NY Republican says her opposition to Iran deal put her on Iranian blacklist

Nicole Malliotakis, the only Republican member of Congress from New York City, is among 61 U.S. officials newly sanctioned by Iran

Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY) speaks during a press conference in front of the U.S. Capitol on November 1, 2021. Photo by Pete Marovich/Getty Images

By Jacob Kornbluh July 19, 2022

The only Republican member of Congress from New York City said on Tuesday that her strong opposition to the U.S. reentering the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran is the reason she landed on a sanctions list issued by Tehran over the weekend.

Nicole Malliotakis, a first-term Republican from Staten Island, was blacklisted by Iran’s foreign ministry on Saturday along with 60 other U.S. officials who it said support the exiled dissident group Mujahideen-e-Khalq. The largely-symbolic sanctions, which were previously issued against 75 other Americans, allows Iranian authorities to seize any assets the individuals hold in Iran.

“If Iran wants to sanction me because I’ve spoken out against its egregious human rights abuses, malign actions on American soil, and funding of terrorism, so be it,” Malliotakis, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement.

In response to Tehran’s announcement of the newly blacklisted officials, a State Department spokesperson said Saturday that the U.S. will protect and defend all of its citizens, including “those serving the United States now and those who formerly served.”

Malliotakis is running for reelection in a rematch with former Rep. Max Rose, a Democrat who she defeated in 2020.

Like the Republican Party leadership, she opposes President Joe Biden’s move to rejoin the nuclear deal that former President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from in 2018. Indirect talks between U.S. representatives and their Iranian counterparts have reached an impasse.

In the event a new deal is reached, Malliotakis said in her Tuesday statement, Congress should be given the opportunity to review and ratify it.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi met Tuesday in Tehran with the presidents of Russia and Turkey.

Jacob Kornbluh is the Forward’s senior political reporter. Follow him on Twitter @jacobkornbluh or email [email protected].

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO