On his Tuesday MSNBC show, host Thomas Roberts scolded Republicans for sending a letter to Iran objecting to the ongoing nuclear negotiations: "Certainly there's great politics at play here in dealing with the President's foreign policy....So this is another jab at the President's foreign policy, of trying to undercut it. What's the precedent, though, of a letter like this?"
Sahil Kapur of the liberal Talking Points Memo blog responded to that question by making a completely false statement: "Thomas, I'm not aware of any precedent....I'm not aware of any precedent....It's extraordinary in the sense that this is very unusual. I can't remember the last time, certainly not in my lifetime, that members of Congress tried – sent a letter to a foreign government pretty openly trying to undermine a sitting President's negotiations."
In reality, there have been several instances of Democratic members of Congress openly reaching out to foreign governments in defiance of Republican presidents.
On Monday, The New York Times pointed out three such instances:
Jim Wright, the Democratic House speaker during Ronald Reagan's presidency, was accused of interfering when he met with opposing leaders in Nicaragua's contra war. Three House Democrats went to Iraq in 2002 before President George W. Bush's invasion to try to head off war. And Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic leader, went to Syria in 2007 to meet with President Bashar al-Assad against the wishes of the Bush administration, which was trying to isolate him.
In 1984, congressional Democrats sent a letter to Nicaraguan leader Daniel Ortego Saavedra.
Perhaps the most outlandish incident of a congressional Democrat reaching out to a foreign power was Senator Ted Kennedy's 1983 letter to the Soviet Union in an attempt to undermine President Ronald Reagan's nuclear arms negotiations with the Communist regime.
Neither Roberts nor Kapur mentioned any of those facts, instead pushing the myth that the GOP was taking an "unprecedented" stand against Obama.
At the beginning of the exchange, Roberts wondered: "So has the letter officially backfired?" Kapur eagerly agreed, even citing slanted media coverage as evidence: "Thomas, it seems as if it's backfiring in a number of ways....backfiring in the sense of, you know, a lot of the media criticism that this letter is getting. And so Democrats are – there is a bit of a rallying effect among Democrats behind President Obama on this..."
Here is a transcript of the March 10 exchange between Roberts and Kapur:
1:06 PM ET
THOMAS ROBERTS: Sahil Kapur, senior congressional reporter for Talking Points Memo joins me now. Sahil, it's great to see you. The Iranian foreign minister, though, responded to the GOP warning this morning, saying specifically, "This letter has no legal value and is mostly a propaganda ploy." So has the letter officially backfired?
SAHIL KAPUR: Thomas, it seems as if it's backfiring in a number of ways, and the most prominent way is that Republicans on the Foreign Relations Committee have been working to get a veto-proof majority for legislation that would require congressional review of any deal that President Obama strikes with Iran. They have a number of Democrats and they're not far off from that veto-proof majority but today we had at least three Senate Democrats come to the floor, Senator Bill Nelson, Tim Kaine, and Angus King, all of whom caucus with Democrats, saying that this was a bad move, that this undermines the United States' credibility. This letter, by the way – they were talking about the letter by the 47 Republican senators to Iran – they said this was a bad move, this is not the way to conduct diplomacy, and they're very disappointed by it.
So it's backfiring in that sense, and it's also backfiring in the sense of, you know, a lot of the media criticism that this letter is getting. And so Democrats are – there is a bit of a rallying effect among Democrats behind President Obama on this, even if they aren't fully on board with his approach to these negotiations.
ROBERTS: Certainly there's great politics at play here in dealing with the President's foreign policy, this coming from the senators after seeing House Speaker John Boehner invite Netanyahu to speak before Congress. So this is another jab at the President's foreign policy, of trying to undercut it. What's the precedent, though, of a letter like this? Especially going to the people that you're in the middle of negotiations with, that are very sensitive.
KAPUR: Thomas, I'm not aware of any precedent. I'm also not aware of any rule or law that prohibits this. So, you know, it's possible that the calls or describing these senators who did this as "traitors" is, you know, perhaps a little overheated here. So I'm not aware of any precedent. But again, it's not clear that this is prohibited. It's extraordinary in the sense that this is very unusual. I can't remember the last time, certainly not in my lifetime, that members of Congress tried – sent a letter to a foreign government pretty openly trying to undermine a sitting President's negotiations.
ROBERTS: Sahil Kapur. Sahil, great to see you, thanks so much.
KAPUR: Thank you, Thomas.
