Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton went on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" Monday and declared the United States was negotiating with Iran from a position of weakness, a claim the White House wasted no time dismantling by pointing to Clinton's own foreign policy record.
Clinton's remarks came hours after President Donald Trump ordered the U.S. Navy to blockade Iranian ports in the Strait of Hormuz and just days after Vice President JD Vance departed Pakistan empty-handed when peace talks between Washington and Tehran collapsed over the weekend. The blockade took effect at 10 a.m. ET on Monday, with at least 17 U.S. vessels visible in the region that morning, Fox News Digital reported.
U.S. Central Command issued a notice to seafarers earlier Monday spelling out the consequences in plain terms:
"Any vessel entering or departing the blockaded area without authorization is subject to interception, diversion, and capture."
That is not the language of a country operating from weakness. But Clinton saw it differently.
Speaking on "Morning Joe," Clinton framed the situation as a failure of positioning. She told the program:
"I worry that the United States is now in a very weak position vis-à-vis Iran, which should be the outlier, should be on the back foot and should be the one held to account."
She went further, saying the administration had squandered whatever advantage it once held:
"So we're in a situation now where we are weak, where we essentially have lost the leverage and initiative that we had."
Clinton also claimed she had supported a previous U.S. military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. "I supported Trump bombing the nuclear sites back in June. I thought that was an appropriate and limited strategic objective," she said, before adding, "I opposed his incoherent attack on Iran." She did not elaborate on the distinction between the two actions.
Clinton's willingness to back certain Trump military decisions while criticizing others has become a recurring pattern. It echoes her earlier surprising reversals on Trump-era policy, which caught both parties off guard.
She also took aim at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, claiming from personal experience that he "has tried to get every American president to agree to have an open-ended war with Iran." Clinton described "many, many long hourslong conversations with him and his war cabinet" in which she said she refused "to go along with a very inchoate desire to do something to Iran that, you know, with no real end state that could be described as sufficiently."
Her prescription? Start over. Clinton told the program the U.S. would have to wipe the slate clean for negotiations with Iran and said they would "have to bring in people who actually know something about nuclear weapons."
The White House did not let the critique stand. Spokeswoman Anna Kelly delivered a pointed statement to Fox News Digital that went straight at Clinton's own tenure at the State Department.
"Hillary Clinton backed the disastrous, one-sided Obama nuclear agreement, which enabled the rogue Iranian regime to build up its capabilities to threaten our homeland, and her State Department refused necessary security personnel for United States facilities in Benghazi, which paved the way for terrorists to kill four Americans."
Kelly's statement is a reminder of something Clinton's media allies prefer to leave unmentioned: the Obama-era Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which Clinton supported, gave Tehran billions in sanctions relief while leaving key missile and enrichment timelines intact. And the Benghazi attack of September 2012, which killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans, remains one of the defining failures of Clinton's time as the nation's top diplomat.
Kelly concluded with a sharper assessment: "Thankfully, Americans have a courageous leader in President Trump who is strong enough to fix the disaster that Clinton and her fellow Democrats created."
Clinton has found herself under increasing scrutiny in recent months. Her combative public exchanges with Republican lawmakers have kept her in the headlines, and not always on her own terms.
The backdrop to Clinton's commentary is a fast-moving military and diplomatic situation. Peace talks between the U.S. and Iran broke down over the weekend, with Vice President Vance leaving Pakistan without an agreement. President Trump responded by ordering the Navy to enforce a blockade on Iranian ports in the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world's most critical oil transit chokepoints.
The Central Command notice to seafarers made clear that unauthorized vessels face interception, diversion, and capture. A map published Monday morning showed at least 17 U.S. ships deployed to the region, a visible show of force that undercuts any suggestion the administration is passive or uncertain about its posture.
Clinton's call for "hard negotiations with the right people at the table who know what they are doing" raises an obvious question: who does she think those people are? Her own record at the State Department produced the Iran nuclear deal, which the Trump administration withdrew from during his first term precisely because it failed to prevent Iran's continued march toward nuclear capability. The deal's defenders have spent a decade arguing it was the best option available. Iran's behavior since, its proxy wars, its enrichment advances, its defiance of international inspectors, suggests otherwise.
Meanwhile, the recent deposition clashes involving Clinton on Capitol Hill have further eroded whatever bipartisan goodwill she once carried on foreign policy matters.
There is a particular irony in Clinton lecturing any administration about leverage with Iran. She served as Secretary of State during the period when the groundwork was laid for the very deal that gave Tehran breathing room to expand its nuclear infrastructure. She backed the agreement publicly. She campaigned on it.
Now, with a naval blockade active in the Strait of Hormuz and at least 17 warships in position, she appears on cable television to say America is the weak party.
Clinton told "Morning Joe" she wanted to see the slate wiped clean and experts brought in. But the experts she endorsed the last time around produced an agreement that even many Democrats eventually conceded was insufficient. The people who "actually know something about nuclear weapons," as she put it, were apparently not the ones advising her own State Department when it mattered most.
The broader Clinton political saga continues to generate headlines across Washington, but it is her foreign policy record, not her political maneuvering, that matters here.
Anna Kelly's statement from the White House identified four dead Americans in Benghazi and an Iran deal that emboldened a rogue regime. Those are not talking points. They are outcomes, outcomes that followed directly from decisions Clinton made or endorsed.
And the ongoing controversies surrounding Clinton's public testimony have only deepened skepticism about her credibility among conservative voters and many independents.
The open questions are real. What specific framework were the U.S. and Iran negotiating under before talks collapsed? What comes after the blockade if Tehran refuses to return to the table? Those are fair things to ask.
But Clinton is not the person to ask them. She had her turn. She backed the deal that failed. She ran the department that left Benghazi exposed. She now wants credit for supporting one Trump military strike while opposing another, without explaining the principle that separates the two.
The U.S. has 17 ships in the Strait of Hormuz and a standing order to intercept unauthorized vessels. Whether that constitutes strength or weakness is a fair debate. But the person least qualified to judge American leverage with Iran is the one whose policies helped Tehran get this far in the first place.
