President Briefs Senators on Iran Talks; Senators Briefed on Iran Nuke Talks; Interview with Sen. Bob Corker
BLITZER: Overseas now where a double suicide bombing has killed more than 20 people in Beirut, Lebanon. It happened right in front of the Iranian embassy in Beirut. The group claiming responsibility pointed to the ongoing war in neighboring Syria as the reason they're demanding that the Iranian-backed terror group, Hezbollah, pulled out of Syria. Iran supplies weapons to the Syrian regime of Bashar Al Assad as well. President Obama met with Senate leaders from both parties earlier this morning updating them on the nuclear talks with Iran. The next round of talks starting tomorrow in Geneva. The president is against imposing any additional new sanctions calling them an obstacle to getting an agreement. Tennessee Republican Senator Bob Corker was over at the White House for that meeting. He's back on Capitol Hill right now, the ranking member of the foreign relations committee. So, did you buy, senator, what the president was selling today as far as no new sanctions against Iran, at least while these negotiations are underway?</s>SEN. BOB CORKER (R), TENNESSEE: You know, Wolf, we had a very good, you know, long, detailed conversation about where things are. This weekend, obviously, in Geneva, a break-through could occur, might not occur. I don't think anybody's looking at it as a fait accompli. And I think you know that the Senate business on the Senate floor is such that there's not going to be any kind of amendment that passes. I think you know that Senator Reid has, quote, "filled the tree." And to your listening audience, what that means is we're going to keep any kind of amendments from being heard on Iran anyway. So, you know, we're going to -- I'm going to assess here over the next couple hours what the president said, how the conversation went, go over some of the details with our staff. But let's face it, I mean, at the end of the day, there aren't going to be sanctions in place prior to -- new sanctions anyway but the in place relative to Iran before this meeting takes place. And you know, it could be -- it could be good to see how this weekend goes before assessing what next Congress needs to do. So, it was a good meeting. I think there are a lot of us, me being one, that still is concerned about alleviating the leverage that we have and not getting enough in return and a lot of concerns about this is interim deal being the new norm, that once you hit this interim deal, that's the end of it. There's --</s>BLITZER: Well, let's --</s>CORKER: -- I'm concerned about a not very explicit end state being part of this and that's of great concern to me.</s>BLITZER: -- Well, Let's say there is an interim deal worked out in Geneva over the next few days, for six months let's say, just throw out that figure. The Iranians are demanding at least some easing of international, including U.S. sanctions, on Iran which are very painful, obviously, to the Iranian government and to the Iranian people. Would you be willing to ease, ease up at least moderately, some of those sanctions if there is this is so-called interim deal?</s>CORKER: Well, actually, Wolf, Congress has no say on the easing of those sanctions. The president has full waiver authority. Some of the sanctions were put in place by executive order. The most binding were put in place by Congress. But even so, he has a waiver. I don't think that he's planning on waiving any of those that were put in by Congress. You've read news accounts as to what they're looking at and I don't know that it's my place to go into details. But the fact is that Congress really, at this point, in the negotiation -- and especially because you know, a deal would be reached this weekend, there's not going to be amendments on the floor. There's certainly not going to be passage of a bill. Congress really has no say so in what the president may agree to waive over the next few days.</s>BLITZER: As you know, this potential deal is putting a real serious strain in U.S. relations, not only with Israel but a lot of the other friendly countries, the Saudis, the Emirates, Kuwait, the new regime, if you will, in Egypt. Was the president concerned about, for example, the U.S.-Israeli fall out from this?</s>CORKER: You know, Wolf, there was -- there was a good deal of discussion about Israel. It was more about some of the technical aspects of the deal and some of the concerns that they have. Obviously, because of Iran's stated of position of wanting to wipe Israel off the map, and the proximity, obviously, to Israel, this is something that's more up close and personal by far. And so, you know, we did discuss some of those concerns. There really wasn't a great deal of discussion about the relationship, the allies, except in passing. It was really, Wolf, to focus on the potentialities of this deal. The details. What an end state might be. What the interim deal was composed of. That was really the major focus. And I thought the meeting was a good meeting from a standpoint of understanding those issues. Again, I think you've got people at that meeting that feel like this is a really bad thing to be doing. I think you've got people in the meeting that feel like this is a very good thing to be doing. And I think there's probably multiple folks in the middle that are still concerned about the loosing of this leverage. As I mentioned before, the interim deal becoming the norm, meaning that's the deal. We never get to the end state. And the fact that then you've sort of lost your coalition of countries that are involved with you in these sanctions. But again, we're going to -- I'm going to digest over the next few hours what was heard. Talk a little bit -- talk it over and, again, just for what it's worth, there's nothing, regardless of what is being said, there's nothing that Congress can do between now and this weekend to affect this weekend's discussions. I think the concerns that were raised, though, one or two specifically, could affect the way the administration does approach this weekend. And to that end, I think it was positive when we had the meeting today.</s>BLITZER: We'll see what happens. Senator Corker, thanks so much for coming in.</s>CORKER: Thank you. Thank you.</s>BLITZER: It looks like U.S. Airways and American Airlines will merge to become the world's biggest airline after all. Now United Airlines says it's getting ready for the competition. We're going to hear from United's CEO on his plan to cut billions from his bottom line.