COLORADO SPRINGS — “On the Iran negotiation, I’m an absolute no on that,” U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn a crowd of about 40 gathered at a Colorado Springs Republican meet-up last Thursday.

His stand on the deal came as no surprise to the conservative group in the room.

“The verification is toothless,” Lamborn said, lamenting that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action gives Iran a 90-day window before the terms of the plan take effect. “Ninety days go by. You can hide a lot of things in 90 days,” he said.

“Iran is such a troublemaker,” Lamborn said. “It’s the biggest sponsor of state terrorism in the world today. It’s holding four Americans hostages, pastors and reporters, people like that, and they don’t figure into the deal. When Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980 and Iran was holding 52 Americans, Reagan never had to say anything. They knew that adults were in charge in Washington and they let the hostages go. He never had to say a word.”

Lamborn came to the meeting fresh off of introducing Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson at a rally in a downtown park. He explained that he has been coming to the Republican meetings run by Ray Hicks for “15 or 16 years — every August.” Lamborn worked the room casually before and after his remarks, talking about hot-button topics like Planned Parenthood, veterans affairs, the Iran deal and the threat to sovereignty posed to the Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal.

The meeting was, in many ways, an intimate preview of coming attractions on Capitol Hill, with clashes likely around budget negotiations, which promise to be less about the national budget and more about the politically charged topics that dominated Thursday’s meet-up. Talk of a government shutdown cropped up routinely over the course of the evening.

“Taxpayer dollars should not be going to Planned Parenthood,” Rebekah Brown, regional coordinator of Heritage Action for America, told the group. “We wrote a letter to [House Speaker John] Boehner telling him to oppose any spending bill that doesn’t defund Planned Parenthood. Let’s use the leverage of appropriation. Let’s let Obama put dead babies over government funding. Let him shutdown the government just to fund Planned Parenthood.”

Lamborn also addressed the controversy, the result of a series of undercover videos made by anti-abortion Center for Medical Progress, featuring Planned Parenthood staffers discussing the transfer of fetal tissue for research, a legal practice. Anti-abortion groups laud the videos as an investigative exposé, while health-policy investigators have generally played down the significance of the material, pointing out heavy edits they say demonstrate the videos were made to serve a cause and make a splash.

“These videos were released by basically whistleblowers,” Lamborn said. “It’s a terrible situation. You don’t have to use fetal tissue for medical research. You can use adult stem cells or fetal tissue in the sad case of a miscarriage.”

Although Planned Parenthood receives millions in federal support for the non-abortion services it provides — including cancer and sexually transmitted disease screenings, contraception education and maternal health checkups — no federal money is supposed to pay for the organization’s abortion services.

Lamborn, like many Planned Parenthood detractors, believes “the money is fungible” and impossible to separate from payment for abortion services.

“We have a bill in the House to defund Planned Parenthood,” he said. “We have organizations that can step in and provide the health care services instead of Planned Parenthood.”

One at the meeting asked if Lamborn would sign on to what he called “the Mulvaney Pledge,” named for Mick Mulvaney, a Republican from South Carolina, who joined 17 House conservatives to tell House GOP leaders earlier that day that they won’t support any measure to fund the government if it includes money for Planned Parenthood.

Lamborn said he hadn’t heard about the letter but that he would certainly take a look at it.

Nick McIntyre, executive director of the Colorado chapter of Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom Coalition, said his group was taking the lead in Colorado against Planned Parenthood, working with the conservative national law group Alliance Defending Freedom to pressure Attorney General Cynthia Coffman to investigate local Planned Parenthood affiliates. Coffman referred the matter to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, which declined to take up the case, saying Congress is investigating.

“[Coffman] is just sitting on her hands,” McIntyre said. “She’s the top cop in the state and she’s not doing anything. It’s unacceptable. We have to keep on her. This is her responsibility.”

McIntyre said his group was asking for documents from local research facilities to see which were buying fetal tissue.

Asked whether he would vote to replace Boehner with a more conservative House leader, Lamborn replied, “Let’s see who the replacement would be. We could do better, but we could also do worse.”

Lamborn reminded the group he supported Rep. Mike Pence over Boehner in a past House leadership vote.

The meeting also featured a straw poll for president, and the results surprised attendees.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz won the poll with nine votes, billionaire Donald Trump came in second with five votes and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina ran next with four votes. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul tied with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker for fourth place with three votes each, and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson tied with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee for fifth place.

“Carson’s supporters are all at his rally,” joked co-organizer Shane Sandridge, who acted as emcee most of the night.

— john.tomasic@gmail.com