More than two-dozen national and New York-based organizations on Wednesday urged Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to retract a social media video that took aim at President Trump over his negotiations with Iran.
In the video, posted on June 2, Schumer attacked Trump for purportedly not being tough enough with Tehran and accusing the administration of negotiating “side deals” out of public view that are allegedly less favorable to the United States.
“If TACO Trump is already folding on Iran, the American people need to know about it. No side deals,” Schumer said, referring to the moniker “Trump Always Chickens Out,” a term lobbed at the president intending to criticize his tariff policies. “When it comes to negotiating with the terrorist government of Iran, Trump’s all over the lot. One day he sounds tough, the next day he’s backing off. And now, all of a sudden, we find out that [special envoy Steve] Witkoff and [Secretary of State Marco] Rubio are negotiating a secret side deal with Iran.”
The groups — including Brooklyn for Peace, Peace Action New York State, Demand Progress, National Iranian American Council Action, and the Quincy Institute, which publishes RS — sent a letter to Schumer on Wednesday singling out the social media post and accusing the Minority Leader of acting “profoundly reckless” on Iran.
“[We] expect that you will treat weighty issues of war and peace as a statesman and with the serious gravity that it deserves,” they wrote. “Unfortunately, your recent social media video seeking to out-hawk President Trump’s negotiations with Iran fails that test.”
They said there are valid reasons to challenge the president, yet “negotiations aimed at ensuring Iran can’t weaponize its nuclear program and preventing war deserve support, not political attacks.”
The letter adds, “We urge you to retract your video and to move in line with the vast majority of Americans who support a deal with Iran and oppose a disastrous war.”
Emily Rubino, Executive Director of Peace Action New York State, said that her organization has been urging Schumer to champion diplomacy over war regardless of who occupies the Oval Office, but “his recent inflammatory comments on Iran do just the opposite.”
Schumer, Rubino added, “should be using his leadership to ensure that transparent and meaningful negotiations are taking place between the U.S. and Iran towards a deal, not to continue stoking the tensions of war.”
“Lives are hanging in the balance as the U.S. and Iran seek to resolve the nuclear crisis at the negotiating table,” said NIAC’s Ryan Costello. “Yet instead of emphasizing the importance of resolving this crisis through diplomacy and not war, Sen. Schumer took a page from Tom Cotton and Mike Pompeo's efforts to sabotage Obama's diplomacy ten years ago, baselessly attacking the negotiations and seeking to goad Trump into maintaining hardline positions that risk war.”
Talks are set to resume this week and Trump himself has recently signaled pessimism about any favorable outcome.
"Iran is acting much differently in negotiations than it did just days ago," Trump said during an interview with Fox News on Tuesday. "Much more aggressive. It’s surprising to me. It’s disappointing, but we are set to meet again tomorrow – we’ll see."
Meanwhile, amid an increasingly bitter dispute between Trump’s more loyal supporters and neoconservatives agitating against a nuclear agreement and pushing for war, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) will reportedly introduce a resolution in the coming days calling for the dismantling of Iran’s nuclear program as the only acceptable outcome of the negotiations, an outcome similar to what Sen. Schumer was advocating in his social media video and one that the president’s supporters, and the groups criticizing Schumer, say is likely to lead to war.
