President Donald Trump and the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, tried silently to organize a meeting between senior US and Iranian officials in Istanbul last week, two officials told ABC News.
Erdogan called Trump on Monday during the G7 summit and suggested a meeting in Istanbul for the next day, those officials said.
That meeting would never happen. Iran’s supreme leader, fearing the murder, hid and could not be contacted to approve the meeting, said US officials to ABC News.
The White House declined to comment. Axios was the first to inform the details.
President Donald Trump, president of the team leaders, General Dan Caine and the Chief of Cabinet, Susie Wiles in the situation room, in the White House in Washington, on June 21, 2025.
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The extraordinary action of the president followed weeks of tension and changing messages.
When we traveled with the president to his Bedminster Golf Club on the weekend of June 8, there was a sudden change at the time: the president would no longer travel back to the White House, but would travel to Camp David on Sunday.
Among the issues on which the president was informed were increasing tensions between Israel and Iran, according to Fuentes. And, more specifically, Israel’s plans to advance with a strike against Iran.
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, then transmit his plans directly to Trump. From the initial Israeli strike against Iran, Netanyahu and the president have remained in close contact, speaking almost every day, multiple sources tell ABC News.
Just a week ago, in a brief telephone interview, the president told me that I would not give Iran a deadline. He reflected the possibility that Russia served as a mediator, an idea that he later abandoned. He said it was “possible” that the United States could get involved, but the administration was not yet there.
Then he would abruptly leave the G7 summit, traveling back to the White House, celebrating meetings with his national security team day after day.
His tone began to change around Iran. It seemed that he was warming up with the idea that the United States got involved. We reported that the president approved the attack plans, but we did not make a final decision.
He established that two -week deadline: give Iran 14 days maximum to come to the table.
Two days later, the United States would attack.
The president started from his Bedminster Golf Club on Saturday afternoon and returned to the White House for a national security meeting.
The senior administration official said that in the week before the strike, efforts were made for diplomacy, mainly through the president’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff.
As those efforts continued, the Pentagon simultaneously prepared the operation. At the end of the week, there was a growing belief among US officials that Iran was not going to come to the table to reach an agreement, according to Fuentes.
They told me that Trump was informed daily about Israel’s efforts and the operation in itself when he decided to move forward. He was in close contact with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth while traveling to Bedminster, receiving updates until he made the final call.
The president gave the final order of strike to Hegseth on Saturday, a senior administration official to ABC told ABC News.
