Bannon playing an outsized role in administration's Iran decision: Sources
By the time 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, sources with knowledge of the meeting told ABC News.
Bannon, who had already spoken with Trump 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.
-ABC News' Anne Flaherty, Jonathan Karl, Shannon K. Kingston and Luis Martinez








