Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch, author of the new book The Complete Infidel’s Guide to Iran, joined SiriusXM host Stephen K. Bannon on Breitbart News Daily to discuss the open letter from 50 Republican national security officials, who declared, “None of us will vote for Donald Trump.”

“It’s really astonishing when you think about Hillary Clinton’s sorry record as secretary of state, in Benghazi, and everything else. The world on fire, the creation of ISIS, all these things can be laid at the feet of Obama and Hillary Clinton,” said Spencer.

He said:

These military leaders, who are indeed chop-blocking Donald Trump, are obviously part of a foreign-policy establishment that has failed, and knows that it has failed, and knows how threatened it is by the candidacy of Donald Trump, and is trying to protect its hold on power. But it’s really, incredibly, almost intellectually bankrupt for them to be going after Trump in defense of such a pitiable record.

Spencer agreed with Bannon that these officials denouncing Trump are the same people who have attacked critics of radical Islam, including himself, Frank Gaffney, and Pamela Geller, over the years.

“These are the same ones who made sure that I was removed as an FBI trainer and a trainer of the military,” Spencer recalled, adding:

I used to go in routinely, from 2005 to 2010, and show them the mindset of the terrorists. You can’t defeat an enemy that you don’t understand, much less one you refuse to understand. They are the foremost exponents of the idea that Islamic terrorism has nothing to do with Islam. Meanwhile, the terrorists keep insisting that it does. And until we listen to them, and until we study what their motives and goals are, we will never be able to defeat them.

Bannon suggested the Republican officials lined up against Trump are angry because he is listening to critics of radical Islam like Spencer, instead of them.

“Absolutely, because the fact is, previously, under the administrations of both Bush and Obama, the foreign policy establishment has been the same,” Spencer agreed. He explained:

Their failed solutions have been applied again, and again, and again. The change of administration didn’t make any difference. Democrats, Republicans, they both buy into all these false assumptions and failed analyses. Trump is different, and that is why he so deeply threatens the political establishment – both the Republican establishment, as well as the Democrats.

Turning to President Obama’s controversial $400 million secret payment to Iran, Spencer said there is “no doubt at all” it was a ransom payment, and Iran is “rubbing their faces in it” by “showing how the hostages were not released until the plane touched down, until they made sure they had the money.”

“It’s an obvious equation, one to one: the hostages were released when they got the ransom payment. It’s very clear. Iran knows it, and they are gleefully showing up Obama as a liar,” Spencer said.

To hold President Obama accountable, he urged Congress to get “something done to make sure there are no more secret deals.”

“The Iran nuclear deal, on the face of it, is bad enough, as I show in the book,” he explained, referring to The Complete Infidel’s Guide to Iran. “But now, all these secret parts of it have come out, the idea that they can inspect their own sites and all this.”

Bannon noted that the administration keeps pretending its secret deals and “side letters” with Iran were known on Capitol Hill long ago, as the American people reel in shock from each new revelation. Spencer strongly disputed this White House spin.

“They come out in the press, and then the Obama administration has consistently claimed that, oh, yeah, everybody already knew that. It’s all just deception. They’ve been caught lying several times,” he said.

“Of course, Ben Rhodes lied about making out the Iranian regime to be moderate. It was all false. He’s admitted lying. He’s boasted about lying about that. … He’s using them, and he’s continuing to use them, and they still haven’t woken up,” Spencer noted, referring to interviews with Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes, in which he described reporters as lazy, poorly informed, and easy to manipulate for propaganda purposes.

Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Eastern.

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