America just held a secret war meeting days before Saudi Arabia bombs Yemen
3 hours ago · 3 October 2026Share
President George W. Bush meets with Chief of Staff Andy Card, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and CIA Director George Tenet at Camp David in Thurmont, Maryland. File photo. Series: Photographs Related to the George W. Bush Administration, 1/20/2001 - 1/20/2009 Collection: Records of the White House Photo Office (George W. Bush Administration), 1/20/2001 - 1/20/2009 · Public domain
Donald Trump's top security team met in secret two days ago.
At Camp David. Away from Washington. No announcement.
The topic was Iran. And Yemen.
Three US officials have now confirmed it to Axios. The White House still hasn't said a word about what happened there.
So who was in the room?
Vice President JD Vance ran the meeting. Alongside him sat Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State. Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense. Steve Witkoff, the White House envoy. John Ratcliffe, the CIA Director. And General Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
That's the entire team that runs America's wars. In one room. With nobody told.
One person briefed on the meeting told Axios, quote "things were decided or at least deeply discussed".
That's about as close as an anonymous source gets to saying: yes, something happened in there.
And the timing is the whole story.
The last time this exact group met like this was June 2025. Days later, Israel went to war with Iran.
That war is still going. More than 15 months later. Talks with Iran are stalled.
Two days before this meeting, Trump said Iran needs to sign the deal on the table or, in his words, it won't exist any longer. One source only reported that line. It hasn't been confirmed anywhere else.
So Iran was almost certainly one half of this meeting.
The rest of this story is for members.
View of Maryland taken during ISS Expedition 6. File photo.Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit , Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center · Public domain
The other half was Yemen.
Here's why. Saudi Arabia is building a major offensive against the Houthis, who seized the Bab el-Mandeb strait last month. That strait is one of the busiest shipping lanes on the planet. It links the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden.
The plan could involve more than 100,000 Yemeni troops. Led on the ground by forces Riyadh controls. Backed by Saudi jets in the air. One option is a coastal push to retake the strait. Another is a bigger assault on several fronts at once.
And Saudi Arabia wants more than its own jets in the sky.
Saudi officials are pushing the White House to send American aircraft to bomb the Houthis directly, alongside the Saudi campaign.
Trump has said no to this before. Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler, has asked him directly for US strikes in Yemen. And been turned down.
But after this weekend, people close to the talks say that could change.
America is already helping, just not with bombs. It's sending intelligence. Targeting information. That's what lets Saudi pilots know where to aim. What it hasn't done is fly the missions itself.
That's the line Saudi Arabia wants Trump to cross.
Nobody is talking publicly. Not the Trump administration. Not Saudi Arabia. Not Iran. The Saudi government, the Yemeni government, the Houthis and the US military were all asked for comment. None of them answered.
So what actually got decided? Still not known.
Nobody has said whether nuclear talks with Iran came up. Nobody has said whether Israel or the UAE were part of the conversation.
Here's what we do know. The people who run America's wars met in secret. The same week Saudi Arabia is finishing its war plan. And the last time this exact group sat down together like this, a war started days later.
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