretary’s comments, said he “simply said what we already know.”
“Endorsements are great, but you won’t unseat a 48-year incumbent politician with a list of endorsements. We need a candidate who can win, and we need to wage a contest of ideas and vision that not only unites the entire Republican party but also a majority of Ohioans. If he runs, that’s what he’ll offer,” the person said.
A person close to Moreno, who was also granted anonymity, disputed LaRose’s characterization of Miller lobbying Trump and noted that Moreno has built his own relationship with Trump.
Few, if any, GOP candidates would openly downplay the significance of Trump’s endorsement. At the GOP event, he said that the 2022 midterms proved that the Trump endorsement doesn’t carry as much weight as it once did.
“Here’s an example, there is a new U.S. senator from Alabama — we can agree it’s a pretty conservative state. She won the primary in ‘22 and didn’t have the Trump endorsement. She was the better candidate,” LaRose said. “The guy Trump endorsed came out to be a dud of a candidate and so Katie Britt won the primary and got elected as U.S. senator from Alabama. So it’s entirely possible even back in ‘22 that the best candidate regardless of the endorsement is the one that wins.” Trump eventually endorsed Britt before her Senate primary runoff.
LaRose himself was endorsed by Trump in his 2022 race for Ohio secretary of state. It was notable then, because in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 riots on Capitol Hill and attempts by Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election results, LaRose criticized lawmakers who shared conspiracy theories about voting and said it was “irresponsible to fearmonger about elections administration.”
“And certainly, if you have the largest megaphone in the world, you should think very carefully before you say something that would cause people to lose faith in elections,” he went on to say.
LaRose, for his part, has not endorsed Trump’s current presidential campaign. Neither he nor Dolan have said whom they would support. So far, Moreno is the only candidate who has endorsed Trump.
Trump has conveyed to aides he is less concerned with putting his stamp of approval on other candidates when he is running for president himself. He has been working the phones and meeting with state leaders in an effort to earn endorsements of his own.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )Senate sends bipartisan rebuke of solar tariff policy to Biden’s desk
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The resolution would use the Congressional Review Act to rescind Biden’s moratorium on new tariffs for solar cells and modules from Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. The rule was issued as the Commerce Department investigates whether companies are circumventing existing U.S. tariffs on China by funneling products through those four countries.
Commerce issued preliminary findings in December that said Chinese companies were indeed circumventing the tariffs, and its final determination is due later this year. But given the two-year pause, no new tariffs resulting from the probe can be levied until mid-2024.
The resolution resurfaced long-running tensions on the Commerce probe. Solar industry officials who oppose the resolution warn it carries a threat of retroactive duties that will cost jobs, shut down planned solar projects and undercut the Biden administration’s climate goals.
“It’s going to send a devastating message to the solar industry and particularly to our independent, small businesses,” Nevada Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen said in an interview.
Rosen led an open letter Wednesday with eight Democratic senators that argued Biden’s two-year pause on additional tariffs is necessary as the United States works to bolster its domestic manufacturing capabilities.
But supporters of the resolution — including several Senate Democrats — argue it’s necessary to enforce U.S. trade law and support domestic industry, while ensuring the U.S. clean energy transition is not built using Chinese products.
“If you vote no, that means you support slave labor,” said Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who sponsored the Senate resolution. “You don’t want more American jobs and you don’t believe our trade policies mean anything.”
The comment is a reference to the use of forced labor within China’s Xinjiang region — an area of bipartisan concern. The solar industry has vocally opposed the use of forced labor in its supply chain, and the resolution approved Wednesday does not directly mention the topic.
Rosen rejected Scott’s contention on Wednesday.
“We’re always going to be against forced labor. We’re always going to be for holding the Chinese Communist Party’s feet to the fire in everything we do,” she said.
The measure gathered support from nine Senate Democrats on Wednesday: Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Ron Wyden of Oregon, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Gary Peters and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, Bob Casey and John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Jon Tester of Montana and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin.
Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky was the lone GOP senator to vote against the measure.
Sen. Brown, whose state is home to one of the largest U.S. solar manufacturing companies, said in a floor speech Tuesday he was defending U.S. manufacturing.
“You can’t say you want American manufacturing to lead the world and then allow Chinese companies, subsidized always by their government, to skirt the rules and dump solar panels into the U.S.,” he said.
Manchin, the chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, was the only Democrat to attach his name as a co-sponsor of the joint resolution of disapproval. He argued the U.S. cannot continue to let China “get away” with laundering solar energy components through other nations with “absolutely no consequences.”
“Let me be clear: America will never be energy secure or independent if we can’t provide the resources we need, and it would be foolish of us in Congress to allow these waivers to continue any longer,” Manchin said in a statement.
On the other hand, eight House Republicans voted against the resolution last week, with some arguing it would cost solar jobs in their districts.
George Hershman, CEO of utility solar company SOLV Energy, recently called Republican support for the resolution “disappointing,” given how many solar projects are cropping up in red congressional districts.
“The largest solar districts in the country are Republican. That’s where the job impacts are going to be,” he told POLITICO last month. “I mean, I’m as disappointed with Democrats that might sign on to [the resolution] as House Republicans that understand the job creation of solar in their districts.”
Abigail Ross Hopper, president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association, called on Biden to “quickly and decisively” veto the resolution.
“Energy workers across the country are looking to President Biden to protect their livelihoods,” she said in a statement.
The vote Wednesday is part of a wider trend of resolutions brought under the Congressional Review Act, which requires only a simple majority to pass the Senate, to undo parts of the Biden administration’s regulatory agenda.
The Senate also voted 50-48 on Wednesday to pass a resolution that would overturn the Biden administration’s protections under the Endangered Species Act for the lesser prairie-chicken, a wild bird found in five states. The White House said Wednesday that Biden will veto that resolution, as well.
Alex Guillén contributed to this report.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )Black Caucus presses Senate Dems to blow up tradition on judges
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So the Black Caucus, joined by a coalition of progressive groups, is turning up the heat on Senate Democrats in what’s becoming the most consequential battle over chamber rules since Democrats tried last year to weaken the filibuster.
“I don’t know why anyone, let alone Senate Democrats, would hold up a Jim Crow practice,” Black Caucus Chair Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.) said in an interview on Wednesday, describing the GOP’s use of blue slips against judicial nominees as a civil rights issue.
“It is literally about the fundamental survival of the people we represent,” Horsford added. “And we expressed that history, that context and that necessity to Chairman Durbin. I respect the chairman. He understands the dilemma.”
The dispute has huge implications for the future of the federal judiciary, the Senate and the White House. With the House run by Republicans until 2024 at least, Senate Democrats still can confirm judges for lifetime appointments without a single GOP vote — but Republicans can block some of those nominees from ever getting to the chamber floor by denying blue slips.
The acrimony is particularly acute among House members from blue districts in red states. They’re chafing at their Republican senators’ unwillingness to let nominees through and looking to Senate Democrats to help — even though during the Trump era the CBC urged the GOP to keep the blue slip to give Democrats some say in lifetime nominees.
So Durbin isn’t ready to get rid of the tradition for federal district court nominees. And both Black Caucus members from the Senate, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Raphael Warnock, share his reluctance to change the practice.
In an interview, Durbin said he and GOP senators are negotiating over new Biden nominees that will become public soon. And several GOP senators said in interviews that they are working closely with the White House to address nominees for district court judgeships, U.S. attorney posts and U.S. marshals posts, all of which are subject to the blue slip.
The Senate Judiciary Committee previously abandoned the blue slip for appellate court nominees who cover multiple states. If Durbin wanted to nix the practice for district courts, it would not require a Senate rules change.
Durbin is still receptive to the Black Caucus’ entreaties, saying that he needs a “higher level of cooperation” from the GOP. He estimated that fewer than 20 of Biden’s nominees have received green lights from the GOP, while Democrats provided more than 110 for former President Donald Trump’s judicial picks during his time in office.
“I tried to explain to them the arcane Senate rules. And how difficult it would be to do business. So I don’t know if I convinced them, because a lot of them are frustrated with the lack of cooperation,” Durbin said of his meeting with the Black Caucus.
Republicans have used their blue-slip power recently against two Biden nominees, in addition to last year’s rejection by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) of William Pocan — the brother of Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) — as a district judge. Democrats’ big fear, however, is that Republicans will start using the practice more.
In a letter to Durbin this week, a coalition of progressive groups warned that “39 of the 43 district court vacancies subject to Republican blue slips — 91% — still do not have nominees.” The letter’s signatories ranged from Demand Justice to the League of Conservation Voters to End Citizens United.
“The blue slip policy should be reformed or discontinued to ensure a fair process and stop Republicans from blocking highly-qualified Biden judicial nominees,” the progressive groups wrote. Their ideas: ignore blue slip blockades, force a firm timeline for senators to register their objections and require public explanations for blue slip denials.
Republicans are holding their ground. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), the party’s top member on the Judiciary Committee, said that scrapping the blue slip makes the Senate “irrelevant” and criticized the White House for not conducting sufficient outreach to the GOP.
The White House is “turning to the red states because they’ve filled all the blue states, and it takes consulting. They didn’t even talk to people in Florida for six months. I made them talk to them. So this is a manufactured issue,” Graham said.
White House spokesperson Andrew Bates responded that “the White House has done outreach to every single Republican Senate office that represents a state with a judicial vacancy. In many instances, that outreach dates back to the previous Congress.”
Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) accelerated the blue slip clash after she announced she would stop Scott Colom from taking a Mississippi judgeship. It’s likely that Biden may need to find a new nominee; “Sen. Hyde Smith will not budge,” said one person with direct knowledge of the negotiations who spoke on condition of anonymity.
There are currently more than 65 federal district court vacancies, and 38 of those do not have nominees — many of them in states where Republican senators have veto power. The lower-level courts are the Democrats’ primary focus after prioritizing appellate courts over the last two years.
In addition, Kansas GOP Sens. Roger Marshall and Jerry Moran are slowing the nomination of Jabari Wamble to fill a district court seat while they await Biden’s choice to fill an appellate court vacancy covering their states. In an interview, Marshall said he’s simply being “cautious” and didn’t indicate where they would fall on a blue slip for Wamble.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), a Judiciary Committee member, said he is having “a lot of good conversations” with the White House; as many as three Missouri seats could be open by the fall.
Horsford said Black Caucus members want every Republican withholding a blue slip to disclose their reasoning. He was joined in the Durbin meeting by Black Caucus members Reps. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), Terri Sewell (D-Ala.), Joe Neguse (D-Colo.), Troy Carter (D-La.), Robin Kelly (D-Ill.), Al Green (D-Texas), and Booker.
Horsford said the lawmakers emphasized to Durbin that blue slips are not a Senate rule but a custom. For many of his members, Horsford added, “it’s hard for them as the sole Democrat in some of their southern states to defend a policy where one or two Senate Republicans can hold up those nominees.”
Notably, the practice has yielded some success stories. The all-GOP Senate delegations in Idaho and Louisiana worked with the White House to hatch bipartisan agreements, and Indiana’s two Republican senators worked to confirm a home-state judge by a rare voice vote this year.
And Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) said she’s willing to give it another go with Johnson, even after he stopped William Pocan.
As Booker recalled in an interview, he used blue slips to stifle Trump’s judicial picks — underscoring that the power to stop judicial nominees can also help Democrats during GOP presidencies.
Still, Booker is clearly torn: “Anytime you tear up a Senate tradition, you should be really thoughtful about it.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )Failed secretary of state candidate Jim Marchant joins Nevada Senate race
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Former Nevada Republican state lawmaker Jim Marchant announced Tuesday he is entering the race for U.S. Senate, looking to unseat incumbent Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen in 2024.
Marchant, who has led a group of Donald Trump supporters who claim the 2020 election was stolen from the former president, was endorsed by Trump in his failed secretary of state bid in Nevada last year. He also lost his bid for a House seat in 2020 to Democrat Steven Horsford and sued unsuccessfully to overturn that result.
He is the founder of the America First Secretary of State Coalition, a group that advocates for more restrictive ballot access laws in their states. Marchant himself has been a proponent of counting ballots by hand, a process that some election officials have said is less accurate and more costly than a machine count.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )Feinstein ‘hopeful’ she can return to Senate next week, Schumer notes say
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“It was in his notes, and he would have said if someone asked,” Schumer’s spokesperson told POLITICO.
Earlier on Tuesday Feinstein’s office told POLITICO that Feinstein “continues to make progress in her recovery” from shingles, but that her staff “don’t have a timeline yet for her return to Washington, which is dependent on her medical team saying it is safe to travel.”
A Feinstein spokesperson confirmed the senator and Schumer spoke, originally confirming the majority leader’s notes that the conversation occurred Monday and later saying that it happened Sunday night.
Senate Republicans blocked an attempt by Democrats last month to temporarily replace Feinstein on the Judiciary panel.
House Democrats, including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) have called on Feinstein to resign before the end of her term to allow a replacement to be appointed.
The race to replace Feinstein is already crowded, with House Democratic Reps. Adam Schiff, Katie Porter and Barbara Lee battling for the seat in deep-blue California. Complicating their races is Newsom’s 2021 commitment to appoint a Black woman for the Senate, should Feinstein resign.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )‘No solution in the Senate’: Both parties dig in on debt
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And that GOP agreement is highly unlikely to materialize any time soon. Jeffries’ plan landed with a thud among Republicans who want to see Biden give ground first, despite the Treasury Department’s warning that the nation could exhaust its ability to pay bills as early as June 1.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell confirmed that he will attend next week’s White House meeting while stressing that a deal must be struck by Biden and McCarthy: “There is no solution in the Senate.”
Biden must “make a counteroffer” during next week’s scheduled meeting with both parties’ top Hill leaders, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) agreed on Tuesday. “And a counteroffer cannot be a clean debt ceiling.”
No matter what compromise Biden can stomach, Tillis added, “there’s no question that” it would lose votes from House Republicans who supported McCarthy’s conservative opening bid last week. That bill would lift the nation’s borrowing cap by $1.5 trillion or through March 2024, whichever comes first, while slashing $130 billion in government funding and tightening work requirements for federal benefits.
Tillis described a Senate vote on a clean debt ceiling hike through the 2024 election, which Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is considering, as a “gimmick” and a “waste of chamber time” given the certainty of a GOP filibuster.
Senate Democrats will decide whether to put a clean debt ceiling increase up for a vote after the White House meeting on May 9, Schumer told reporters Tuesday.
If the Senate passes a clean debt limit increase, Congress could use the House GOP’s fiscal bill as a potential vehicle for a bipartisan government funding deal, Schumer said Tuesday. Yet the chances of that happening appear slim at the moment, with Republicans demanding massive federal funding cuts in exchange for raising the borrowing limit and GOP leaders refusing to decouple spending from debt.
Jeffries announced to House Democrats in a Tuesday letter that their party’s top member on the Rules Committee, Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), had taken the first steps toward a discharge petition on a debt limit increase with no added conditions designed to win over Republicans.
“The filing of a debt ceiling measure to be brought up on the discharge calendar preserves an important option,” Jeffries wrote in a letter first reported by the New York Times. “It is now time for MAGA Republicans to act in a bipartisan manner to pay America’s bills without extreme conditions.”
His announcement came one day after the Treasury told lawmakers that the government could run out of cash by the beginning of June. Any discharge petition would require at least five Republicans to sign on in order to bring a bill to the House floor if it has sat in committee for more than 30 days.
McCarthy (R-Calif.) has vowed not to pass any debt ceiling bill without concessions in exchange, and his Republicans cleared a package last week that offers a slew of them — all enacting conservative priorities, on topics from energy to Biden’s student loan relief plan.
“Nobody wants to see the United States government have to change the name of the Department of Treasury to the Department of Debt because there’s no longer any treasury there,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said. “So, the time has come for the president to sit down with the House and be a leader.”
On Tuesday afternoon, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the Biden administration “won’t negotiate in public” about the potential for a short-term increase in the debt limit or any other options for averting a default.
“And our position is going to be very clear: that Congress needs to avoid a default — and I’ll leave it there — without conditions,” she told reporters.
Jean-Pierre also dismissed the suggestion that Biden’s inclusion of Schumer and McConnell in next week’s meeting is a sign that the president wants the Senate to take a leading role in the talks.
Meanwhile, with just over four weeks until the U.S. could risk defaulting on $31.4 trillion in debt, a temporary increase in the borrowing limit might be needed to head off economic tumult while leaders in Congress work with Biden on a longer-term solution.
Schumer on Tuesday swatted down that idea, however.
“We should not kick the can down the road. We should go for the full two-year extension,” he said.
Anthony Adragna and Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )Allred set to launch Texas Senate run against Cruz
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After 2020’s redistricting, Allred’s district became safely Democratic, meaning he could likely hold his current seat for as long as he chooses. His decision to give it up to run for Senate instead, in a state where his party has struggled to win statewide, sets up a potentially high-profile general election race next fall.
Cruz, now serving his second term in the Senate, faced a tougher-than-expected challenge from then-Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas) in 2018. Though O’Rourke lost by about 2.6 percentage points, the former House member developed a national profile that he parlayed into an unsuccessful 2020 presidential run.
Allred may well follow O’Rourke’s model. Even if he doesn’t win, he will raise his political cachet with a 2024 run against Cruz — giving himself national exposure and building a massive donor list.
He has demonstrated an ability to excite Democrats and pick up independents or moderate Republicans, earning endorsements from the AFL-CIO and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for his congressional runs.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )Cardin not running for reelection, opening blue-state Senate seat
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The genial Marylander had been been contemplating his plans for months as Democrats eyed his seat. The 79-year-old Cardin is a fixture in Maryland politics, serving first in the statehouse, then the House and then in the Senate since 2007.
He’s the third Senate Democrat to announce they won’t run for reelection, joining Sens. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.). Of those three states, only Michigan is considered competitive.
Cardin’s announcement will almost certainly jolt the Old Line State’s congressional delegation and political apparatus. Democrats from all corners will consider running for a safe seat that’s also within driving distance of the Capitol — as plum a gig as you’ll find in politics. Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks and Reps. Jamie Raskin and David Trone are among those rumored to be considering runs. Cardin’s opening also could particularly pave the way for a candidate from Baltimore, where the senator is from.
The retirement of former Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) sparked a tough battle between former Reps. Donna Edwards and Chris Van Hollen in 2016. Van Hollen ultimately prevailed.
Cardin’s retirement will shake up the Senate, as well. Cardin currently chairs the Small Business Committee and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer tried to temporarily appoint him to the Senate Judiciary Committee to replace Feinstein there as she recovers from shingles.
“Senator Cardin has dedicated more than five decades to helping Marylanders from the state house — as the youngest speaker in our state’s history at the time — to the halls of Congress, now as chairman of the Senate Small Business Committee,” Van Hollen said, citing the senator’s long body of work from approving new Russian sanctions to protecting the Chesapeake Bay.
And some of his highest profile work came during a stint as the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relation Committee.
There he helped negotiate a bill that allowed Congress to review the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran. Congress did not ultimately block the former president’s deal; Cardin voted against it in the end but also argued against withdrawal.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
