President Donald Trump reportedly used Steve Bannon to distract his MAGA critics before pressing the button on a bombing raid against Iran.
Bannon, a former senior Trump adviser who was pushed out of the White House in 2017, lunched with the president last Thursday, hours before the commander-in-chief announced—via Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt—that he intended to give himself two weeks to decide on a possible strike on Iran.
However, the lunch and the Leavitt statement were part of a careful misdirection ploy by Trump amid a MAGA civil war over U.S involvement in the conflict between Israel and Iran, according to the New York Times.
Commentators, both war hawks and America-first isolationists, interpreted the Bannon summit and the Leavitt statement as meaning that the president was shying away from any involvement, as per his campaign promise to keep the country out of foreign conflicts.
However, shortly after Bannon had arrived at the White House, Leavitt delivered the statement, which was a “calculated misdirection,” according to the Times.
The publication reported that Trump had actually dictated the message before he broke bread with Bannon, a staunch opponent of the U.S. attacking Iran.
Afterwards, the right-wing podcaster said the president told him that he wants to “look at other alternatives,” instead of sending the bunker-busting bombers to destroy Iranian nuclear facilities.
But at around 5 p.m. last Friday, Trump gave the go-ahead from his summer retreat in Bedminster, New Jersey. The Times reported that Trump had all but made up his mind on the matter by Tuesday, but had been willing to listen to opponents until before the Bannon sit-down.
By Saturday, Bannon seemed to have realized he’d been used—or perhaps he thought Trump had gone TACO again and changed his mind.
He told listeners of his War Room podcast: “I’m just reporting what I’m hearing from pretty good sources. The party is on.”
Hours later, a fleet of B-2 stealth bombers dropped over a dozen “bunker-buster” bombs on uranium enrichment sites across Iran.
Trump told the nation that “Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.”
Officials, however, said the strike on the deeply fortified Fordow site had severely damaged but not destroyed it.
Political allies joined critics and condemned the attack. Georgia Republican and MAGA diehard Marjorie Taylor Greene risked the president’s wrath by calling the operation “senseless.”
Greene, Bannon, and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson had spearheaded criticism of U.S. intervention throughout the week. Republican congressman Thomas Massie got what might be coming for Greene when he dared to call out Trump’s decision.
“MAGA doesn’t want him, doesn’t know him, and doesn’t respect him,” Trump said in a Truth Social rant on Sunday, adding that Massie had been “disrespectful to our great military, and all that they stand for, not even acknowledging their brilliance and bravery in yesterday’s attack, which was a total and complete WIN.”
He called on his movement to “drop this pathetic LOSER” and initiated plans to primary him in next year’s midterms.
Bannon has been contacted for comment.
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