Steve Bannon slams Trump’s Iran threat: ‘Straight from the Samantha Powers and Hillary Clinton playbook’

WASHINGTON, DC: Steve Bannon, the former White House chief strategist, issued a sharp critique of Donald Trump by comparing his latest foreign policy stance to the interventionist strategies of Hillary Clinton. 

The former top adviser to President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign said that people were teasing that Samantha Power and Hillary Clinton must have been at the Mar-a-Lago New Year’s Eve party because Trump's saying “we’re locked and loaded” was 'straight' from their 'playbook.'

Steve Bannon compares Trump’s Iran stance to Hillary Clinton’s

During a broadcast of his show, War Room on Friday, January 2, Bannon reacted to President Trump’s rhetoric regarding civil unrest in Iran. 

He suggested that Trump was acting just like his former political opponents, asking his audience, “Aren’t people teasing right now that Samantha Powers [sic] and Hillary Clinton must somehow have gotten invited to the Mar-a-Lago New Year’s Eve celebration because the president coming out today saying, ‘Hey, we’re locked and loaded,’ isn’t that straight from the Samantha Powers and Hillary Clinton playbook?” 

Bannon’s frustration centered on the idea that the current administration was starting to act like past Democratic administrations.

Steve Bannon calls for strict sanctions instead of military force in Iran

Instead of military action, Bannon argued that strict financial pressure would cause the Iranian government to collapse from within.

Bannon argued that the administration should "just enforce the sanctions and let the mullahs try to run the economy as they’re running it because they don’t know what they’re doing. Running it by Islamic law and not by the laws of a free market economy. The economy will crash and the Persian people will overthrow these guys just like they overthrew the Shah.” 

Steve Bannon tells Netanyahu and Levin to let the Iranian people fight their own battle

During his show, Bannon also criticized supporters of war in the pro-Israel community, specifically Benjamin Netanyahu and Mark Levin.

While Bannon praised previous surgical strikes, noting that “Taking care of the nuclear program that President Trump did, that closed the 12-Day War was obviously brilliant. You know, logistically incredible.”

He cautioned, “Tel Aviv Mark Levin and Netanyahu now, they’re beating their chest. This is something we said was going to happen, you just have to let it play out. Let the Persian people take care of this. You can’t intrude on this thing.”

He added, “The more you intrude, the more the Mullahs are gonna dig in and say, ‘This is the great Satan that’s doing this,’ and you’re gonna have a bigger and longer mess than you can have. You’ve got the opportunity right now for the people in Persia to overthrow these demons, right? Let them get on with it. The Persians have been around a long time. They know how to do it, they did it in ’79.”

Bannon reacts to Trump’s Truth Social post

Barron’s remarks come after a post Trump shared on Truth Social on January 1. The President stated, “If Iran shots and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue. We are locked and loaded and ready to go.”