Appearing on MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Tuesday, co-host Mika Brzezinski accused Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) of “deflecting” for citing numerous examples of precedent to justify the Republican letter to the Iranian leadership over their ongoing nuclear negotiations with the Obama administration.
The discussion on the GOP letter to Iran began with Brzezinski pressing Cruz to admit that “ the intention of the letter to get in the way of negotiations.” Despite the GOP senator repeatedly explaining that the letter was “intended to stop a bad deal” the MSNBC host accused the “ the hardliners using the letter to get -- to kind of stall on these negotiations, was actually a part of your intention. It just seems extremely destructive sir.”
Later on, Cruz detailed numerous other times in which members of Congress have taken similar action as Senate Republicans, refuting the liberal line that the letter was an “unprecedented” action:
But I can point out the idea you're suggesting, if I'm understanding you'll right, that Congress shouldn't be interfering in what the president is doing, from the beginning of our country, Congress has done so. In 1987 Congress passed the Boland Amendment restricting the funding of the Contras in Nicaragua. Now Ronald Reagan at the time was trying to stop communists in Nicaragua. Now my guess is you probably would have been very supportive of the Boland Amendment which was literally ripping the carpet out from underneath what President Reagan was trying to do in Nicaragua.
Let’s go even further back. Woodrow Wilson, at the end of World War I, negotiated the Treaty of Versailles ending World War I. Went back to Congress, the Senate rejected it.
Now on your view, I guess, you know, the New York Daily News would run a story on the front page putting the pictures of all the senators and calling them traitors. Look, that's how our system works.
Brzezinski quickly dismissed Cruz’s argument and instead accused him of “deflecting” from the real issue:
But this is all deflecting. The history lesson and this is deflecting from whether or not the intention of the letter is what's happening and I'm concerned you're saying you liking the effect it’s having.
Rather than cave into Brzezinski’s attack on Cruz, co-host Joe Scarborough concluded the back-and-forth by actually standing up for his fellow conservative:
John Kerry said it's unprecedented. John Kerry said it's unconstitutional. The White House says it’s unprecedented...1984, it wasn't just the Boland Act, it was 1984 Democratic lawmakers wrote a letter to Ortega apologizing for Ronald Reagan’s anticommunist views. So this is not unprecedented. You can be offended, but please, let's call it what it is and that is unfortunately a long part of our history.
See relevant transcript below.
MSNBC’s Morning Joe
March 17, 2015
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Well, okay, do you know exactly what the deal is to call it a bad deal? Do you have all the information? I don't think you do.
TED CRUZ: We don't. We have some that the administration has leaked. And oddly enough the administration leaks more details about the deal to the media than they actually inform Congress. But I can point out the idea you're suggesting, if I'm understanding you'll right, that Congress shouldn't be interfering in what the president is doing, from the beginning of our country, Congress has done so.
In 1987 Congress passed the Boland Amendment restricting the funding of the Contras in Nicaragua. Now Ronald Reagan at the time was trying to stop communists in Nicaragua. Now my guess is you probably would have been very supportive of the Boland Amendment which was literally ripping the carpet out from underneath what President Reagan was trying to do in Nicaragua.
Let’s go even further back. Woodrow Wilson, at the end of World War I, negotiated the Treaty of Versailles ending World War I. Went back to Congress, the Senate rejected it. Now on your view, I guess, you know, the New York Daily News would run a story on the front page putting the pictures of all the senators and
calling them traitors. Look, that's how our system works. And I think the constitution is a wonderful thing.
We don't have a supreme leader like Iran does. We have checks and balances. And if you want to make law in this country, you need both the president and Congress. This is a unilateral president and that's an enormous problem.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: I've just got to say anybody that says you can be offended by the letter, you can be offended by Netanyahu, but anybody who says this is unprecedented.
BRZEZINSKI: I never said that.
SCARBOROUGH: John Kerry said it's unprecedented. John Kerry said it's unconstitutional. The White House says it’s unprecedented.
BRZEZINSKI: But this is all deflecting. The history lesson and this is deflecting from whether or not the intention of the letter is what's happening and I'm concerned you're saying you liking the effect it’s having.
SCARBOROUGH: I’m sorry. Let me finish what I was going to say. 1984, it wasn't just the Boland Act, it was 1984 Democratic lawmakers wrote a letter to Ortega apologizing for Ronald Reagan’s anticommunist views. So this is not unprecedented. You can be offended, but please, let's call it what it is and that is unfortunately a long part of our history.
