Conspiracy Theorist Laura Loomer Helped Thin Trump's Security Council Just as He Steered Towards War With Iran

Trump took 'sledgehammer' to security council before Iran war: ex-admin officials

Before U.S. President Donald Trump ordered airstrikes against Iran in late February, many foreign policy and national security experts warned that an Iran war would be even more difficult and complicated than the George W. Bush administration's invasion of Iraq — as Iran is a much larger country and is considerably different geographically. And according to national security insiders interviewed by CNN, the Trump adminstration's downsizing of th…

Conspiracy Theorist Laura Loomer Helped Thin Trump's Security Council Just as He Steered Towards War With Iran

A far-right activist with no government post helped hollow out the very body built to scrutinise presidential war decisions, months before Donald Trump took the United States into open conflict with Iran. Laura Loomer, a self-styled investigator who has called the 9/11 attacks an inside job, pressed Trump in an April 2025 Oval Office meeting to purge National Security Council staff she branded disloyal. Over the following weeks the council shran…

How Trump sidelined national security experts ahead of his war with Iran

Worried about a president who seemed to be flying by the seat of his pants as he waged war, Congress stepped in to establish a council of experts to advise the president, gathering information from across the government to consider the consequences and effects of military action.