Obama said to put odds of an Iran deal at 'less than 50-50'

...The president spoke at length about Iran, senators said. This wasn’t the first time Obama has said the odds are against a deal, but his remarks reflect the White House’s message to both the Iranians and domestic opponents that U.S. negotiators would sooner walk away than back away from Obama’s core goals.

On their own, Democrats in the Senate can shield an eventual pact from actions by Congressional opponents, and the president urged his party to ignore naysayers.

“He took us back to what the framework was when the initial agreement was announced in Lausanne,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) said Tuesday night as he prepared to board a bus parked in front of the White House’s Northwest gate with other senators headed back to the Capitol. “He said, ‘Don’t get nervous, don’t get concerned about statements by the supreme leader, about statements in the press. I am not going to sign a deal where we can’t assure that we’ve blocked all pathways to a bomb for Iran.’ I found that very reassuring.”

While Obama “covered every hot topic there was,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), when it came to Iran, “he wanted to make it clear to us that if it’s a bad deal, there’s no deal.”...