Walker takes on Bush over Iran

Scott Walker is going toe to toe with Jeb Bush over the Iran nuclear agreement in a new ad that hammers the Wisconsin governor’s fellow GOP presidential candidate for not pledging to tear up the deal on his possible first day in office.

{mosads}The new spot, called “On Day One,” cycles through a litany of news reports questioning the deal. The critics include an Israeli government spokesman, Democratic Rep. Brad Sherman (Calif.) and Democratic presidential candidate Jim Webb (Va.), a former senator.

It then follows with a video of Bush telling attendees at a Nevada town hall that he wouldn’t repudiate the deal on his first day in the White House.

“I’ll certainly look at it,” the former Florida governor says in the ad.

“One thing that I won’t do is to say as a candidate, ‘I’m going to tear up the agreement on the first day.’”

That’s immediately followed by video from Walker’s foreign policy speech on Friday, when he bashed that line of thinking without naming Bush directly.

“Unlike others, I don’t need months or years to mull this over. If Congress fails to stop the nuclear deal, I will terminate it on day one,” he said.

“American leadership is back, and together with our allies, we will not surrender another inch of ground. America will not be intimidated and neither will I.”

A Walker campaign spokesperson told The Hill that the campaign plans to use the video online only.

The two rivals have sparred on this issue before, including on the trail last month.

Bush has repudiated the deal on the stump, calling it both “bad” and “horrific.” But he doesn’t share Walker’s view that it should be immediately discarded.

Allie Brandenburger, a Bush aide, told The Hill that Bush has “repeatedly said it’s a terrible deal, that Congress should reject it, and that if elected he would begin the process immediately to responsibly undo the deal and the damage it has done to our national security.”

“He believes we need a comprehensive strategy to confront Iran, including its efforts to obtain a nuclear weapons capability, its malign aggression in the region, its support for terrorism, its ballistic missile proliferation, its threats to Israel and its atrocious human rights abuses,” she added.

During the remainder of the quote used in the Walker ad, Bush said he would need to consult with his administration and Cabinet secretaries before making the decision on the deal, framing immediate action as a knee-jerk reaction.

“That’s great, that sounds great but maybe you ought to check in with your allies first, maybe you ought to appoint a secretary of State, maybe secretary of defense, you might want to have your team in place, before you take an act like that,” Bush said in July in Nevada.

Walker responded that the next president might not have the time to wait and needs to act immediately.

“He may have his opinion, I believe that a president shouldn’t wait to act until they put a Cabinet together or an extended period of time. I believe they should be prepared to act on the very first day they take office,” Walker said.

“It’s very possible — God forbid, but it’s very possible — that the next president could be called to take aggressive actions, including military action, on the first day in office,” Walker added. “And I don’t want a president who is not prepared to act on day one.”

This story was updated at 12:02 p.m.