Ernest Moniz and John Kerry Completed a Full Ginsburg

This is all part of an inevitable cycle really. Administration and allies reach deal last week, over three years in the making, with Iran over its nuclear program. Congressional Republicans, GOP presidenital hopefuls, et al. rail against deal. Administration defends deal. The admin's weekend media strategy involved sending Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and Secretary of State John Kerry on the full complement of Sunday morning talk shows to defend the administration. The feat, known as the full Ginsburg after Monica Lewinsky's lawyer William H. Ginsburg was the first to complete it, requires participants to appear on ABC’s This Week, CBS’s Face the Nation, CNN’s State of the Union, Fox News Sunday, and NBC’s Meet the Press, all in one Sunday. Here's what Moniz and Kerry had to say, over and over again, at times. On This Week, Moniz responded to a question about the ability of inspectors to detect evidence of nuclear activity even with a month of warning. "Yes, there had been various analogies to throwing things down toilets, et cetera," he said to ABC News correspondent Jonathan Karl. "This is not so simple with nuclear materials. We have plenty of evidence of exquisite environmental sampling that will reveal the traces of nuclear work." On Face the Nation, Kerry brought up a brief history of Republican presidential deals with unfriendly nations. "But, look, Ronald Reagan negotiated with the former Soviet Union. Richard Nixon negotiated with what was then known as Red China. You have to negotiate sometimes with people to make the world and your country safer. And we negotiated because President Obama thought the primary challenge here was getting a nuclear weapon away from Iran. And we believe this deal does that." On State of the Union, a closing interlude on Kerry's presidential aspirations: "Last time I saw you, sir," began Jake Tapper, "I did ask if you had any inklings of getting back in the presidential campaign..." And before Tapper had a chance to close out his sentence, Kerry interrupted with "none," and tacked on "zero," and "absolutely none whatsoever," for added emphasis. On Fox News Sunday, regarding the Americans being held in Iran, Kerry responded to host Chris Wallace: "Let me just say to you that -- that every single meeting, everywhere in the world that ever took place with the Iranians, we have raised the issue of the American citizens and we are working on the issue of the American citizens even now." On Meet the Press, responding to host Chuck Todd's "So Congress forced your hand?" query, Kerry said "Congress said that we're going to raise sanctions if we don't see what's happening, so we had to come out and show there's something specific happening by March 30."

Fishbowl

Ernest Moniz and John Kerry Completed a Full Ginsburg

With Republicans railing against the nuclear deal, Kerry and Moniz go on media defense.

Corinne Grinapol

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Corinne Grinapol