tony blinken from the white house, thanks very much for coming in. >> thanks for having me, wolf.get immediate reaction to what we just heard from tony blinken. a fierce critic of this deal, the chairman of the house intelligence committee, mike rogers, is standing by live. in fact, he's coming into "the situation room" right now. stand by. we will talk to you in a moment. >>> also, the president attempts to revive his case for comprehensive immigration reform, gets heckled by one of the people selected to stand behind him on the stage. awkward. that's just ahead in "the situation room." i started part-time, now i'm a manager.n. my employer matches my charitable giving. really. i get bonuses even working part-time. where i work, over 400 people are promoted every day. healthcare starting under $40 a month. i got education benefits. i work at walmart. i'm a pharmacist. sales associate. i manage produce. i work in logistics. there's more to walmart than you think. vo: opportunity. that's the real walmart. life with crohn's disease ois a daily game of "what if's". what if my abdomina

and joining me from the white house briefing room is deputy national security adviser tony blinken. much for joining us. >> thanks for having me. >> tony, we're getting reports this morning according to french spokesman that essentially iran will continue construction of the water reactor despite the deal which says there should be no further activities. what can you tell us about that? >> first, let's be clear about a couple things. this deal is important because for the first time in a decade, it halts the progress of iran's nuclear program, it rolls it back in some key respects, and it gives us the monitoring and inspections we've never had before. with regard to the iraq facility, the deal says that -- and the iranians have pledged they will not make any progress on iraq for the duration of this deal. that includes not putting fuel in it the reactor, not making fuel for the reactor, not installing components into the reactor. those are the key things. that is what stops the progress of this plutonium reactor, which were it to be fueled and turned on, would present a real problem.

joining us now from the white house, deputy national security adviser tony blinken. . just looking at this jon cornyn tweet, i think it's a low blow. amazing what white house will do to distract attention from obama care. i don't think that's what you guys are trying to do. i think you're trying not to go to war. that could be one thing. what is different about this deal? in terms of our relationship with iran, that makes it unprecedented. that makes it something worth banking on? >> for the first time in a decade, we're halting iran's program. we're rolling it back in certain key respects. and we're getting the kind of access for international inspectors that we've never had before. and it gives us time over the next six months to see if we can come up with a comprehensive resolution to this problem. and to do it in a way that doesn't allow iran to talk and talk and talk and advance its program at the same time. this interim deal is a good deal in and of itself. it makes us more secure and gives us a chance to see if we can resolve this once and for all diplomaticall

in the white house with some of his national security advisers including dennis mcdonough and tony blinkenee the photo right there. they were in the oval office and the president was getting briefed on what was going on. the president was supposed to start speaking about 15 minutes ago but this is not unusual. things take a while to get organized and get the technical arrangements made in the white house so the president can address the nation. robin wright is joining us. a long-standing journalist who covered iran and u.s. relations for a long time. this is potentially a historic breakthrough. if you go to '79-'80 when american diplomats were held hostage for 444 days and now in the last few months the president of the united states has spoken with president rouhani the new president of iran and now there is a deal on the nuclear project in iran in geneva. give us some perspective. >> i covered the negotiations for the release of the hostages. and in contrast to 1981 and those dramatic moments, the encounters to release the 52 americans they were never held face to face. what's really str

another comment made by tony blinken. he said this is not an acceptance of iran's right to enrich uranium, which some analysis out of iran or some claims is that that is what the west is accepting here. how do you see it? >> well, it certainly doesn't make that acceptance. that's a very important point. what it does do is recognize that there's a distinction between civilian use of nuclear research and the military and the controversy has always brn over stopping iran, using the research for military purposes. this deal moves a long way towards affirming the daily inspections that can make sure it's not being used for military purposes. it's a very, very smart deal. it's also the terms more or less along which some deal will get made at some point, trading military research against the sanctions. that's the way that this crisis is going to eventually get work out, better to do it sooner than later. >> you heard the criticism from benjamin netanyahu and members of congress, the laundry list, we rarely see bipartisan agreem

office casually dressed on the left, you see denis mcdonough, the white house chief of staff, tony blinken there on the right part of the screen and you in your shirt. you're there, as well. what was going on in the oval office when you met with the president saturday night? >> well, i hadn't slept in awhile, wolf. but what i can say is what we were doing is getting updates from the team in geneva on the finally text of the agreement they were negotiating. throughout the day, the president was in touch with negotiators. he spoke to secretary kerry about 3:00 in the afternoon our time. they were literally sending language back of the agreement they were negotiating with the iranians and the p5-plus-1. the president was reviewing that because we had a sense we could close the deal on saturday. >> did the president sign off on every paragraph basically in that document that was released yesterday? >> he basically did, wolf. essentially, he's been tracking this negotiation over the course of the last several weeks. he talked to secretary kerry before he went out to geneva on friday. and then o

deputy national security advisor tony blinken said this deal halts iran's nuclear program and that the three pass iran can take to a bomb has been stopped in their tracks. these statements are inaccurate. the best that can be said about the geneva deal is that it freezes iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons. the problem is iran is fairly far along this path and it will retain its large reactor grade uranium stockpile, that according to the nonproliferation policy education center, can be further enriched to produce three to five nuclear weapons right now. the geneva deal rests on it assertion that eliminates the iran's production of 20% enriched uranium and eliminating its stockpile will significantly rollback its pursuit of nuclear weapons or rollback so-called breakout scenario. this is false. the american enterprise institute, the institute for science and international security, and the nonproliferation education center packaged studies that found iran can today convert 20% enriched uranium into enough weapons grade fuel for one bomb, in about one month, and can also do this using rea

first off, this nuclear deal is going to be front and center on "special report" tonightful we had tony blinkendable they would be very skeptical. an iranian bomb represents a threat to israel. we have exactly the same objective, to prevent iran from getting a bomb. there may be tactical differences in how we get there. they would have preferred not to do this first step. we thought it was important to do it because it's such a complex deal to get to the final agreement that we didn't want iran to use the time to talk, talk, talk, and advance its program at the same time. we prevent them from doing that. >> well, i mean, he's saying we got them on holds. isn't that good enough for six months? >> yeah. the critics, including new york's chuck schumer, say the sanctions were working, that they essentially a boot on the throat of iran and that's why iran was coming to the table. so for the administration, that is their argument that they wanted to get the first step and go to a bigger deal. the critics are saying listen, this is giving up too much to get not a lot. >> sure. bret, you mentioned the