President Barack Obama has been working late to ensure he gets to votes on the Iran deal.
Not only did the president meet with House Democrats Wednesday, a group of about two dozen returned to the White House that night after House votes and met with Obama for a couple of hours, Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters.
That’s not typical for Obama.
“Spending time with individual members of Congress and answering their questions directly, again, I think it’s an indication that the president feels a personal responsibility to engage with members of Congress who are keeping an open mind and evaluating this agreement, and I would expect that the president will continue to have … many other conversations like that over the next several weeks,” Earnest said.
Per Earnest, the arguments he’s been making to Democrats are the same he’s been making publicly: that killing the deal makes war more likely, that Iran will get sanctions relief anyway because the rest of the world will not continue them, and the United States, not Iran, will be the one that will be isolated.
The efforts appear to be paying off.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told reporters she’s heard “widely” from Democrats that they would vote to sustain the president’s veto of an expected disapproval resolution.
Matt Fuller contributed to this report.
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