WASHINGTON _ White House press secretary Josh Earnest on Wednesday responded to Sen. Mark Kirk's recent remarks about President Barack Obama's Iran deal, dismissing them as "outrageous."
Kirk, a Republican who holds Obama's old Illinois Senate seat, last week likened Obama to the nation's "drug dealer in chief" for the president's $400 million payment to Iran linked to the release of U.S. prisoners. Kirk echoed GOP criticism of the payment as "ransom." The money was part of a previously announced settlement in a case stemming from money owed since 1979.
Earnest was asked about the president's reaction to Kirk's characterization at Wednesday's media briefing.
"Well, listen, this is not the first time that we've heard that kind of rhetoric from Sen. Kirk, and I don't think that kind of rhetoric is consistent with the views of most people in Illinois about the efforts of President Obama to advance our interests around the world and prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon," he said.
"And so, I know there's a temptation, particularly for those politicians that are on the ballot, to say outrageous things to try to get attention, but that's certainly no way to run a country and it's certainly no way to confront issues that are as important as preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, securing the safe return of U.S. Americans that are detained unjustly overseas and settling a 35-year-old financial dispute with an adversary of the United States in a way that saves taxpayers potentially billions of dollars."
The White House comments came a day after Kirk's opponent, Democratic U.S. Rep. Tammy Duckworth, called on Kirk to apologize and suggested he was an "unhinged" critic of Obama.
The two-term congresswoman assigned to Kirk a term defined as "mentally deranged." The first-term senator suffered a major stroke in 2012 and spent a year in rehabilitation.
Asked by reporters if voters should take into consideration any possible aftereffects of her opponent's stroke, Duckworth backed off.
"That is the furthest thing that people should look at. People should look at the fact that he's been ineffective as a senator," she said after a speech to a largely supportive audience of about 300 at the City Club of Chicago.
Kirk's campaign called Duckworth's remarks "desperate."
Duckworth served in the Obama administration as an assistant secretary of veterans affairs.
