U.S. Senator Cory Gardner, R-Colo., on Tuesday suggested that President Obama consider delaying his State of the Union speech after Iran seized two naval boats and took 10 U.S. sailors in custody.
“I think the White House needs to be honest and transparent as quickly as possible with the members of the Congress, the House and the Senate, perhaps that even means a delay to the start of the State of the Union tonight to talk about exactly what happened,” said Gardner, who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper. “Look, this continues, apparently, a pattern of aggravating action by Iran. We know that Iran has taken ships that were under the flag protectorate. We know they continue to test ballistic missiles in spite of the sanctions against them. This is a pattern by Iran, now apparently detaining U.S. sailors. We don’t know the facts yet. We’ll get the facts. This is a serious enough event that we shouldn’t proceed with the festivities of tonight until we have answers.”
The move comes as Iran is on the verge of receiving a $100 billion infusion in sanctions relief under the nuclear deal negotiated by the Obama administration.
