Face in the News: Iran Nuclear Deal, Religious Freedom Laws

By: Katherine Iorio

Washington (CBS News) - After years of negotiation, a deal emerged last week to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon, but critics from all around the globe pounced and the Obama Administration began the task of selling the framework deal to skeptics. While the President has called it a historic deal what would make the US and the world safer, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu says the deal paves Iran's path to the bomb.

"We certainly have a very, very different view of the facts," said Secretary of Energy, Dr. Ernest Moniz in response to the Prime Minister. "First of all, today the breakout time is about two months. This will immediately get us over a year. It will get us there with almost instantaneous recognition of any attempt to evade the deal." The breakout time is the time it could take Iran to amass enough fuel for a nuclear weapon.

Moniz, a nuclear physicist, was at the negotiating table with the Iranians alongside Secretary of State John Kerry working to hammer out the specific details of this agreement. He said Iran will comply because the deal has "built-in unprecedented access and transparency."

He told guest host Face the Nation Norah O'Donnell, "we will have eyes on principally through the International Atomic Energy Agency. We'll have eyes on the entire supply chain of uranium going back to the mines, the mills. We'll have continuous surveillance of centrifuge production. We'll have continuous surveillance of centrifuge facilities themselves. We will have, by the way, for the plutonium pathway. We will have all of the spent fuel from the newly designed reactor which produces much less plutonium. All that fuel will go out of the country so there won't even be plutonium from that reactor--in the country for the lifetime of the reactor."

Dr. Moniz's comments were covered by the New York Times, the Washington Post, Politico, the Washington Times, LA Times and USA Today.

One of the key critics to this nuclear deal is Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, who said this is the best deal the President could get with Iran because they "don't fear nor respect him and our allies in the region don't trust the President."

"What I would suggest is if you can't get there with this deal is to keep the interim deal in place, allow new President in 2017--Democrat or Republican--take a crack at the Iranian nuclear program. Obama is a flawed negotiator. His foreign policy has failed on multiple fronts. Nobody in the region trusts him. The Iranians do not fear or respect him so he'll never be able to get the best deal. The best deal I think comes with a new President. Hillary Clinton would do better, I think everybody on our side, except maybe Rand Paul could do better. So that's one way of looking at this program keeping the interim deal in place, that's been fairly successful and have a new crack at it with a new President that doesn't have the baggage of Obama."

Sen. Lindsey Graham's comments were covered by Reuters, the New York Times, International Business Times, the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, the Washington Examiner, NPR, Haaretz and BBC News.

Turning to the heated debate on Indiana and other state's Religious Freedom Laws, where businesses, celebrities and politicians voiced their concerns over the law, former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pennsylvania, said, "Tolerance is a two way street."

"If you are a print shop and you are a gay man, should you be forced to print "God Hates Fags" for the Westboro Baptist Church because they hold those signs up? Should you be forced to do--should the government and this is really the case here. Should the government force you to do that? And that's what these cases are all about. This is about the government coming and saying, 'no, we're going to make you do this.' And this is where I think we just need some space to say, 'let's have some tolerance, have it be a two-way street.'"

Former Sen. Rick Santorum's comments were covered by the Washington Post, Newsmax, New York Daily News, The Blaze, the Washington Blade and MSNBC.