Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Democratic Congresswoman Will Vote No on Iran Deal

U.S. Rep. Grace Meng, a Democrat who represents a heavily Jewish district in New York City, has come out in opposition to the Iran nuclear deal.

“I believe the inspections procedures set forth are flawed — leading nuclear experts to assert that, pursuant to these procedures, inspectors would not necessarily know whether Iran is manufacturing uranium components for a nuclear weapon,” Meng said in a statement Wednesday, a day after she confronted Secretary of State John Kerry with questions during congressional hearings on the deal.

Meng, who represents a district in the borough of Queens, also expressed concerns in her statement about leaving Iran’s nuclear infrastructure intact and how Iran would use money it received from sanctions relief. The July 14 nuclear deal reached between Iran and six major powers exchanges sanctions relief for nuclear restrictions.

Congress has until mid-to-late September to review the deal. Opponents need two-thirds majorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate to override President Barack Obama’s promised veto of any bid to kill the deal, putting much of the focus on Democrats, as Republicans mostly are against the deal.

Another Democrat, Rep. Juan Vargas of California, has come out against the deal, while a number of prominent party members, chief among them Rep. Nancy Pelosi, also of California, the House minority leader, favor the agreement. Joining Pelosi are a number of leading Jewish Democratic lawmakers, including Reps. Sander Levin of Michigan and Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

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. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.