MAGA star Steve Bannon plays outsized role in Trump’s Iran decision: Sources

By the time President Donald Trump and MAGA podcaster Steve Bannon sat down for lunch on Thursday, the president had already approved a plan on how the U.S. might attack an Iranian nuclear facility.

Trump had just emerged from the Situation Room, where sources say he was warned: A U.S. attack on a key Iranian nuclear facility could be risky, even with a massive "bunker-buster" bomb believed to be able to penetrate some 200 feet through hardened earth.

Bannon, who had already spoken with the president by phone ahead of their lunch, thought all of it was a bad idea, according to several people close to him.

Sources say he arrived at the White House for his previously scheduled lunch with Trump armed with specific talking points: Israeli intelligence can’t be trusted, he planned to say, and the bunker-buster bomb might not work as planned. The precise risk to the U.S. troops in the Middle East, particularly the 2,500 in Iraq, also wasn’t clear if Iran retaliated, he would add.

A White House official insists that by the time Trump sat down with Bannon for lunch the president had already made a decision to hold off on a strike against Iran. That decision was relayed to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt who then went to the podium, telling reporters the president would decide "whether or not to go" within two weeks.

Still, Bannon’s extraordinary access to Trump this week to discuss a major foreign policy decision like Iran is notable considering Bannon holds no official role in the military or at the State Department. Bannon declined to comment on his lunch with Trump, saying only Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “needs to finish what they started.”

Sources say another factor could have played a role in Trump’s decision to hold off on striking Iran for now despite his insistence that Iran was close to a nuclear bomb. A third aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford and its guided-missile destroyers are set to deploy early next week to head toward Europe, according to the Navy.

Officials caution that any success Bannon might have in pulling the president back from the brink of war could be brief. When asked on Friday by reporters if he would ask Israel to stop bombing Iran to enable diplomatic negotiations, Trump said probably not.