Maggie Hassan Doubles Down on Support for Obama-Clinton Iran Deal

HASSAN: "This is a major difference between Senator Ayotte and me. Like Senator Shaheen and experts in national security and foreign policy from both political parties, I have concluded that to interpret the Iranian deal is the best way to keep Iran from having a nuclear weapon — something that must never happen and will never happen as long as I have anything to say about it. The inspectors that have been monitoring this now say that Iran has destroyed 98 percent of its enriched uranium and destroyed 2/3 of its centrifuges. It has a much longer breakout time now, if ever, for a nuclear weapon than it would have if Senator Ayotte's approach had carried today because what she is advocating for was allowing Iran to continue to work towards the nuclear weapon under the cloak of darkness. What this deal did, according to Israel's military Chief of Staff, was remove the single biggest threat to Israel's existence. So you see military leaders in Israel also supporting this imperfect deal. It is the first step in many that we have to do to continue to support Israel's security and make sure that they continue to be strong and have a level of qualitative military edge that they need, but it is a critical first step in removing the threat of an imminent Iran nuclear weapon which was what was there before this deal was concluded."