Bannon’s comments reflect growing division among Trump’s MAGA base

A measured Steve Bannon told a group of reporters Wednesday that he thinks it’s a mistake for the United States to get involved in direct military action against Iran — urging President Donald Trump to question Israeli intelligence and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s warnings.

“This entire military effort that they’ve done — now it’s left to the United States to have to come in and finish it? The Israelis have to finish what they started,” Bannon, a former top Trump strategist who is still close to the president, told reporters at a breakfast in Washington sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor. “There’s no hurry to rush — for the United States to be into a military solution. I realize that the president is looking at a range of alternatives. He’s looking at a range of alternatives, and he has gone out of his way to negotiate.”

If Trump decides a targeted strike on nuclear facilities in Iran is necessary, Bannon said, it does not have to happen “tomorrow, or the next day, or the next day:” “The president should take the time to think this through with his advisers.”

But — despite his public and private skepticism about the need to act, and the obvious divisions inside the MAGA base, including from Bannon on his influential “War Room” podcast — Bannon made clear that if Trump decides to have the U.S. take direct action, most of his supporters will come along and be convinced.

“I will tell you, if the president as commander-in-chief makes a decision to do this, and comes forward and walks people through it, the MAGA movement — you’ll lose some — but the MAGA movement, the Marjorie Taylor Greenes, the Matt Gaetzes, we will fight it up to the end, to make sure he’s got information, but if he has more intelligence and makes that case to the American people, the MAGA movement will support President Trump.”

Asked Wednesday morning about his base being wary of getting into a war with Iran, Trump replied, “My supporters are more in love with me today, and I’m in love with them more than they were even at election time.”

“So I may have some people that are a little bit unhappy now, but I have some people that are very happy, and have people outside of the base that can’t believe that this is happening. They’re so happy.

Bannon also pushed back at Netanyahu’s attempt to co-opt MAGA phrases, citing specifically what the Israeli prime minister told ABC News’ Jonathan Karl on Monday as part of his campaign to pressure Trump to act.

“Today, it’s Tel Aviv. Tomorrow, it’s New York,” Netanyahu told Karl on Monday. “Look, I understand ‘America First’. I don’t understand ‘America Dead’. That’s what these people want. They chant ‘Death to America.’ So we’re doing something that is in the service of mankind, of humanity, and it’s a battle of good against evil. America does, should, and does stand with the good.”

“To lecture the MAGA movement, ‘America First, America dead’ — Hey look, dude: I served my country, my daughter served my country, the American people make that decision. We don’t need to be lectured from Jerusalem or Tel Aviv on that.”

Bannon also pointed out that Netanyahu has warned that Iran is close to getting a nuclear bomb for decades, and that Israel intelligence failed to pick up word of the Hamas attacks of October 2023.

More broadly, Bannon expressed fear that a major military action would distract from what he sees as more urgent Trump priorities, particularly mass deportations of undocumented immigrants and confronting China. He said he still believes Trump is mainly engaged in “coercive diplomacy” — positioning assets in the region, and issuing blunt warnings — to avoid a conflict.

“I think cooler heads will prevail,” he said.

Trump, he said, is mindful that his political rise was fueled in part on opposition to endless wars in the Middle East.

“We don’t want any more forever wars,” Bannon said. “We can’t do this again. We’ll tear the country apart. We can’t have another Iraq.”