Updated 5:41 p.m.
President Barack Obama will speak at AU on Aug. 5 to discuss the recent deal between the United States and Iran regarding the country's nuclear program, according to Press Secretary Josh Earnest.
“The President will continue to make the case for why the Iran deal verifiably prevents Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. He will lay out the enormous stakes in the current debate taking place in Congress and describe why this diplomatic resolution is far preferable to the alternatives,” Earnest said during a White House press briefing Friday.
The speech was also announced on an official Twitter account for the deal:
Following in JFK's footsteps, @POTUS is headed to American University on 8/5 to lay out the #IranDeal's importance to peace.--@PressSec
— The Iran Deal (@TheIranDeal) July 31, 2015
A limited number of tickets for students in the School of International Service will be available through a lottery, according to an email sent to SIS students from Dean Jim Goldgeier around 5 p.m. SIS students interested in attending must respond to the email by Aug. 1 at 12 p.m.
The email did not specify whether other AU students would be eligible or how many tickets would be offered. A viewing area for the rest of the University community will be available during the speech in the Mary Graydon Center. The SIS building will be closed for part of the day and will reopen for 5:30 p.m. classes, the email said.
The visit will be the second time Obama has spoken on campus in the past two years. The President previously visited campus for an interview with MSNBC’s “Hardball with Chris Matthews” in December of 2013.
The location choice follows in the footsteps of John F. Kennedy’s well-known Cold War speech in 1963, which focused on international security and curbing the threat of nuclear war with the Soviet Union.
