Where to Watch FRONTLINE’s Documentary on Trump’s Inner Circle & His Waging of War

When Donald Trump campaigned for his second term, he made a repeated promise: no new wars.

As the president took office, he doubled down: “My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and a unifier,” Trump said at his January 2025 inauguration.

In the months since, the president and a team of advisors have decided to deploy the U.S. military overseas in one attack after another — culminating in an ongoing war with Iran that has rocked the international order, shaken the financial markets, and could impact the future of the Republican Party in the midterms.

Who and what are behind Trump’s expansive use of the military in his second term, and what is at stake?

Those questions are at the heart of The War Cabinet, a deeply reported FRONTLINE documentary that is available to stream now. The 90-minute film is from an acclaimed team led by Michael Kirk and Mike Wiser (The Rise of RFK Jr.; Trump’s Power & the Rule of Law; Lies, Politics & Democracy).

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The War Cabinet

May 26, 2026

Drawing on in-depth interviews with President Trump’s allies and associates, officials from his first administration, and his critics, as well as former diplomats, military experts and journalists, the documentary traces how, after vowing to end wars, not start them, Trump assembled a team of loyalists, and together they pursued a much different course.

That team includes Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, longtime aide Stephen Miller, Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, outgoing Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Vice President JD Vance. The film tells the story of how the cabinet, a group whose members had diverse life stories and worldviews, came together to support the president in his quest to demonstrate the United States’ military might on the international stage.

“Trump is looking for people who can communicate ideas, complicated ideas, and make them accessible to the American people,” Trump associate Steve Bannon told FRONTLINE.

“What you really see in this war cabinet is a group of people who do not want to get on the wrong side of President Trump and who don’t see it as their obligation to stop him,” said journalist Eric Cortellessa of TIME magazine.

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How Trump’s Inner Circle Helped Pave the Road to War With Iran

May 26, 2026

As The War Cabinet reports, that’s a stark contrast with the team Trump assembled the first time around, which included people who were “trying to stop terrible things from happening,” said Fiona Hill, who served on Trump’s National Security Council in his first term.

“The President had Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, multiple Secretaries of Defense, Chiefs of Staff, who were actively obstructing and undermining the agenda the American people elected him on,” said Alexander Gray, a former Trump National Security Council chief of staff.

With panoramic scope, the documentary illuminates how, in his second term, the president’s impulses and U.S. foreign policy have become increasingly one and the same. The War Cabinet traces how Trump has increasingly sought to cement his legacy and achieve U.S. policy objectives through military strength; how the administration has engaged militarily everywhere from Yemen, to the waters off Venezuela, to Iran; and the roles of key players in Trump’s second-term military decisions.

As the film reports, Vance, who served as a U.S. Marine in Iraq, was reluctant to enter the current war with Iran. But Vance stood down, telling the president that if he moved forward, he would still have his support.

With the Iran conflict now in its third month and threatening to define Trump’s second term, The War Cabinet is a must-watch documentary on how the president who promised peace has become a wartime president — and the ongoing ramifications.