Newsmax’s Seb Gorka Claims He and Steve Bannon Convinced Trump to Axe Iran Nuclear Deal: ‘One of My Proudest Career Moments’
Newsmax host and ex-White House adviser Seb Gorka claimed he and Steve Bannon convinced former President Donald Trump to pull out of the U.S.-Iran nuclear deal.
On Friday, the U.S. began bombing Iran-backed targets in Syria and Iraq five days after an Iran proxy group droned a military installation in Jordan that killed three U.S. service members. Republicans had been demanding all week that President Joe Biden retaliate. Earlier this month, the U.S. and the U.K. bombed the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen after the group launched a series of attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea.
During a discussion about the U.S. strikes in Syria and Iraq on Newsmax, Gorka claimed credit for helping sink the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran that was inked during the Obama administration. Signed in 2015, several major powers provided Iran with sanctions relief in exchange for the imposition of restrictions on the country’s nuclear program.
Trump withdrew the U.S. from the agreement in 2018. Subsequently, Iran has resumed its uranium enrichment program.
Gorka said he and Bannon were behind the move. Both were White House strategists at the time:
One of my proudest career moments was when we had key members of the cabinet arrayed, including [Secretary of State] Rex Tillerson. We had the National Security Advisor [H.R.] McMaster in the Oval Office. And then President Trump summoned me and Steve Bannon. He called us his “heavies.”
And he said, “Alright, my heavies. Explain to these men why the Iran deal – Obama’s JCPOA Iran deal – is bad. And we gave them the, you know, classic Washington elevator pitch. Sixty seconds from Steve, 60 seconds from me. “Why? It’s bad for America, bad for the globe, bad for the region, and bad for our closest friend in the region, Israel.”
And then, what did President Trump do? He killed the Iran deal. And as you say, we sanctioned that regime to its knees. If President Trump had had a second term in 2021 that regime would have collapsed.
Watch above via Newsmax.
