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

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. The president was Franklin D. Roosevelt and the war was World War II. The advisory body Congress created, the National Security Council, served the next 14 presidents in the intervening decades as a key nexus for information and planning. However, in the last year under President Donald Trump, the NSC has been largely gutted in the lead up to a war with Iran that has seen Trump shuffle through a series of strategies. Trump slashed the council’s staff from roughly 200 in the early days to less than half of that today, according to estimates from three sources. Trump made the cuts, at least in part, at the behest of far-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer who claimed that the NSC was full of people who were inadequately loyal to Trump. Instead of using the council to draw on input from a vast federal network of experts, Trump has leaned on a small group of close allies, such as national security adviser