The Megyn Kelly Show - Behind-the-Scenes of Trump Administration Ahead of Iran War, and Potential FBI Leak Investigation, with Joe Kent ｜ Ep.1277

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00:00:40.080 with Manulife. Visit manulife.ca slash health. Yeah. Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show,

00:00:47.380 live on Sirius XM channel 111 every weekday at New East.

00:00:57.220 Hey, everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:01:01.200 Joe Kent is an Army Special Forces veteran who spent two decades fighting for the United States.

00:01:06.720 And until this past Tuesday, he was a top advisor to President Trump on terrorism threats, helping to keep the nation safe.

00:01:14.080 His resignation over the war in Iran this week has touched off a fierce debate.

00:01:18.840 He believes the United States went to war based on flawed reasoning, arguing there was no imminent threat,

00:01:25.340 among other accusations he has leveled, which we will get into.

00:01:28.580 He's now reportedly under investigation by the FBI, accused of leaking classified information.

00:01:35.700 But is that true?

00:01:37.060 For the first time today, he's going to speak about that potential federal investigation

00:01:41.020 and whether he is ready to face the wrath of the U.S. government, which he dared to criticize over this war.

00:01:48.000 The same government he sacrificed so much for.

00:01:53.460 Watch.

00:01:54.780 Mr. President, your director of national counterterrorism, Joe Kent, he just resigned today.

00:02:00.000 He said he can't support your conflict with Iran.

00:02:03.100 What's your reaction to that?

00:02:04.420 Well, I read his statement.

00:02:05.840 I always thought he was a nice guy, but I always thought he was weak on security, very weak on security.

00:02:11.220 When I read his statement, I realized that it's a good thing that he's out.

00:02:16.900 Kent is a decorated former Green Beret and CIA operative.

00:02:21.280 My first or second day of Special Forces selection was September 11th.

00:02:24.920 You gotta get out of here!

00:02:26.160 And I'm like, man, this can't be actually real.

00:02:28.380 A great people has been moved to defend a great nation.

00:02:31.680 You know you're going to do what you signed up for.

00:02:35.120 How did that hit? Did that hit you at the time?

00:02:37.600 I was afraid I was going to miss it.

00:02:39.820 Mr. Kent has 20 years of military service and 11 combat deployments during the war on terror.

00:02:47.760 We were out, broad daylight, Haifa Street, places where the army had like literally still

00:02:52.760 smoldering Bradley fighting vehicles that had gotten lit up and we're out there and

00:02:56.400 are dressed up like Iraqis trying to find guys. 0.99

00:02:59.300 Mr. Kent has dedicated his career to fighting terrorism and keeping Americans safe.

00:03:03.860 I met Joe at a place, it was a very sad day, it was Dover.

00:03:08.060 Dover is the Air Force base where large planes come in, very, very sadly come in.

00:03:14.540 And I said, so why are you here?

00:03:17.720 He said, I'm waiting for my wife to come in. 0.97

00:03:20.920 And that was a very sad thing.

00:03:22.540 I knew immediately what he was talking about.

00:03:25.120 My boys were one in three when my wife was killed serving in Syria.

00:03:29.040 I was in shock when I heard.

00:03:31.160 But the one clear thought was, okay, I have to leave the service, move back home, and take care of my kids.

00:03:37.500 That incredible woman's looking down on him right now, and she's very proud.

00:03:41.060 I was in a room, and next thing you know, Trump walks around the corner.

00:03:44.540 And it was just us together for 10, 15 minutes.

00:03:47.160 And the questions he was asking me and just the reaction that he was having to being there at Dover,

00:03:51.740 I really felt like he's a guy who did not like the fact that people died under his watch.

00:03:57.100 You have something very special.

00:03:59.200 I said you ought to run for politics someday.

00:04:01.040 This is about us, conservatives, Republicans taking back our country.

00:04:05.560 He really represents sort of the MAGA portion who is anti-war.

00:04:09.820 Under Trump, we will have no more wars.

00:04:12.160 No more wars.

00:04:13.540 No more wars.

00:04:14.540 Nobody knows why we're there, you know, the wars that never end.

00:04:17.860 The war in Iraq is a big, fat mistake. 0.94

00:04:21.300 After 9-11, the American people were like, yeah, let's get it on.

00:04:23.340 Let's go to war. 0.81

00:04:24.320 Let's defend our country.

00:04:25.840 We took down the Taliban and al-Qaeda pretty quick in Afghanistan.

00:04:30.760 Bin Laden escapes to Pakistan.

00:04:32.960 And all of a sudden, it's like, don't worry about that.

00:04:35.340 We're going to build a new government here in Afghanistan.

00:04:37.480 Oh, and by the way, now we need to go to Iraq.

00:04:40.280 It's the longest period of time our country's been at war, but we never stood up the draft.

00:04:44.540 It was all fought by volunteers.

00:04:46.820 And I think we deserve credit for that,

00:04:48.260 but I also think overall that was a bad thing for the country

00:04:50.780 because you could send the country off to war for 20-plus years.

00:04:54.760 You could make a small group of people very, very wealthy based off that war,

00:04:58.400 but only a very small fraction of the population

00:05:01.520 is going to feel any effects whatsoever of war.

00:05:03.980 This is kind of a money-making scheme

00:05:05.980 done on the backs of those who are true believers like us

00:05:09.600 that volunteer to go over time and time again.

00:05:11.480 A short time ago, the United States military began major combat operations in Iran.

00:05:21.780 If we waited for them to hit us first after they were attacked by someone else, Israel attacked them, they hit us first, and we waited for them to hit us, we would suffer more casualties and more deaths. 0.63

00:05:32.060 CENTCOM U.S. military officials confirming three U.S. service members have been killed, five others wounded as part of Operation Epic Fury.

00:05:39.880 And sadly, there will likely be more. Before it ends, that's the way it is.

00:05:46.560 The director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Joe Kent, has just announced he's resigning.

00:05:52.460 Quote, as a veteran who deployed to combat 11 times and as a gold star husband who lost my beloved wife, Shannon, in a war manufactured by Israel, 0.75

00:06:00.760 I cannot support sending the next generation off to fight and die in a war that serves no benefit to the American people, nor justifies the cost of American lives.

00:06:10.580 It is unclear how much of an impact this letter will have, given the kind of conspiratorial nature of the letter.

00:06:17.840 The fact that he blames Israel, Israeli officials, the American media, the Israel lobby.

00:06:24.400 I heard anti-Semitism. I mean, this is a trope that repeats itself throughout history.

00:06:29.360 The Jews are in back of everything and maneuvered poor, innocent Donald Trump into doing this. 0.84

00:06:35.880 What are you doing? You're giving aid and comfort to a lie.

00:06:40.240 There was an imminent threat. How much more imminent could you be within two weeks having enough material to make 10 bombs?

00:06:48.060 How close could you come? Not much.

00:06:54.640 Joe Kent joins me now.

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00:07:47.740 stuck. Go to donewithdebt.com. That's donewithdebt.com. Joe, it's a pleasure to meet you,

00:07:54.820 former director of the National Counterterrorism Center. Thank you for being with us.

00:07:59.340 Thank you so much for having me, Megan. I really appreciate it.

00:08:02.320 So it's been a few days now since you issued that resignation. You've been called weak by

00:08:07.480 the president of the United States. You've been basically called a traitor by Lindsey Graham. 0.94

00:08:11.600 You've been called an anti-Semite by Mitch McConnell, among others. And now there are

00:08:16.820 reports that you're under a leak investigation potentially accusing you of a felony that could

00:08:22.560 put you in jail even though you now are raising your two boys you've remarried but uh you're their

00:08:29.020 sole biological parent still here and i ask you now whether this was worth it i think it most

00:08:37.220 certainly was man i mean the attacks against me are to be expected uh the the ad hominems from

00:08:41.640 people like mitch mcconnell lindsey graham at this point are fairly laughable they don't want to

00:08:46.340 discuss the issues. I want to discuss the issues. As for the leak allegations, I'm not concerned

00:08:51.840 because I know I did nothing wrong. Of course, I am concerned because we've all seen the FBI and

00:08:56.820 the full weight of the government come down on individuals who speak out. So that has me a little

00:09:01.720 bit concerned, but I know the truth and the facts are on my side. So I think the important issues

00:09:05.760 to address are what's at hand, why we're at war and how we get out of the state that we're in

00:09:10.740 right now. Your boys have already lost one parent. I mean, the thought of this government

00:09:18.640 for which you've been working and the government and the country for which you've sacrificed so

00:09:24.500 much actually trying to put you in jail over an alleged leak after the number of leaks we've seen

00:09:29.480 go unpunished over the past 10 years is truly outrageous, Joe. I mean, does it

00:09:36.160 anger you? How does it make you feel? You know, it does anger me, but it's all just to be expected.

00:09:43.080 I knew this was going to happen. I know their playbook. I think we're all very familiar

00:09:46.560 with their playbook. So actually the fact that they're leaking these allegations, so they have

00:09:51.480 to leak the allegations of an FBI investigation. If there truly was an FBI investigation, and who

00:09:56.680 knows, maybe there will be, then there would be a process and a procedure for that. They would

00:10:00.380 actually formally come to me. And if they were still collecting information, they most certainly

00:10:04.560 wouldn't leak it. So the fact that the FBI, DOJ, or really probably just partisans are leaking this

00:10:11.300 so-called investigation against me at a time when I'm going on and publicly speaking out against the

00:10:17.260 course that the administration is on, to me, that tells me everything that I need to know. I feel

00:10:22.340 very confident in what I'm doing right now. I think I have a mission and I think it is to do

00:10:26.620 everything I can to stop this war. So to me, I kind of view everything else as a sideshow and

00:10:32.840 i just want to stay focused on the mission i definitely want to get into the letter and your

00:10:37.800 reasons and everything around iran but i the latest is this alleged leak and so i want to

00:10:43.000 ask you a couple questions about including did they tell you prior to your resignation that you

00:10:47.640 were under investigation for alleged leaking no i i had i had access to you know top secret etc

00:10:55.800 up until the time that i i chose to walk out the door so i was fully the director of the national

00:11:00.760 National Counterterrorism Center until I submitted my resignation to the White House, had a phone

00:11:06.260 call, conversation with President Trump, and the next day officially announced with my resignation

00:11:11.480 letter and went public. Up until that point, I had full access. I was the director of the National

00:11:15.760 Counterterrorism Center, and I was not aware of any investigation that I was under.

00:11:20.380 The only two alleged leaks that we could figure out they may be pointing to, Joe, are one,

00:11:27.900 Mark Levin, I have a different name for him, but Mark Levin is alleging that you leaked to Tucker

00:11:35.480 that Mark had a meeting with President Trump in June, shortly before we bombed Iran the first 0.64

00:11:43.720 time. And he accused you of leaking that to Tucker, by the way, not for nothing, but literally days

00:11:49.300 after Tucker reported it, Politico reported it based on two sources. I'm wondering whether

00:11:55.320 they're going to actually drag Politico in there in addition to Tucker 0.51

00:11:58.860 and see who the leaker was.

00:12:00.240 But in any event, that's one.

00:12:02.400 Do you deny leaking to Tucker, the Mark Levin meeting?

00:12:07.460 Yeah, I deny that.

00:12:10.220 And the second one is, I think, no one said this explicitly,

00:12:14.720 but there's online speculation related to Charlie Kirk

00:12:18.180 because there was a turning point employee named Andrew Colvett,

00:12:23.620 who we know well, he was on the program last week,

00:12:25.320 who's the executive producer of Charlie's show, and now he's co-hosting Charlie's show

00:12:30.000 in the wake of his assassination. And he provided to government employees is all he's ever revealed.

00:12:36.780 He never said the FBI. He never said you. He never said anybody specifically. That group chat that

00:12:42.540 Charlie was in, that 48 hours before he was killed, in which Charlie said he was done with the

00:12:50.420 donors who are pressuring him. Let me pull it up so I don't misstate it. Charlie said, stand by.

00:13:01.500 Oh boy. I don't have it in front of me, but he basically said he was done with the pressure

00:13:05.840 that the Jewish donors were putting on him. He had lost another $2 million donation from a Jewish

00:13:10.780 donor. He might have to invite Candace Owens, just as sort of a middle finger to these people to let 0.53

00:13:15.620 them know that they couldn't pressure him and that he wasn't going to cancel Tucker Carlson.

00:13:20.720 So this is 48 hours before he was killed. This group chat, which was in, I think, a WhatsApp

00:13:25.240 group, involved Charlie and Josh Hammer and some others. And that was provided by Andrew Colvett

00:13:33.800 to someone in government. And some online are speculating that, well, we know it was leaked

00:13:38.800 to Candace Owens, and she reported on it. And some are speculating that you were the leaker.

00:13:43.680 So did you leak that document to Candace?

00:13:46.960 No.

00:13:48.480 Did you leak it all to the media?

00:13:51.360 No.

00:13:52.940 And have you watched as other government employees have leaked multiple documents and information with absolutely no threat of prosecution?

00:14:04.040 I have the same access to the media that you do, so I see it happening.

00:14:07.620 I don't know specifics of anyone specifically leaking themselves.

00:14:11.960 But, yeah, the leaks are in the paper every single day. And I think there's a big distinction between leaking actual top secret information and then leaking almost palace intrigue of who's meeting with who.

00:14:23.940 But, yeah, no. So I'm not aware of any specific leaguers. But again, I see all the time in the media.

00:14:30.520 Well, that's the other thing. I mean, I would say that, you know, let's just say that you were the leaguer about Mark Levin visiting President Trump at the White House.

00:14:39.840 He's not some top national security advisor. He's not some foreign leader. That's not classified information. And by the way, the Andrew Colvett group chat is not classified information either. That's a group chat that many members, pundits and others of the chattering class were a part of and that multiple people had.

00:15:01.360 So I just like that. If this is what the leak investigation is about, I can tell you as a lawyer, I don't I don't think it's going anywhere.

00:15:08.620 But in any event, do you think they're trying to intimidate you out of being so public in your stance on the Iran war?

00:15:16.320 I think it's more of the media game. I mean, they dropped the accusations about the investigation you're referring to right as we were airing or Tucker was airing the interview that he he did with me.

00:15:27.660 So I really think it's just a counter-narrative.

00:15:29.920 They're trying to say that, hey, obviously,

00:15:31.440 Kent's going on big platforms like yours, like Tucker's, et cetera.

00:15:34.840 So at the same time, they'll kind of tease out different, you know,

00:15:38.700 salacious details of a leak or an investigation.

00:15:41.600 I think it's mostly a media game.

00:15:43.140 I think the second effect is they are trying to intimidate me.

00:15:46.280 But, look, these people know me pretty well.

00:15:47.940 They've worked with me.

00:15:48.940 I think if you've been in MAGA circles for this long,

00:15:51.440 you kind of understand what this is.

00:15:54.480 So really, this is just an effort for them to steal a narrative and to have us discussing things like the leaks, the investigation, et cetera, as opposed to the main issue, which is why we went to war with Iran. 0.61

00:16:08.020 Eleven combat tours, Joe?

00:16:11.140 Yes. Yeah.

00:16:12.280 How many bronze stars do you have?

00:16:14.900 I have six bronze stars.

00:16:16.180 It just seems to me you don't intimidate that easily. And it's probably going to take a little bit more than media reports about alleged leak investigations involving non-classified information to scare you. But we'll see. Can I ask you one other question on this? Did you, in your role, did you get along with Kash Patel?

00:16:36.280 yeah i actually had a good working relationship with cash look there's um institutional friction

00:16:42.960 between organizations in the in the government just like there was when i was in the military

00:16:47.020 uh the national counterterrorism center is pretty unique in the fact that they can

00:16:50.740 kind of um see what the fbi is doing what the cia is doing it was created after 9-11 to help

00:16:56.160 connect the dots so it's somewhat of an oversight function and anytime you have an oversight

00:17:00.960 function in government there's going to inherently be friction because we in essence we are kind of

00:17:06.120 looking into their case files, we're looking into their operations. And so just a lot of times that

00:17:11.860 does develop what I think is a pretty healthy tension. And so if there were times where Cash

00:17:17.000 and I disagreed on something, or usually it wasn't even Cash, it was just people at different parts

00:17:22.780 of the FBI. If we had a disagreement, it was usually a professional disagreement. And there's

00:17:26.780 processes and procedures for kind of hashing all that out. Because it would now be his organization

00:17:33.200 that would be looking into you. Of course, none of that will happen if the president tells him

00:17:37.800 not to make it happen. And so we'll see just how mad the president may be that you've been

00:17:42.120 outspoken. You're not criticizing him personally. You're not criticizing his general policies. It's

00:17:48.300 the war in Iran that you're criticizing and suggesting the president was misled in the

00:17:52.960 reasoning for doing it, in the alleged justification. But before we get to that,

00:17:56.980 let's just talk about how you became a Trump supporter and wound up working in the Trump

00:18:01.940 administration. It goes back quite a ways to, I mean, you were obviously a combat veteran. And

00:18:07.600 I believe it was back in 2016 when he was running the first time you told Sean Ryan later that it

00:18:14.580 was that moment on the stage with Jeb Bush that first, this is February, 2016, that first got

00:18:21.340 your attention. We clipped some of it here in SOT3. Watch. Obviously the war in Iraq was a big

00:18:28.420 fat mistake. All right. Now you can take it any way you want. And it took it took Jeb Bush. If

00:18:35.020 you remember at the beginning of his announcement, when he announced the president, took him five

00:18:39.240 days. He went back. It was a mistake. It wasn't a mistake. Took him five days before his people

00:18:44.920 told him what to say. And he ultimately said it was a mistake. The war in Iraq, we spent two

00:18:50.720 trillion dollars, thousands of lives. We don't even have it. Iran is taking over Iraq with the 1.00

00:18:55.940 second largest oil reserves in the world. Obviously, it was a mistake. What did that mean to you?

00:19:02.580 It was a breath of fresh air. I mean, I said, finally, like someone, someone who has a major

00:19:07.380 political platform, an actual shot at the at the White House has been saying what the guys on the

00:19:13.540 ground had been saying for years. I was pretty disenfranchised after the Bush years with the 0.51

00:19:19.900 Republican Party, became a Ron Paul supporter. And it actually basically was, you know,

00:19:24.840 cautiously optimistic i didn't vote for obama when he came in and said that he wanted to end

00:19:28.800 the wars you know but i saw in short order that obama wasn't serious about that either and so i

00:19:33.020 didn't think that we really had a choice in political party i thought there was actually

00:19:36.740 no difference and then trump came on in south carolina of all places you know heavily uh a lot

00:19:42.440 of veterans there in the crowd and he said the thing he said that we never should have gone to

00:19:46.640 war iraq he said it was based on lies and for me i was just like i knew who trump was like most

00:19:51.940 Americans do. I just knew he had like a reality TV show essentially. And I was like, man, the guy

00:19:57.360 from The Apprentice just laid out our problems with our foreign policy more succinctly than any

00:20:02.740 of the so-called experts that I've ever heard. So that made me a Trump supporter like in that

00:20:06.600 moment. I mean, that moment with Jeb Bush was so crazy because I was the one who interviewed him

00:20:12.500 when he couldn't spit out the answer about whether the Iraq war was a mistake. And it was supposed to 0.91

00:20:17.580 be one of those sort of puff piece interviews launching his presidential campaign. It was such

00:20:21.480 a basic question like, you know, was the Iraq war a mistake? It was his brother's war. He couldn't

00:20:26.840 answer it. Meanwhile, there's this, you know, real estate guy with perfect moral clarity on it. So

00:20:31.360 I'm not surprised to you it stood out. It stood out to me too at the time. We noticed in that

00:20:38.060 setup piece that you met President Trump in person at Dover when the remains of your wife

00:20:44.940 were returned stateside after she was killed while in service for the country in Syria.

00:20:51.480 She was the mother of your two young boys. She was deployed at a time right after they'd been born. Both of you had real hesitations about it, but she felt it was her duty to go. And she did go. And then tragically, she was killed by an ISIS suicide bomber.

00:21:07.660 So, Joe, when you saw President Trump at Dover, my understanding is you had a private conversation with him. Can you tell us about that?

00:21:15.100 yeah so um my late wife was killed about a month after president trump attempted to get our troops

00:21:21.900 out of syria the first time so the territorial uh isis caliphate was defeated towards the end of

00:21:27.840 2018 and that's when president trump sent out a very famous tweet and started giving orders

00:21:32.520 that hey we accomplished our military objectives we're not going to stay here forever we're not

00:21:36.840 going to get further entrenched we're going to get our troops out so she she and her uh her team 0.99

00:21:41.520 They were supposed to be pulled out of Syria on Christmas Eve in 2018.

00:21:46.140 And the rest is, I think, pretty well-known history.

00:21:48.660 The administrative state, the bureaucrats, they drug their feet. 0.99

00:21:51.540 They accused Trump.

00:21:52.600 They leaked to the media why this was a horrible idea.

00:21:55.680 And so they created this stall where our troops were still in Syria.

00:21:59.980 And she was killed about a month after in January of 2019.

00:22:03.320 And so being in the CIA at the time, I had a front row seat to seeing kind of the behind

00:22:08.200 the scenes of how the bureaucrats were dragging their feet and thwarting President Trump.

00:22:13.060 And so by the time she was killed and we were waiting for her remains to return to Dover,

00:22:19.060 I really wanted to actually just speak with the president.

00:22:21.640 I didn't think I'd get the opportunity.

00:22:24.680 I just figured he was going to be there essentially to see the coffins off the plane.

00:22:29.360 But before the plane arrived, his staffers came and said, hey, if you'd like to meet

00:22:33.620 with the president, he'll meet with you.

00:22:34.780 and he shannon was killed with uh with three other great americans john farmer um scotty

00:22:41.940 warts and gadir ta and so president trump met with all the families individually when i got

00:22:46.000 an opportunity to meet with president trump again it was just us i thought there'd be you know

00:22:49.960 secret service detail or something like that but it was it was him and i in the room and he was he

00:22:53.740 was very um very gracious very sympathetic strong leader i'd been you know in combat most of my

00:22:59.920 adult life at that time. And I'd seen leaders react in different ways. And President Trump,

00:23:04.600 to me, seemed like he legitimately cared. He did not take lightly the fact that these individuals

00:23:10.720 died under his command. And I just wanted to tell him a very simple message that, hey,

00:23:15.900 your instincts, what you're trying to implement, you're correct, but you're actually being

00:23:19.760 thwarted. And I got an opportunity to kind of deliver that in a shorthand way. And then later

00:23:26.460 on, got an opportunity to sit down with Jerry Kushner and some others several months on,

00:23:32.300 several months after that, and to kind of flesh out the way I viewed President Trump's foreign

00:23:37.100 policy. And that kind of started my relationship with the Trump administration. But President

00:23:43.040 Trump's, as you said, moral clarity on how and why we use force and whether or not it's in the

00:23:48.900 American people's interest, I think it's something that he's always understood at a very instinctual

00:23:53.320 level. And I always really, truly respected and appreciated that about him. And I still do to this

00:23:58.780 day. Which is why it had to be pretty shocking to you when he launched the war in Iran.

00:24:07.460 It was, but I saw a lot of lead up, especially in the lead up to the 12-day war, Operation

00:24:13.760 Midnight Hammer. And then just seeing the way that a lot of key advisors to the President Trump,

00:24:21.040 both informal and formal. And then the media ecosystem created kind of around President Trump

00:24:28.320 to put in different ideas that, you know, Iran couldn't have any enrichment and to make it seem

00:24:33.900 imminent that we had to go to war with Iran. So I kind of saw this happening. I stayed in the 0.93

00:24:40.620 fight as long as I could to try and influence that myself. And I got to the point where the

00:24:46.780 The war had started once, so the 12-day war, when Operation Midnight Hammer happened, we had a clear military objective there, which was to destroy the nuclear facilities.

00:24:54.540 So I was skeptical of it because I said, hey, look, even if we destroy the nuclear facilities, the Israelis, who have a completely different strategic objective than us, they're going to come back to us here in a couple months, and they're going to tell us why we need to go take down the regime. 0.94

00:25:08.760 knowing that taking down the regime was not in our vital national security interest and actually

00:25:13.860 would make things far worse and start a larger war. That was my major concern. And so when

00:25:19.140 when I saw things heat back up this this summer, this fall in the lead up to where we are now,

00:25:26.400 I had a feeling that it could end up this way. So I wasn't shocked when it happened because I saw

00:25:34.280 the bubble being created around president trump um and so that's that's why i felt like my only

00:25:39.440 means of recourse my only means of taking action was to do so from the outside there's so much i

00:25:46.920 want to get to uh on what you said can you just you mentioned that you were in the cia which we

00:25:51.880 didn't really do your resume but can you just tell us the branches of the military you were in and

00:25:56.040 then ultimately the cia sure uh i was in the army for for my entire 20 years i came in as an enlisted

00:26:02.520 infantrymen in 1998 went uh went right to the selection process to become a ranger to be a

00:26:08.660 member of the 75th ranger regiment i was there for about three years i was actually in special

00:26:13.240 forces selection to become a green beret uh when the attacks september 11th happened once i finished

00:26:18.580 the the training it takes about a year and a half to earn your green beret um i went to fifth special

00:26:23.420 forces group and then uh the iraq war had already kicked off and so for basically from 2003 until

00:26:30.740 2011, I would spend six to eight months a year in Iraq, various locations, primarily Baghdad,

00:26:38.240 Mosul, fought in the Battle of Jaffa, fought in the Second Battle of Fallujah, fought in

00:26:42.340 Tal Afar. And then in 2011, 2010, I spent some time in Yemen. That was 2010 was the only year

00:26:48.040 I didn't go to Iraq. I was in Yemen for about eight months doing some other operations with

00:26:53.060 Special Forces. 2011 was back in Iraq. We actually withdrew the first time. After that,

00:26:59.760 I went to a selection process for a very unique special operations unit, and that's where I met

00:27:05.160 my late wife, Shannon. I deployed back to Iraq for the counter-ISIS fight, deployed another time to

00:27:10.980 Yemen, and then decided to do, and this is actually pretty typical for guys with my resume and

00:27:16.660 background, decided at the 20-year mark to leave the military, because basically if you hang out

00:27:22.580 in the military for too long, they'll eventually put you behind a desk, and I had no interest in

00:27:25.580 that. And so I transitioned over into being a CIA current military operations officer

00:27:29.900 for the CIA for about a year until my late wife was killed.

00:27:34.060 Wow. How old were you when Shannon died?

00:27:37.260 I was 39. Actually, I hadn't even turned 39 yet, so I was still 38.

00:27:42.420 And how old were your boys?

00:27:44.980 They were 18 months and three.

00:27:49.280 Oh, my God. That's awful, Joe. I'm so sorry. So sorry for your loss and so grateful for

00:27:55.120 your service, too. You've given a lot, a lot, more than anyone should have to to this country.

00:28:00.920 So going back just a bit, when you met with President Trump at Dover, and it's now become

00:28:08.560 known that you told your wife, Shannon, before she died, quote, don't be the last person to die

00:28:13.080 in a conflict, in a war that our entire country's already forgotten about. And it just occurs to me

00:28:19.200 that you're sitting there running the counterterrorism center. As I tried to explain to

00:28:22.400 my kids when I was telling them that you and I were going to sit together today. I'm like,

00:28:25.100 he's like the Jack Bauer of our government. He's running the counterterrorism, which they

00:28:30.380 understood. And you're really doing a lot to protect the country from some terrorist threats

00:28:37.420 that linger as a result of earlier wars we've been in. So you have a front row seat to the

00:28:43.600 ongoing danger these wars can pose to the homeland. You suffered the consequences of war

00:28:49.180 firsthand in a very personal way. You warned your wife in this very profound and prophetic way,

00:28:56.720 and then she was indeed killed. And so now we talked about just briefly your concerns about

00:29:01.920 the Iran war and how the president was being misled, and yet we do it. We go ahead and we do 0.52

00:29:05.760 it. It's all guns blazing. And so for those two weeks before you resigned, what was going through

00:29:12.420 your head? In the two weeks, once the war kicked off, I was really concerned, obviously, that we're

00:29:21.020 going to get pulled further in. And I was doing everything I could to attempt to influence the

00:29:25.160 situation to find a potential off-ramp to give the president a victory that we could declare

00:29:30.320 so that he could say, hey, just like in Midnight Hammer, we conducted this strike,

00:29:35.500 we took out their ballistic missile capability, we killed X amount of IRGC officers, and now is

00:29:41.520 a good time for us to leave um those unfortunately i wasn't successful in that and i just saw the way

00:29:48.380 that information was flowing and it was frustrating um and then also just in terms of where i was with

00:29:55.360 with my morals um you know i probably about two decades ago on my third deployment um i just

00:30:01.820 remember as i was realizing that we were allowed to to get into iraq um i just remember thinking

00:30:06.900 man i really wish a lot of the vietnam veterans uh especially the ones who are still in government

00:30:11.040 like Colin Powell had spoken up and said, hey, you know what? We've seen this before. We have

00:30:15.320 enough experience to know that this is not the right path for our country and to really speak

00:30:19.800 up. And I said to myself, you know, two plus decades ago, and this is a big reason why I

00:30:23.140 kind of branched my military career the way I did with a heavy intelligence side. So that at some

00:30:29.540 point I could be the one that says like, actually, hey, I know what the ground truth is and we should

00:30:34.620 not be here. And so that was ringing heavily in my ears that I had made this promise to myself

00:30:40.500 that, hey, if I ever could influence whether or not young Americans go off to fight and die in a 0.88

00:30:46.020 war that's not in our vital national security interest, that I would speak up and I would do

00:30:49.380 the right thing. Because for me, I'm hardwired just to be in a position of constant duty and

00:30:56.900 constant service. So the easiest thing for me to have done would have been to stay at the National

00:31:01.940 Counterterrorism Center and to soldier on. And to me, I just thought to myself and I truly felt

00:31:06.600 called by God that God didn't put me in this position right now just to soldier on again.

00:31:11.500 I did 20 plus years of soldiering on. And look what that got my family. Look what that got so

00:31:17.060 many other families. And look what that got our country. And so to me, it was challenging. It was

00:31:22.440 a tough two weeks. But at the end of it, by I guess last weekend at this point, it was crystal

00:31:27.460 clear to me. And I felt the calm. And I felt that I was exactly where I needed to be. And I knew that

00:31:32.140 I knew that I had to leave and I knew that I had to do so in a public way, but in a way that could still hopefully shape policy and take us off the trajectory that we're on now.

00:31:43.620 Yeah, let's talk about the publicness of it for a second, because there's been a lot of pushback on, you know, should you've written the letter?

00:31:51.840 Should you have been so public with your reasoning, critical of the president?

00:31:55.600 We could go with a number of different commentators.

00:31:58.040 But there's a guy, former DOD Ezra Cohen online, who put it pretty succinctly.

00:32:02.120 He writes as follows.

00:32:03.580 As a political appointee, if you disagree with the president, you have a duty to vigorously

00:32:07.500 argue your point in private.

00:32:09.500 Once the commander in chief makes his decision, salute and move out.

00:32:13.420 If you cannot execute the decision, you must resign and do so silently.

00:32:17.040 Respect the weight of the president's responsibility, which was given to him by the people.

00:32:22.020 Do not undermine his ability to carry out his responsibility as commander in chief.

00:32:25.980 I've heard a lot of vets say that, you know, that you have an obligation not to undermine the commander in chief in the middle of a war that has now begun.

00:32:35.060 And that that's what they the problem they have with your letter, even if they do share your sentiments, sentiments about the actual war.

00:32:43.340 I totally understand where they're coming from. And for many years, I felt the exact same way.

00:32:48.180 But again, look, 20 plus years of veterans knowing better and being quiet because we're good soldiers, that got us to this point.

00:32:57.300 And so to just repeat the same mistakes again, I might as well have just kept my my nice position in my job and just kind of soldiered on that way.

00:33:06.800 But for me, if I was going to leave, I wanted to make it very clear why I was leaving, not just like, hey, from a moral standpoint,

00:33:14.100 But also, I think our country is being led down the wrong path.

00:33:18.580 I think our government was heavily influenced and our hand was forced by a foreign government. 0.97

00:33:24.200 I think it's really important when people are in positions of power and responsibility and authority to speak truth to power and to actually tell the American people what's going on.

00:33:33.260 And I totally understand that criticism.

00:33:35.480 I understand completely.

00:33:37.120 And I really want to argue with it to a point.

00:33:39.700 I just have to say where I'm at in my life experiences and what I feel morally called to do.

00:33:45.820 If I was still back in the military, that would very much be my sentiment.

00:33:50.220 If I was still just a normal, regular CIA officer, that would be, I think, the right course to take.

00:33:56.720 But in my position as a political appointee and understanding that our hand was indeed forced to get into this war, I felt it would be incomplete.

00:34:06.120 I'd be falling short of my duties if I had just quietly and silently resigned.

00:34:10.440 I mean, not to mention a gold star husband and dad.

00:34:13.040 Like, I don't know.

00:34:15.040 I just feel like when you've sacrificed as much as you have for the country in war,

00:34:20.380 you have every right to say how you feel.

00:34:22.780 I just feel like you've gotten the national conversation going around this war

00:34:28.520 in a way that's been, I mean, pretty important and more serious

00:34:33.020 and harder to disregard than it was the previous two weeks.

00:34:36.940 So personally, I'm very thankful to you for doing what you did.

00:34:39.160 I think it was actually yet another act of courage. And I wish people would stop attacking

00:34:44.240 you for it. I mean, as you've seen, anybody who's opposing this war is getting attacked,

00:34:50.080 getting threatened. Tucker came out saying the CIA is allegedly investigating him for criminal

00:34:56.980 charges, maybe under the Foreign Registration Act. It's ridiculous. The president was suggesting 0.93

00:35:04.560 that Tucker and yours truly, we're not going to have any viewers now. We're going to lose all of

00:35:08.840 our influence. You know, there's been nonstop sort of threatening and attacks against people

00:35:15.020 who are outspoken against the war. So the more people who do it, the tougher it's going to be

00:35:20.860 for them. They can't destroy everyone. They can't put us all in jail or destroy all of our

00:35:25.760 livelihoods. So in any event, I'm grateful to you for it. Let's talk about what was in the letter

00:35:30.920 because you're talking about, you know, repeatedly on how we were manipulated into this, how President

00:35:35.460 Trump was manipulated into this. And that you mentioned in your resignation letter, you blame

00:35:40.740 two sources, Israel and media figures. So can you expand on that? Certainly. So early on in

00:35:49.120 this administration, I believe President Trump was the situation that we were in with Iran.

00:35:55.560 In President Trump's first administration, I think his Iran policy, as I say later on in the

00:36:00.520 letter, was exactly where we needed to be. And it was something that only President Trump could

00:36:04.420 implement. When we were threatened, when we were attacked, President Trump took significant

00:36:08.040 strikes. He killed the Iranian proxy terror master Qasem Soleimani, somebody who literally

00:36:13.240 walked all over Obama, walked all over George Bush, killed Americans. Trump killed him, 0.99

00:36:19.080 took him off the battlefield, but then restrained the military from getting sucked into a broader

00:36:23.900 conflict with Iran, which in my opinion is exactly what Iran wanted, because that would 0.99

00:36:29.720 create a rally around the flag phenomenon inside Iran, as we're seeing right now. So President

00:36:35.020 Trump got that right. And then he leveraged the weight of the American economic sanctions against

00:36:39.640 Iran. And just a few months ago, I think two months ago, we saw protesters on the streets,

00:36:44.800 basically because of the cost of living and the economic ramifications. And those protesters

00:36:48.800 were protesting against the regime that we would like to see go. So President Trump's policy on

00:36:55.580 Iran actually was working. He had to correct the ship pretty heavily because Biden gave Iran a

00:37:00.720 bunch of money back, and that's why their proxies were so emboldened. But at the beginning of

00:37:04.340 President Trump's second administration, especially in the lead up to the 12-day war,

00:37:09.800 we saw a combination of things. And I think the most significant thing that the Israelis and their

00:37:15.360 advocates and their lobbyists here in America were able to do that got us to the point we're at right

00:37:19.540 now is they wanted to move the goalposts. They wanted to move President Trump's red line from

00:37:25.380 saying Iran can't have a nuclear weapon to Iran can't have any nuclear enrichment. And this kind 0.72

00:37:31.500 of seems technical. It seems like semantics. However, President Trump, it's very important.

00:37:37.120 President Trump and really the former Ayatollah, the former Supreme Leader,

00:37:42.020 they were in agreement that Iran could not have a nuclear weapon. President Trump always said,

00:37:46.500 Iran can't have a nuclear weapon. As a matter of fact, you know, President Trump will consistently

00:37:50.940 say, I think, to some of his detractors in this war, well, Iran can't have a nuclear weapon. And

00:37:55.940 all of us agree with that. And as a matter of fact, the Iranians, actually their former Supreme

00:38:00.020 Leader, actually agreed with that. And he had a faithful, a religious ruling, and Iran is a 0.98

00:38:05.360 clergy, essentially, a religious ruling against developing a nuclear weapon. And this is a very,

00:38:11.240 I think, pragmatic policy for the Iranians to have. They saw what happened to Muammar Qaddafi

00:38:17.580 in Libya when you say, hey, I won't have any nuclear material. I won't pursue nuclear weapons

00:38:22.460 at all. Well, then you're vulnerable to a regime change war like the United States launched against

00:38:27.660 Gaddafi and he was eventually killed in a very gruesome way by his own people. Libya is now 0.84

00:38:33.400 destabilized. For a while, it was a breeding ground for ISIS and other terror. But if you do

00:38:38.820 what Saddam Hussein did and you kind of bluff and you say, well, maybe I have a nuclear weapon, 0.78

00:38:42.640 I have a nuclear weapon, et cetera, then you're going to get the Saddam Hussein treatment and 0.89

00:38:46.740 then your country's going to be destabilized and going to be killed. So what the Iranians had 0.83

00:38:49.580 was they had a very pragmatic approach. They said, we're not going to develop, we have a

00:38:53.360 religious ruling against developing a nuclear weapon, yet we will have some degree of enrichment

00:38:58.600 so we could develop a nuclear weapon if we wanted to. And that fatwa, that state right there,

00:39:04.720 had held since 2004. And we had no indications, no intelligence that said that that fatwa would

00:39:11.420 be lifted. Now, the Iranians wanted to have some enrichment, again, so they had the capability. 0.99

00:39:15.820 Now, that puts President Trump and the Iranian leadership in a place where they can actually get to the negotiating table, because they both agree on the fundamental premise that Iran's not going to have a nuclear weapon.

00:39:26.840 That concept right there is a major threat to the Israelis' stated goal. 0.95

00:39:32.040 The Israelis' stated goal is to take down the Ayatollah's regime at all costs.

00:39:37.640 And I'm not saying that that's a good thing, that's a bad thing.

00:39:39.760 if the Israelis want to pursue that as their own foreign policy, fine, then let Israel do that on

00:39:45.420 their own. That is not the U.S. foreign policy. That's not actually our stated goal. So the

00:39:50.320 Israelis then said they used their supporters in the media, you know, Mark Levin being one of them,

00:39:57.100 the foundation for the defense of democracy, as a think tank, and a lot of their media surrogates

00:40:00.760 who write op-eds in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, New York Times, etc., to say

00:40:05.840 the US policy actually is no nuclear enrichment. And if you go back to the first Trump administration,

00:40:12.020 the only person who said no enrichment, zero enrichment was Mike Pompeo. But through the

00:40:16.560 ecosystem of the media saying, no, no, the policy is no enrichment, because the second they can

00:40:21.380 enrich, they can sprint to a bomb, which is patently false, because the Iranians had the 1.00

00:40:27.100 capability to enrich and they had not yet actually developed a nuclear weapon. Because we look at two

00:40:32.320 main things in intelligence, capability and intent. Just because an adversary has a capability

00:40:37.040 to do something doesn't mean they have the intent and vice versa. You know, there's all kinds of

00:40:42.600 crazies out there saying they're going to take down America, but they have no actual capability

00:40:45.700 to do so. So the Iranians had maybe some components of the capability, but they did not have the 0.97

00:40:52.140 intent. And so through the media ecosystem, and then also through a lot of senior ranking Israeli

00:40:58.380 officials who would come and have formal and informal engagements with members of President

00:41:03.200 Trump's team and President Trump himself, they would all say no enrichment. Meanwhile, Steve

00:41:08.020 Wyckoff, a very skilled and I think a very pure hearted negotiator, was engaged in very, very

00:41:13.900 serious negotiations prior to the 12 day war where they were discussing enrichment levels. They were

00:41:18.540 discussing how there could be monitoring of the enrichment. And so in my opinion, we were on a

00:41:24.000 pathway to actually getting a deal with Iran, which actually would have been great for America,

00:41:30.040 would have been great for the region. This is what the GCC countries that are critical for

00:41:33.540 energy exports in the world economy, this is what they wanted as well. But this ran counter to what

00:41:38.720 the Israelis wanted. And so the Israelis were very successful. Just to add to that, the former, 0.88

00:41:43.240 the foreign minister of Oman, who was mediating the latest round of negotiations, said they were

00:41:47.700 making serious progress. The UK's national security advisor, Jonathan Powell, agreed he was

00:41:52.660 there in the last round. These are two outside objective observers of the negotiation saying,

00:41:58.700 actually, they were doing quite well. We were on our way toward an agreement when we declared them

00:42:04.240 at an impasse and started to bomb Iran. And obviously, the president's got a different

00:42:10.680 story. He's saying, it's not true. I felt like they were tapping us along. And they were never

00:42:16.780 going to give us what we wanted. And of course, what we were wanting was zero enrichment, which

00:42:22.020 was, I mean, it was an extreme demand. The one that Iran was never going to agree to. But in

00:42:26.540 any event, they were trying to have a negotiation. And the president now says, in my judgment,

00:42:33.460 there was an imminent attack. We were about to be attacked. And now they've expanded it to,

00:42:38.500 they were within a couple of weeks of having 10 nuclear bombs. I mean, now, Joe, just for the

00:42:43.760 audience's sake, we went back and looked. They were saying that Iran was within weeks of getting

00:42:48.620 nine nuclear bombs right before we bombed them in June of this past summer. And so then we

00:42:55.660 eviscerated their nuclear facilities. We said that we eviscerated them. And that was the end

00:43:03.300 of that. It was supposed to be this mission accomplished moment. We had wiped out their

00:43:07.120 nuclear facilities. We were good to go. And now Lindsey Graham wants us to believe that they were

00:43:11.800 once again, within two weeks of having 10 nuclear bombs. And the president himself also says the

00:43:18.860 threat was imminent. People were going to die if we didn't do what we did. I mean, just tell me

00:43:23.780 flat out, do you believe that? Well, in terms of the imminent threat, I mean, it's pretty key what

00:43:30.520 the president says and the words that he uses. And Marco Rubio, I think in your opening statement

00:43:36.180 at your opening clips there, he explained it very accurately. He said it was imminent in the sense

00:43:42.240 that the Israelis were going to attack. And once the Israelis attacked, there was likely going to 0.99

00:43:48.520 be an Iranian response against our bases and our troops in the region. Well, the only imminent 0.93

00:43:55.040 attack in that equation, as outlined, not by me, but by the Secretary of State, is the Israelis

00:44:01.460 attacking the Iranians and the Iranians reacting. So if we wanted to prevent that, 0.55

00:44:07.040 the key part of that equation is stopping the Israelis from attacking so that we can continue 1.00

00:44:11.260 to negotiate. Or we could at least set the conditions favorable to us. We could have gotten

00:44:16.300 more troops out of the region. We could have postured more forces. But instead, we let this

00:44:20.300 country, Israel, who has a different strategic objective than us, that we pay an exorbitant 0.81

00:44:24.960 amount for their defense and for their military capabilities, dictate our timeline and force our

00:44:30.500 hand. And that's where I had a major issue with the trajectory of the war. In terms of could they

00:44:36.860 have developed 10 bombs? I mean, I think for probably most of our adult lives, we've had

00:44:42.000 Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials, but primarily Netanyahu, tell us for the last 20

00:44:47.000 plus years that Iran is minutes away from getting a nuclear weapon. And again, because of the 0.50

00:44:51.880 self-imposed restraints that they have, they've proven over time that they were not on the pathway

00:44:57.620 to getting a nuclear weapon so i mean look at the end of the day it's lindsey graham i just don't

00:45:03.520 know who takes lindsey graham seriously at this point um that's why he's out there trying to

00:45:07.880 unfortunately the answer is president trump i mean that's the sad thing unfortunately yeah i do want

00:45:13.620 to say two things um telsey gabbard testified this week before congress that the u.s intelligence

00:45:18.800 community assessed that iran was not rebuilding its nuclear enrichment capabilities following

00:45:24.620 the June attack. She stuck by the president's line that those facilities were obliterated,

00:45:30.440 their capabilities were obliterated thanks to the June strike. So she says Iran was not 1.00

00:45:36.000 rebuilding its nuclear enrichment capabilities following that attack. In 2025, the DIA issued

00:45:43.340 a report saying Iran is at least 10 years away from producing an ICBM because now they switched

00:45:47.820 to, well, we couldn't let them have an intercontinental ballistic missile that could

00:45:52.620 have hit the United States. Our own defense intelligence agency says they were at least

00:45:56.820 10 years away from doing that, something they reiterated in 2026. However, I'll say this,

00:46:02.840 the IAEA, that's the International Atomic Energy Association that keeps an eye on Iran,

00:46:08.660 they said Iran was enriching to 60% and that no nation that just wants nuclear energy for just

00:46:16.160 energy purposes or enrichment for energy purposes would enrich to that level. So what do you make

00:46:22.020 that i trust the u.s intelligence community i mean look the u.s intelligence community assessments

00:46:27.140 that were coming out on iran that's 18 different agencies that have to chop on this so getting the

00:46:32.500 18 intelligence agencies to agree on anything it's very challenging it is a very um laborious

00:46:39.780 and it's sometimes a very intense process of coordination and having people argue their cases

00:46:45.220 when you have the 18 intelligence agencies saying without a doubt that iran is not working towards

00:46:49.700 a nuclear weapon and the Defense Intelligence Agency doing battle damage assessment, which

00:46:54.900 is what the DIA really specializes in, is having these military-based assessments, that's

00:46:59.800 what I'm going to go with.

00:47:01.160 Being influenced by the IAEA or by another government, Israel in this case, saying like,

00:47:05.920 oh no, even though you conducted Midnight Hammer and your 18 intelligence agencies say

00:47:10.860 that their nuclear capability is gone, they're still somehow digging out from the rubble

00:47:17.500 and they're going to be able to assemble 10 bombs in two weeks.

00:47:20.420 Again, sorry, I'm going with what the director of national intelligence said,

00:47:24.780 and she's saying that based on the research and the analysis

00:47:28.540 and the rigorous debate of 18 intelligence agencies.

00:47:32.780 Joe, it seems like Netanyahu went to President Trump and said,

00:47:36.460 you know, they'd been debating this for some time.

00:47:38.140 He'd been making his case seven times in his visits to the White House this past year.

00:47:42.580 Obviously, Iran, I mean, Israel wanted regime change,

00:47:45.740 and President Trump was kicking that around.

00:47:47.500 He felt like Iran had taken out a hit on him. He believed that. Whether it's in fact true, we're not entirely sure. But he believed that. President Trump did. And it sounds to me like Netanyahu went in there and said, look, Mr. Trump, the Ayatollah is going to be sitting above ground this coming Saturday with a bunch of his top lieutenants.

00:48:07.600 you have the chance to take out the guy who tried to take you out, as Trump would say in the week

00:48:12.980 after, I got him before he got me. And we can cut off the head of this evil snake and you'll be a 1.00

00:48:19.840 hero because these people who protested in the street will praise you. And kind of what would 1.00

00:48:25.840 happen after that doesn't seem to necessarily have been well thought out because I don't know

00:48:30.200 how many IRGCs there are, Iranian Revolutionary Guards, but it seems in the tens of thousands,

00:48:35.900 and they remain loyal to the regime and they aren't stepping aside and they're armed and

00:48:40.800 those protesters aren't. And to me, it just seemed too tempting to President Trump to take out the

00:48:45.880 Ayatollah when Netanyahu had good intelligence that he would be gettable. What do you think of

00:48:51.220 that? Yeah, I think Netanyahu and a lot of his allies and then echoed in the media again. So

00:48:58.920 this is kind of the game that the Israelis run and they're very sophisticated and they're pretty

00:49:03.760 effective at it. At the same time, they will have official engagements such as with Netanyahu,

00:49:09.680 Ron Dermer, other Israeli intelligence and defense officials have engagements with their

00:49:14.180 American counterparts. And they will say something to the effect of what you just said,

00:49:18.200 or hey, Iran can't have any kind of enrichment. They'll get their talking point out there.

00:49:22.000 President Trump will hear that in official engagements. And then they will make sure

00:49:25.960 that Mark Levin, you know, other pro-Israel figures in the media will say the exact same

00:49:32.380 Fox News, General Jack Keene of Fox News, that's been documented by the journal that they were in there.

00:49:37.380 Exactly.

00:49:37.880 Same. Lindsey Graham, keep going. 0.99

00:49:40.440 No, exactly. And so, you know, President Trump will then be kind of put in this echo chamber where he is hearing the same thing over and over again.

00:49:48.400 And there was a pretty concerted effort. And I don't want to get any names. I don't want this to turn into any kind of palace intrigue.

00:49:53.720 But after the 12-day war, there was a pretty concerted effort, I think, to cut out a lot of the dissenting voices from a discussion on what we're going to do next.

00:50:02.120 And so I very much felt that in terms of decision making around Iran, the president was isolated.

00:50:09.000 And so he was just hearing that echo chamber.

00:50:11.240 And another key component of that, too, is to rush the timeline.

00:50:14.060 You have to rush him because if he has time to think about the decisions that he's making, then he's probably going to get he's probably going to search for alternative opinions on it.

00:50:22.260 He's probably going to see what the status and negotiations are.

00:50:25.120 And so the Israelis did an effective job of pressuring him and saying that you have to do it now. 0.87

00:50:31.160 And potentially it was what you laid out, that the Ayatollah would be above ground.

00:50:36.020 He doesn't think you're going to hit right now, et cetera.

00:50:37.680 I don't know if that's specifically the case, but whatever argument they used, the effect

00:50:42.620 was that President Trump was then led to believe that if he took action now, it would be quick

00:50:49.400 and easy.

00:50:49.980 This whole thing would just be quick and easy, and we'd be done with it.

00:50:53.000 And none of us in the IC assessed that that would be the case at all.

00:50:57.740 We assessed for a very long time, and this is publicly available.

00:51:00.500 This is pretty much just common sense that if you struck the Ayatollah, if you struck the IRGC and there was a concerted effort by America and Israel to do a regime change inside of Iran, that actually would have the reverse effect, that even some of the dissidents and people who weren't happy with the current regime would rally around the flag, which to me, I think is just common sense.

00:51:21.180 Like, I didn't support Biden, I didn't support Obama, but I was in the military under Obama.

00:51:27.260 And if you attacked my country, I would saddle up in a heartbeat to defend against a foreign invader. 1.00

00:51:32.560 So, yes, I think that's very much what I believe happened, that his decision-making space was taken away.

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00:53:07.260 Yeah.

00:53:11.740 In your resignation letter,

00:53:13.700 you mentioned those figures,

00:53:15.220 Israeli figures and media figures providing misinformation to the president.

00:53:19.900 And so what specifically do you mean?

00:53:21.540 Is that what you're talking about here?

00:53:24.100 Fundamentally, it was the enrichment red line.

00:53:26.700 And they did a very effective job of saying, no, Mr. President, it's not just the nuclear

00:53:31.700 issue.

00:53:32.120 Take that off the table.

00:53:33.640 Iran can't have the ability to enrich, which essentially short circuits any potential for 0.97

00:53:38.600 negotiation.

00:53:39.820 And the negotiations went on for as long as they did, because I think skilled negotiators

00:53:44.020 like Steve Wyckoff understood that we could talk about enrichment. Enrichment wasn't going to be

00:53:48.500 the major issue. The major issue was the nuclear weapon capability. And again, the Iranian regime 0.99

00:53:54.680 at the time, but when the Supreme Leader Committee was still alive, agreed with that, which is why

00:53:59.680 they were at the negotiating table. So they effectively laundered that talking point that

00:54:03.920 Iran can't have any nuclear enrichment capability into U.S. policy by just having it repeated

00:54:11.200 enough by Israeli officials. Then you had American officials repeating it, and then it was echoed

00:54:15.800 again in the media. So that's kind of ecosystem that I'm talking about.

00:54:21.480 Which was marching us right into another Middle Eastern war. Now, you mentioned that he was

00:54:30.880 isolating himself after the June strike from dissenters. And now Caroline Levitt, the White 0.94

00:54:37.540 House press secretary in dismissing your criticisms as saying, basically, Joe Kent didn't know

00:54:42.960 anything. He wasn't involved in the president's daily brief, which did jump out at me as the head

00:54:48.800 of the National Counterterrorism Center. You should have been involved in the information

00:54:52.660 going into the presidential daily brief, which is about intel threats, I think. And she said,

00:54:58.320 you were never in any of the meetings leading up to the decision on whether to attack Iran.

00:55:02.180 It sounds like certainly on that latter point, you agree and you think it's part of the problem. But

00:55:05.900 is it true that you'd been frozen out of participating in the PDB?

00:55:10.340 So there's some details here that are important. So the National Counterterrorism Center

00:55:15.540 can put essentially articles, but papers into the PDB. And then there's a process to decide

00:55:22.640 what actually goes in front of the president. The president can request whatever information

00:55:25.840 that he wants. But then again, his daily briefs are usually with a smaller group. And I just

00:55:30.960 physically did not work over at the White House. There was times when I would go over to the White

00:55:35.640 House and be in those meetings with the president, or more frequently, it would be at the deputies

00:55:40.780 level.

00:55:42.520 What I would say is in the lead up to the 12-day war, there was a good deal of deputies

00:55:48.200 meetings about what we were going to do, the potential contingencies, giving the president's

00:55:52.940 options.

00:55:53.760 There was a huge National Security Council process that was taking place.

00:55:57.540 And there was a lot, again, there was a lot of dissenting voices.

00:55:59.500 There was a lot of what I viewed as very, very healthy and productive conversations

00:56:03.540 to give the president a realistic look at what his options are

00:56:06.420 and what the ramification for those options would be.

00:56:10.040 Post-Midnight Hammer, that process played out completely differently.

00:56:15.320 Now, obviously, they can say that I was cut out of the meetings,

00:56:18.560 and maybe I was cut out of the meetings,

00:56:19.760 but I just didn't see a robust debate taking place at that deputies level,

00:56:26.100 at that National Security Council level.

00:56:28.280 I think you really just had a lot of key policymakers at the cabinet level

00:56:32.400 that were around President Trump. And that's the president's prerogative, if that's what he truly

00:56:36.940 wanted. However, I think a lot of those key decision makers were also heavily influenced,

00:56:42.920 not necessarily by the intelligence coming out of the 18 intelligence agencies, the U.S.

00:56:47.420 intelligence agencies. I think they were also heavily influenced by a lot of these Israeli

00:56:51.560 officials who were coming directly to them. And I think because they wanted to so tightly

00:56:56.260 compartmentalize the president's circle that he didn't get a chance to hear any dissenting voices.

00:57:02.080 And I understand, you know, I like Caroline. I think she's very good at her job. So she's got to come in and say this and refute what I'm saying. But I think if you look at what's publicly available, if you just look at the night that the operation launched, you look at who was in the White House Situation Room and then who was down in Mar-a-Lago with the president.

00:57:20.840 They had, you know, an entire group, a small group that was down there just with the president while you had the DNI, the vice president, other key members of the cabinet, the intelligence community who were, you know, far away from those decisions that were being made.

00:57:38.300 And again, look, I know a lot of folks are going to come back out and say, no, you know what you're talking about, that they were separated for a tactical reason, strategic reason.

00:57:45.660 But I think the imagery that came out of that night kind of showed you what the president's tight circle was versus some other folks who may have had the ability to offer the president a different perspective.

00:57:59.160 Well, I mean, it's not a mystery to anybody that Tulsi is against starting new Middle East wars.

00:58:06.800 I mean, she said that repeatedly, mostly prior to becoming DNI, but that's no mystery.

00:58:12.820 And J.D. Vance is definitely more representative of the more isolationist, non-interventionalist wing of the Republican Party,

00:58:19.240 but so far has been supportive of his boss, the president of the United States.

00:58:24.180 And he's been backing, yes, imminent threat.

00:58:27.020 And Tulsi, at her testimony this week, said only the president can determine whether there was an imminent threat.

00:58:31.860 But then, of course, went on to say, we assessed Iran was not rebuilding its nuclear enrichment capabilities following the June attack, that they'd been obliterated.

00:58:39.940 So, I mean, I know that you actually, before you resigned to the president, met with Tulsi and used to work for Tulsi.

00:58:45.960 I mean, you kind of worked for her in a way because she's DNI, but used to, I think you were her chief of staff for a time.

00:58:52.380 Am I wrong?

00:58:53.400 I was, yeah.

00:58:54.160 While I was waiting for confirmation from the Senate, I was her chief of staff.

00:58:56.820 Okay, so you work for Tulsi. And my understanding is you and she went in and you met with Vice President Vance prior to your resignation that you submitted to Trump directly. And I know you spoke to the president too. But can you tell us anything about that? I don't want you to violate, you know, confidences, but can you tell us anything about that meeting with Tulsi and JD?

00:59:14.560 i think it's better if i don't get into details like i i view both of them as very strong leaders

00:59:20.700 and before i submitted my resignation with tulsi as you know um as a senate confirmed presidential

00:59:27.640 appointee you have to resign and you technically report directly to the president um but i kind

00:59:33.180 of had a dual track national counterterrorism center falls under odni so tulsi was my my boss

00:59:38.540 day-to-day so obviously her and i discussed my resignation ahead of time i didn't want her to

00:59:43.360 be blindsided um and then the vice president as well who's been um just you know a personal friend

00:59:50.000 uh prior to him being the vice president once he became the vice president obviously our

00:59:53.640 relationship changed um but i felt it was proper to at least say um to my chain of command hey if

00:59:59.280 you guys want me if you'll give me the opportunity i will i will deliver this letter directly to the

01:00:03.120 president of the united states um and so the vice president said hey let's let's sit down let's let's

01:00:07.900 chat and you can deliver the letter uh to me and then i got a phone call from the president later

01:00:11.460 on that evening before I resign. But I don't want to get too much into the details of what we

01:00:17.160 discussed. Do you think they've been put in a tough spot by all this? Yes, they've been put

01:00:24.240 in a tough spot. And I know that I put them in a tough spot. And again, that's why I wanted to

01:00:27.980 give them a heads up and just say, hey, I'm resigning. I do plan on making it public. I want

01:00:32.960 to attempt to reach President Trump from the outside to let him know that he still has options

01:00:38.220 and he can, there is a pathway for him to get us off of this trajectory. And also just to thank

01:00:44.560 them for the opportunity to serve once again. But yeah, they're in a hard spot. I mean, they're

01:00:49.220 doing everything I think they can to serve our country and to put it on a good trajectory and

01:00:54.620 to support the president of the United States. I was just in a different role and I didn't feel

01:00:59.060 that I could do that any longer. So I offered my resignation. Of course, we're all looking forward

01:01:03.900 a bit to 2028 already, because that's what we do in this country. We have three-year

01:01:08.260 presidential elections now. But do you think if JD were to run, and if Tulsi were to run,

01:01:16.080 you know, she ran for president the last time, do you think that we would be surprised that

01:01:20.100 they've had some big shift in their foreign policy views? Yeah, I can't speak for either

01:01:26.360 one of them. Just out of respect, you know, you should probably ask those guys. I look forward,

01:01:31.180 hopefully to you know either one of them running for president i think they're both very strong

01:01:34.460 leaders so that's that's i think that's uh that's all i can say without saying you know too much

01:01:38.860 that violates the confidentiality that i have a lot of people who are wondering whether we're

01:01:41.740 going to see a joe kent on a on a ticket is that a possibility i've unsuccessfully ran for congress

01:01:47.900 twice um so just to level set there i i think i'm gonna where i need to be i think working in

01:01:53.660 the national security realm um is kind of where i belong i kind of have no desire to ever run

01:01:58.940 run for office again. It was a good experience. I'm glad I went through it, but it's not one I

01:02:02.560 have any desire to do again. I want to tell you that it was 2017 when a man named J.D. Vance

01:02:10.800 said exactly that same thing to me. So never say never. I could see you potentially winding up on

01:02:17.080 somebody's ticket in some way, or at least in an administration that is more in line with

01:02:22.440 your sensibilities. We'll see down the line. That's for down the line. So you did go then

01:02:27.040 and spoke with the president directly, to your credit.

01:02:29.400 And it sounds like he was really nice about it, right?

01:02:32.500 I mean, how did the meeting go?

01:02:34.280 Yeah, President Trump was nice enough to give me a phone call later on that evening.

01:02:38.080 And I think we talked for 10, 15 minutes.

01:02:40.020 I mean, look, it's President Trump.

01:02:42.000 You've talked with him.

01:02:43.060 He's always very respectful, you know, very gracious.

01:02:47.560 He sounded a little bit surprised and, you know, a little disappointed

01:02:51.040 that I was attending my resignation.

01:02:54.160 But he gave me an opportunity to explain, you know, what I thought.

01:02:56.560 He said, hey, I disagree with you. But it was it was a very respectful. I think it was a good, good conversation at the end.

01:03:04.240 So, you know, again, I feel like we we departed on on good terms here.

01:03:09.540 I'm going to play his soundbite about you being weak. And I've got a thought on it.

01:03:14.220 And I'd love to get your thoughts on it, too. Here's what he said.

01:03:17.360 I always thought he was a nice guy, but I always thought he was weak on security, very weak on security.

01:03:22.600 I didn't know him well but when I read a statement I realized that it's a good

01:03:28.900 thing that he's out because he said that Iran was not a threat Iran was a

01:03:34.420 threat every country it realized what a threat Iran was the question is whether 0.93

01:03:38.440 or not they wanted to do something about it and many people but any of the

01:03:42.760 greatest military scholars are saying for years that president should have

01:03:46.860 taken out Iran because they wanted a nuclear weapon they were if we didn't do 0.95

01:03:51.240 the attack or if i'll go a step further if i didn't terminate the iran nuclear deal given to

01:03:57.660 us one of the worst deals ever made by barack hussein obama if i didn't terminate obama's

01:04:03.280 horrible deal that he made the iran nuclear deal you would have had a nuclear war

01:04:08.600 four years ago so when somebody is working with us that says they didn't think iran was a threat

01:04:16.500 we don't want those people.

01:04:20.460 Okay, my own take on that, Joe, you tell me what you think, is that's almost a love letter.

01:04:26.240 President Trump can go a lot harder against somebody than that. That was very mild. He's

01:04:33.260 weak on security if he thinks that Iran wasn't posing an imminent threat. That, to me, telegraphs, 0.89

01:04:38.520 he does like you. He has to hit you back mildly because he feels like you hit him.

01:04:43.680 But I think, net-net, you're probably okay with him right now, based on what I just heard there.

01:04:48.000 Your thoughts?

01:04:49.680 I feel the same way.

01:04:50.780 It's been my entire goal in this entire process to be respectful to the president because I'm very grateful for the president for what he's done for our country.

01:04:59.080 And I truly mean that.

01:05:00.500 And then also, too, so that hopefully at some point in time, if not me, but people who are saying similar things to me can have a chance to talk with President Trump, especially, you know, as soon as possible so that we can figure a way to get out of this situation that we're in.

01:05:17.320 But again, I'm very grateful to President Trump, everything he's done for my family and also just for the United States in general.

01:05:23.440 And so, you know, I think in terms of having to depart early, it worked out as well as it could have.

01:05:28.500 Yeah. So I was kind of encouraged by that because, yeah, he's got a few more gears and he stayed in first gear when it comes to the brushback against you, which is promising to me, I think. Let's get into the allegations of anti-Semitism because that's all the rage these days. 0.54

01:05:44.260 If you, you know, all along we were told you can criticize Israel, just, you know, don't be anti-Semitic and like promoting attacks on American Jewish people and so on.

01:05:52.500 Of course, you haven't been and I haven't been.

01:05:55.320 But as it turns out, if you criticize Israel, you will get called an anti-Semite by the same people who said you could call them.

01:06:00.900 You could you could criticize Israel and not be called an anti-Semite.

01:06:03.980 It was a lie what they've been saying.

01:06:05.720 And you are being called an anti-Semite.

01:06:07.300 I mean, of course, Mark Levin and Mitch McConnell, kind of out of nowhere, or somebody who works

01:06:16.280 for him, puts out a tweet stating that your letter had, quote, virulent anti-Semitism and

01:06:21.940 that anti-Semites have no place in either party and certainly do not deserve places of trust in

01:06:26.080 our government. He then went on to also claim that isolationists should also play no role

01:06:33.020 whatsoever in politics. So Mitch McConnell would like to get rid of all the isolationists who are

01:06:38.080 in the Republican Party, and I guess Democrat Party as well. And he and others say that you're

01:06:42.540 anti-Semitic. And I think what they're seizing on is the multiple references to Israel in your

01:06:47.680 resignation letter. I'll just tell the audience what they are. You say it's clear we started this

01:06:52.400 war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby. You say that high-ranking Israeli

01:06:58.200 officials and influential members of the media deployed a misinformation campaign that wholly

01:07:02.520 undermined the president's America First platform, deploying a misinformation campaign.

01:07:07.420 Yeah.

01:07:07.860 You say that it was a lie that Iran posed an imminent threat, and it's the same tactic 1.00

01:07:17.000 the Israelis used to draw us into the disastrous Iraq war. 0.89

01:07:20.960 And then you say, as a veteran who deployed to combat 11 times and as a gold star husband

01:07:26.400 who lost my beloved wife, Shannon, in a war manufactured by Israel, meaning the war in

01:07:30.760 Syria. I cannot support sending the next generation off to fight and die in a war that serves no 0.99

01:07:34.900 benefit to the American people. So there are a few references in your letter to Israel and its

01:07:40.380 policies and its warmongering. And I believe your critics are using those to suggest you're an

01:07:45.960 anti-Semite in response to which you say what? Well, I'm not an anti-Semite. That's why I talk 0.61

01:07:50.840 about Israel from the nation and not their religion or anything like that. And actually,

01:07:55.620 I have a lot of respect for the Israelis. I'm a professional military man and intelligence

01:08:01.840 officer, and the Israelis have a very capable intelligence service and military. What I have

01:08:06.620 an issue with is Israel driving our foreign policy. So really, at the end of the day, 0.75

01:08:10.920 my issue isn't with the Israelis. I expect countries to lobby on their behalf, but I expect

01:08:16.080 my government, especially when I'm in it, to lobby on behalf of our agenda. And so, look,

01:08:22.420 The Israelis, the Israeli government, especially the Likud Party, of which Benjamin Netanyahu

01:08:27.560 has been the leader of for several decades now, they have largely been influencing and

01:08:32.460 heavily driving American foreign policy in the Middle East, probably even before the

01:08:36.600 lead-up to the Iraq War.

01:08:37.640 But in the lead-up to the Iraq War, the pro-regime change lobby here in America was heavily

01:08:44.760 aided by Benjamin Netanyahu, by AIPAC, by a lot of influential pro-Israel figures in

01:08:51.220 the media.

01:08:51.740 Now, was that the only reason we went into Iraq? No. There was a lot of neoconservatives who probably felt fairly neutral on Israel that really wanted us to get involved in this war. There was the military-industrial complex. But a very influential factor was Israel and their lobby.

01:09:06.400 Benjamin Netanyahu publicly even testified that Saddam Hussein was about to get a weapon

01:09:11.020 of mass destruction, or actually already had a weapon of mass destruction, and really laid

01:09:15.120 out that case and supported all of the other, what we found out to be manufactured intelligence

01:09:19.500 about Saddam having a weapon of mass destruction.

01:09:23.680 He was the Israeli finance minister at the time, but the head of the Likud party.

01:09:28.200 The other party in Israel was in power at the time, led by Ariel Sharon, who initially

01:09:33.360 said, no, we don't want to go into Iraq.

01:09:35.060 We want to focus on Iran. But eventually he got behind the strikes or the operations in Iraq because he said it could be a lily pad for operations in Iran, which is essentially Netanyahu's argument as well.

01:09:47.040 So the full weight of the Israeli lobby supported the neoconservative lobby to get us into the war in Iraq.

01:09:53.740 Now, once we got into Iraq, it was quite the saga. We screwed things up so badly that we accidentally handed over the keys to the kingdom, essentially, to pro-Iranian Shias. 0.99

01:10:03.880 Shia is the majority inside of Iraq. The pro-Iran wing of that took control through our own 0.92

01:10:09.340 blundering over the course of several years. So by the time we left Iraq in 2011, Iran basically

01:10:15.520 had been the biggest victor. And this was a major threat to Israel, because now you had basically a 0.86

01:10:20.560 land bridge between Tehran and Damascus running through Baghdad. And this allowed the Syrian 0.99

01:10:25.400 regime, which had always been kind of hostile to Israel, and helped Iran funnel money, weapons,

01:10:30.980 training men and equipment to Hezbollah and to Hamas through Syria into Lebanon.

01:10:38.380 So Syria was now a major issue.

01:10:41.200 And so the Israelis went back to lobbying us that, hey, we need to do a regime change

01:10:45.300 against Bashir al-Assad in Syria because the balance of power in the region is so off in

01:10:50.620 support of Iran.

01:10:52.400 Syria is like the opposite of Iraq. 0.99

01:10:53.820 It was a country ran by an al-Alaoui, which is kind of a version of Shiaism, but the majority

01:10:57.820 is Sunni.

01:10:58.480 And so we and other parts, other governments, including the Israelis, turned to the Sunni majority there to have an uprising.

01:11:06.460 And we supported some of the most radical elements of that.

01:11:08.940 Al-Qaeda and Al-Qaeda eventually, you know, splintered off into ISIS.

01:11:12.980 And ISIS got so out of control, focusing a lot of their operations on trying to inspire attacks and trying to plan attacks over against us here in the homeland that we had to redeploy and fight against ISIS.

01:11:24.400 That's where my late wife was killed.

01:11:25.740 But our support for elements affiliated with al-Qaeda and al-Qaeda eventually took over that entire government and are in charge to this day.

01:11:34.620 And so, again, people will say, oh, your wife was killed by ISIS.

01:11:37.400 You're conflating things.

01:11:38.300 You're just making things up.

01:11:39.600 We launched our dirty war, essentially, in Syria, the proxy war that we ran in Syria, largely at behest of the Israeli lobby. 0.71

01:11:46.500 Because, again, we couldn't leave Iraq in control of Iranian-backed Shias, and we couldn't leave Bashir al-Assad in power because that created the Shia crescent that was directly a threat to Israel. 0.95

01:11:57.180 So, again, we are really conducting U.S. foreign policy on behalf of another government, and our country paid dearly for that, and it continues to do so.

01:12:04.720 We went back and actually just independently did a fact check on the Iraq war and Israel's role in it and confirmed virtually everything you just said, that Israeli intelligence and politicians suggested in 2002 and 2003 that Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction, that in September 2002, then former Prime Minister Netanyahu appeared before a U.S. congressional committee and said,

01:12:30.240 look, Saddam is pursuing all avenues of developing weapons of mass destruction and the means to 0.71

01:12:35.560 deliver them. He says, my information is three years old. I can only divulge it from my tenure

01:12:40.020 as prime minister, which is three years old, but this is what I know. And he says, there's no

01:12:43.860 question that Saddam has not given up on his nuclear program. He was not satisfied with the

01:12:47.880 arsenal of chemical and biological weapons that he had. He was trying to perfect them constantly

01:12:51.740 and went on. And then it's also been confirmed that AIPAC, which lobbies for Israeli interests

01:12:59.580 here in America that their executive director boasted in January 2003 of the organization's

01:13:04.780 success in quietly lobbying Congress to approve the use of force in Iraq and also wanted regime

01:13:10.940 change very badly. And then when things started to go badly in Iraq, started to disavow that they

01:13:16.200 had been doing that. But a whole bunch of members of Congress came out and said, that's bullshit. 0.99

01:13:19.980 I was personally lobbied by you, AIPAC, to support the war in Iraq. So they were in favor of it and 0.98

01:13:28.160 lobbied for it. That's not to take agency away from George W. Bush and Colin Powell and the ones

01:13:34.760 domestically who pushed for it, but you're saying they were definitely interfering in our own march

01:13:39.800 to war trying to push us. And is that how you would characterize what happened here, right?

01:13:45.240 Because a lot of people have said, so are you suggesting that President Trump has no agency

01:13:49.300 here? He's Israel's puppet. And I don't think it's quite that simple, but you put it in your 0.93

01:13:56.040 downwards. I agree with you. It's not that simple. But look, the Israeli playbook for this is pretty 1.00

01:14:01.900 well established. I mean, they have a plan and they ran it because it's effective. So what President

01:14:07.160 Trump does have agency, but President Trump is a human. He's a very busy human. And I think just

01:14:12.280 the way that his information environment was controlled through official channels that

01:14:17.720 technically actually really weren't official because it wasn't coming from U.S. intelligence.

01:14:21.540 He still took a lot of U.S. intelligence in, but the key influence that came from Israeli policymakers, Israeli politicians, probably even some pro-Israeli donors here in America on the official side in private conversations, but then also in the media environment, that effectively worked.

01:14:38.720 And that created, I think, a position that President Trump had to take where he felt like he had no other options, when in fact he still had a good deal of options that were available to him.

01:14:49.240 So, look, I think President Trump has a lot of personal agency, and I think he still does right now.

01:14:53.660 And this is why I'm actually hopeful, I think, by going on shows like yours, like Tucker's and like other folks in the media kind of echoing generally what we're saying.

01:15:03.080 My prayer is that he's going to see that it's not too late to kind of walk this back, because obviously the path that this pro-Israeli media ecosystem and unofficial advisors, official advisors, that has gotten us into the situation that we're in right now.

01:15:19.920 And if you just look back to 20 years ago, it's the same playbook they ran in Iraq, which President Trump called out before most people in politics could, that it was a disaster for our country. 0.82

01:15:28.100 So I really hope he reflects on kind of where we're at right now and where we've been before.

01:15:32.060 Well, and Tucker and I are in the same situation in that we oppose this war, but we care about the president and are still completely rooting for the president and are rooting for victory for the United States in this conflict, though we wish we weren't in it.

01:15:45.200 We're 100 percent behind the troops and hoping for an American victory.

01:15:48.860 So hopefully the president will give an ear.

01:15:51.200 I should point out on the Iraq war issue, Ariel Sharon, people who say Israel had nothing to do

01:15:57.060 with us getting into the Iraq war will say Ariel Sharon, then PM of Israel, was against it. But it

01:16:02.120 was one of those things where he was against it before he was for it. He later did get on board

01:16:06.140 and said any postponement of an attack on Iraq will serve no purpose. His senior advisor told

01:16:13.140 the Associated Press in that they said Israel intelligence officials had new evidence that

01:16:16.760 Iraq was speeding up efforts to produce biological and chemical weapons. So they clearly had changed 0.95

01:16:22.880 tactics when it was in the news that George W. Bush might be wavering on whether to attack.

01:16:28.620 And that was when Ariel Sharon wavered on his own position of opposing it and got very much

01:16:32.680 on board with pushing for the war in Iraq. So Israel did have a role in that. And I don't know

01:16:38.960 that it was the chief role, but it was a meaningful role. And it's fair to call him out on it. It's

01:16:43.040 not anti-Semitic, to be honest, about Israel's role. It's like they want to say you're like a

01:16:47.980 conspiracy theorist saying, oh, all the terrible Jews are behind. That's not at all. That is a 0.96

01:16:54.720 method. It's a tactic to undermine legitimate criticism of a foreign government. And it's

01:16:59.880 so transparent, Joe. I don't know. Have you ever been on the receiving end of these kind of

01:17:03.340 allegations before? Not to this ferocity. I mean, I got running for Congress. If I said that I

01:17:10.940 I didn't think kids should, you know, be able to pick their own gender at age eight.

01:17:14.420 I was called a bigot and a Nazi.

01:17:16.220 So I'm pretty used to the ad hominem attacks.

01:17:19.300 So I think I have a good immunity already built up to them.

01:17:23.820 It's interesting seeing just so many prominent people right now come out and say that the

01:17:27.140 second you criticize Israel, especially when, you know, you have the president and the secretary

01:17:31.080 of state saying that Israel is the reason we got into this war.

01:17:34.860 You know, it's a bit surprising that their arguments are so weak, but also it's very

01:17:38.560 telling.

01:17:38.920 Like if John Bolton, who was the former national security advisor to President Trump, and Lindsey Graham, who's been on some of the most prominent intelligence and armed services committees probably for as long as I've been alive because he's been in the Senate forever, if they had access to better information than me and they could actually prove their case, they'd be arguing it, but they can't.

01:17:56.760 So they just have to go back to like, well, that's anti-Semitic and Iran was 10 minutes away from 10 nuclear bombs. 0.53

01:18:02.880 They're not really even trying.

01:18:04.600 They're just trying to do the media barrage where they make it taboo from actually dissenting.

01:18:10.080 That's exactly right.

01:18:11.600 They're trying to show others this is – you're going to get the same treatment.

01:18:15.540 You're going to get the Joe Kent, Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly treatment if you come out against this war.

01:18:21.380 And it's just – it's not going to work.

01:18:23.480 By the way, of course, Mark Levin is accusing you of being an anti-Semite.

01:18:26.620 But I saw that online you agreed to go on his show, which is the greatest gift you could ever possibly give to that despicable man.

01:18:34.720 I mean, for the first time ever, he'll have actual ratings on his show, which he doesn't.

01:18:39.360 Are you actually going to do that, Joe?

01:18:41.060 I mean, he hates you.

01:18:42.980 He's definitely not going to give you a fair shake.

01:18:45.380 No, I know he's not.

01:18:47.280 Look, he challenged me and I said, yeah, sure.

01:18:49.080 His initial offer was like, hey, Friday or sometime next week.

01:18:52.680 And I said, yeah, sure, let's go.

01:18:53.880 And that got a lot of traction on the Internet.

01:18:56.620 And my DMs on Twitter are open. I've been on his show before when I was running for Congress. So they have my contact information. But I think within like two or three hours, he was just like, I knew Kent was too big of a coward to come on my show. So if it's theater, then I have no desire to participate in that. But if he wants to have a conversation later, I'll have a conversation. Yeah, that's exactly. It's theater.

01:19:17.520 I don't think you should do it.

01:19:18.460 I'm just going to say right now, I urge you not to do it because it will be ad hominem

01:19:23.000 attack after ad hominem attack.

01:19:25.740 He has no interest in hearing you out. 0.95

01:19:28.020 He only wants to destroy you.

01:19:29.640 He's not an honest broker.

01:19:30.580 You have so many other places you can go and places that will give you a fair—like,

01:19:33.620 if you want to have a good debate with a genuine Israeli supporter, go on with, like,

01:19:37.760 Dan Sinor.

01:19:38.820 You know, he's an honest broker who's, like, a great guy who's a big Israel supporter

01:19:42.440 who won't be like that.

01:19:44.380 But anyway, whatever, that's my two cents for whatever it's worth.

01:19:47.560 There's no reason to put yourself through that.

01:19:48.880 And probably it'll just be but one big setup to try to like do a gotcha, you're a leaker, you need to be prosecuted.

01:19:54.460 Plus, why would you help him?

01:19:55.820 Why would you help him? 1.00

01:19:56.520 He's such a scoundrel, coward, bastard. 1.00

01:19:59.900 Don't do it. 1.00

01:20:00.520 Okay, sorry, that's my two cents.

01:20:02.020 Let's move on because you did say some things on Tucker that obviously caught my attention around Charlie Kirk.

01:20:09.640 And I'm very, very interested in your thoughts on this because you suggested that there are viable leads that might suggest government involvement somehow around his assassination.

01:20:24.620 You're not saying that there was proof, but that there were leads you would have liked to have pursued that were left dangling and that you were shut down from pursuing.

01:20:33.360 And I wonder if you can expand on that.

01:20:36.900 Yeah, absolutely.

01:20:37.740 I mean, look, I'm not saying that there was, like, smoking gun evidence of a government involvement.

01:20:43.300 NCTC's role was to look to see if there's any foreign involvement.

01:20:46.000 Now, that could be government or that just could be foreigners themselves. 0.87

01:20:49.480 And all I can really truly say is that there were additional leads that we needed to run down and fully investigate.

01:20:57.140 And that just simply was not done.

01:20:59.600 And basically from the time that Tyler Robinson turned himself in and was arrested and his fingerprints were found on the rifle, they basically, they being the FBI, said, hey, this is now going to go over to the Utah law enforcement and we are not investigating anything further.

01:21:16.820 And there was a lot of back and forth about that because there were still, and again, not just my opinion and the opinion of the National Counterterrorism Center, there was other leads for us to run down.

01:21:27.540 And I even spoke with members of the FBI who were kind of at the ground level, and they

01:21:31.200 agreed with me.

01:21:31.980 We wanted to continue to investigate.

01:21:35.500 And so all I can say with authority right now is that there were additional leads for

01:21:40.160 us to run down.

01:21:41.240 And I think it's very, very simple.

01:21:42.500 Right now, we're hearing that, hey, it's a slam dunk case.

01:21:46.440 And I don't doubt that it might be a slam dunk case against Robinson.

01:21:49.960 That's going to play out in the court of law.

01:21:52.020 However, we do know that there was people who were posting about Charlie Kirk being

01:21:56.120 killed before Charlie Kirk was killed. So we do know there are other people here who had some

01:22:00.600 prior knowledge. I find it hard to believe that, you know, multiple people predicted Charlie's death

01:22:06.020 at UVU that day. I mean, if it was just one or two, maybe that's a coincidence. Maybe they're,

01:22:11.480 you know, someone who always posts something similar to that. But that to me is just one of

01:22:15.800 the biggest gaps that remains. And maybe the FBI is out looking at that right now.

01:22:21.240 It's been several months now and we just don't see that happening. I know that the scope that

01:22:25.660 we had of foreign involvement, we did not get an opportunity to run down all of those potential

01:22:32.160 leads. And I think Charlie Kirk deserves justice. I think people deserve the truth about what

01:22:37.240 happened on that day. And I'm not saying, I'm not alluding and saying, I know what the truth is.

01:22:41.480 I'm not trying to be cryptic. What I'm saying is that there were things that we still needed

01:22:45.840 to investigate that were not investigated. Can you say whether they involved Israel?

01:22:51.400 Not specifically, I mean, but there is like you mentioned the text messages that Andrew Colvett was talking about.

01:22:58.460 There was pro-Israeli donors who were heavily pressuring Charlie to not platform anyone who was critical of Israel.

01:23:07.220 And Charlie was probably one of the most vocal advocates for not going to war with Iran.

01:23:14.160 He was lobbying the president and he was a very influential advisor to President Trump.

01:23:18.920 He had the ability to go into the Oval Office and have a candid and frank discussion with

01:23:23.420 President Trump.

01:23:24.060 He had phone conversations with him.

01:23:25.780 I mean, Charlie was probably instrumental in getting President Trump elected in 2024,

01:23:30.140 and Charlie was very vocal against us going to war with Iran.

01:23:34.120 He eventually said, OK, fine, midnight hammer, a limited strike, and then we're done.

01:23:38.420 We're not going to go back for regime change.

01:23:39.680 But he was continuing to speak out against the influence that the Israelis had on our 0.72

01:23:44.000 foreign policy in the Middle East, in particular, this push to take us off to war with

01:23:48.740 Iran. So I think that has to be looked at, the amount of pressure that Charlie Kirk was under

01:23:54.200 from the donors, but then also his influence with President Trump. And the fact that the Israeli 0.74

01:23:59.660 lobby really relied heavily on getting into that media ecosystem to influence President Trump,

01:24:07.800 I think that can't be overlooked. Now, I'm not saying that that is a smoking gun. I'm not saying

01:24:11.960 that that means really anything. I'm just saying that that needs to be considered into the Charlie

01:24:16.720 Kirk investigation, but also to where we are right now as a country and what we're doing in

01:24:20.840 the Middle East. Would that have been your job, Joe, to consider that piece or Kash Patel's?

01:24:27.000 A combination. But if there is foreign involvement, that's where the National

01:24:30.800 Counterterrorism Center comes in. Because we have more robust and broad authorities to

01:24:35.580 investigate the foreign angle, the FBI has the more broad and robust authorities to investigate

01:24:41.300 the domestic angle. So who has the ability to shut you down from that?

01:24:45.680 So really, the way it happened was initially it was just like, hey, the FBI says you guys can't look into the case file.

01:24:51.000 And when the case file is kind of where all the data is and you're done, you guys can't work here anymore.

01:24:55.880 You guys can't work on this case anymore. We argued that we should still be involved in that case.

01:25:01.220 And we won the argument. We got kind of put back on the case.

01:25:05.400 But then after a while, the government has a great way of making things just die in process.

01:25:11.100 And so essentially all of our requests, our ability to investigate, it was cut off.

01:25:15.220 Our requests to investigate were kind of taken away and sort of died in the process.

01:25:19.520 So I'm sure someone at some point in the government is going to come out and say, no, no, we're still looking into all leads in the Charlie Kirk case.

01:25:25.860 But this is how you kill things in the government.

01:25:27.580 You just let them die in this never-ending coordination process or requests that go unanswered.

01:25:33.340 That's kind of where we're at.

01:25:34.320 But the DOJ and the FBI was instrumental in saying, hey, we're done investigating Charlie Kirk.

01:25:40.240 And they'll tell you, hey, everything's with Utah now because there's this ongoing trial against Tyler Robinson.

01:25:46.400 But what about – I mean you mentioned putting a foreign government to the side.

01:25:50.360 You mentioned the people who communicated about clearly Charlie's murder prior to the murder. 0.99

01:25:55.120 We pulled just a couple of those just to recap it for the audience, where we saw communications like, okay, pulling it, an online friend of Twiggs, that was the boyfriend of the shooter, who goes by Chirbum75, wrote, Charlie Kirk deserved that shit. 0.99

01:26:13.180 Let it die, let it die with a photo of Kirk. 0.99

01:26:15.120 We fucking did it. 1.00

01:26:16.460 We fucking did it, he said. 1.00

01:26:17.880 Another account by someone who goes by Osama bin Tezuka five days before the shooting on 9-5. 0.99

01:26:23.400 Charlie was killed on 9-10.

01:26:24.440 You guys, I have something big coming soon.

01:26:26.580 Just be sure to check the news.

01:26:27.700 You'll know it when you see an emoji giving a wink.

01:26:30.140 The day of the shooting at 4.52 p.m.

01:26:32.360 Well, that's another Chud Bites the Dust. 1.00

01:26:35.240 Ex-a-cont called Mushy, but the first Kirk tweet by this guy was September 3rd.

01:26:41.560 It would be funny if someone like Charlie Kirk got shot on September 10th, LMAO,

01:26:46.720 followed up by another one on September 11th.

01:26:49.520 Did I, or did it?

01:26:51.240 So that's just a few, Joe.

01:26:53.100 We could keep going.

01:26:53.840 There were many, many, many. And would that be now, now that Utah's in the lead, wouldn't that still be an FBI investigation to figure out whether those people had advanced notice and were part of, you know, sort of trans TIFA?

01:27:07.500 That's the allegation that these people are sort of members of the trans community or trans furry community and that they knew and possibly participated and maybe helped.

01:27:16.280 So would that be FBI typically or would that be Utah?

01:27:19.720 By and large, it would be the FBI, unless you can prove right away that those individuals are posting right from Utah.

01:27:26.120 But in order to do that, there's a whole process of subpoenaing the social media platform, et cetera.

01:27:32.540 But usually that's the FBI, just because they have the most robust tools and they're used to doing it.

01:27:37.600 And again, Charlie Kirk was high profile enough that there was a case to be made that this could be in the federal purview.

01:27:44.940 So, look, like I said, there's still lots of unanswered questions.

01:27:48.860 And from where I was in the investigation, especially looking at the foreign ties, we were stopped.

01:27:54.620 And there's still work that needs to be done there.

01:27:58.120 That's disturbing.

01:27:59.420 I know I've been told by Kash Patel directly that they are looking into that trans-TIFA element.

01:28:05.480 But it's been six months now, and there have been no additional arrests.

01:28:08.740 And it really wouldn't take six months to figure out who these people were and to interview them and to, you know, potentially establish a link if there were one.

01:28:16.940 It's an awfully great coincidence if they weren't involved.

01:28:20.800 I mean, these people have predictive powers that we should all be consulting them on the stock market daily because they had the exact date and they had the exact manner that he would be shot and killed with.

01:28:32.680 And there were multiple, multiple of them predicting that it would happen.

01:28:36.640 So, extremely disturbing, to say the least.

01:28:39.920 It's time for a little spring cleaning.

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01:30:16.580 Getting back to the Iran war, how do you think it's going?

01:30:22.500 I don't think it's going well at all.

01:30:24.400 I mean, the Iranians have essentially shut down the flow of energy in the Straits of Hormuz, which, you know, we've known for years that would be part of the Iranian playbook. 0.99

01:30:35.180 But they've been able to very effectively do that with a bare minimum of their military capabilities.

01:30:42.080 They've also been targeting our bases in the region.

01:30:45.140 We've lost Americans, tragically, but also the way that the energy infrastructure is being targeted in Qatar, being targeted inside Iran.

01:30:54.780 This is going to set back world energy markets.

01:30:57.180 We've already seen a major spike in the price of the pump, but the trickle-down effects of that are going to influence the ability for the world market to produce fertilizer.

01:31:06.780 So there could be actual really drastic ramifications here.

01:31:10.460 But also, I think a major issue with the war on Iran is that we've really only stated very,

01:31:16.240 very tactical objectives, that we're going to take out their ballistic missile capabilities,

01:31:19.680 we're going to take out their Navy, we're going to take out their military.

01:31:22.680 And these are big picture items, but at the end of the day, they are very tactical.

01:31:27.660 We haven't really stated exactly what our end state is.

01:31:31.180 And you should never get into a war unless you can state what your end state is.

01:31:34.700 And President Trump has said things like total surrender.

01:31:37.240 And, you know, I mean, total surrender historically has meant like we drop a nuclear weapon in Japan.

01:31:44.600 I'm not being hyperbolic.

01:31:45.460 That was basically our demands in Japan in World War II.

01:31:48.580 Or we fight out a bloody war and we make them totally surrender by a land occupation, both of which I think would be absolutely tragic, have major ramifications, make us less secure at the end of the day.

01:32:00.180 But now we're in a war where we don't have an objective.

01:32:02.460 However, our partner who we let drive the timeline for this conflict, they have a strategic objective that's very different than ours.

01:32:10.520 And again, that is back to regime change at any cost.

01:32:14.640 And the Israelis are completely fine, essentially, with just continuing to kill off the Iranian leadership until Iran just falls into a state of chaos, which would be catastrophic for our interests, for the interests of the GCC countries, for the flow of commerce in the Straits of Hormuz. 0.79

01:32:28.900 It'll potentially even trigger a migration crisis into Europe.

01:32:32.480 So again, we have to be sober and say like us and our key partner in this, who's been

01:32:36.780 driving all of the military operations in the lead, we have different strategic objectives

01:32:42.460 than they do.

01:32:43.960 And so we've either we've got to find a way to get them under control.

01:32:48.060 And as of right now, I see some indications that President Trump wants to do that in a

01:32:53.120 truth he sent out yesterday or late last late two nights ago.

01:32:56.760 He did say Israel will stop hitting all energy targets. And so I think it's important that President Trump stays firm on that. And if they don't stop hitting energy targets, he's got to start reining the Israelis in. 1.00

01:33:08.740 Well, because there's a real question about whether they're doing that intentionally to

01:33:12.180 keep the war going and to keep us involved and to get our allies involved and to make it a wider

01:33:17.140 conflict that's more difficult for us to pull out of, and that this isn't just some accident

01:33:22.520 that they keep bombing targets President Trump has told them not to, that they're doing it

01:33:27.380 intentionally to widen the conflict and make it tougher for us to get out because it's in their

01:33:31.080 interest for it to go on and on. They have no interest in our relationship with these other

01:33:35.820 Arab countries being strong, or these other Arab countries being strong on their own.

01:33:41.260 Yeah, exactly. I mean, we just have to be sober and say, like, Israel has different 0.98

01:33:45.460 strategic objectives than we do. If they continue to hit the energy infrastructure,

01:33:50.840 then it's evident to us that that is part of, that's not them making mistakes. Again,

01:33:54.960 the Israelis have a very, very competent military. They're not making mistakes. They're doing this

01:33:59.620 because they are pursuing their goals. So we can't look at, like, every little tactical decision

01:34:03.920 they make, we have to look at what their broad objectives are. And their broad objectives,

01:34:07.000 their strategic goal is different than ours. The Israelis have a very high tolerance for chaos, 0.95

01:34:12.980 as long as that chaos can't come back and directly affect them. And so again, the Israelis are fine

01:34:18.700 with chaos in Iran. That's only a problem if we're shoulder to shoulder with them, 1.00

01:34:24.280 and there's ramifications for our actual allies in the Gulf, and also for the flow of energy and

01:34:31.120 and the effect that we'll have here in the homeland.

01:34:33.700 So again, you just got to have enough.

01:34:34.260 Well, and they're talking about boots on the ground in Iran,

01:34:38.720 American boots, not Israeli boots, American boots.

01:34:42.320 We've just dispatched 5,000 troops over there.

01:34:45.920 I don't know exactly what they're doing yet,

01:34:47.480 but 2,500 Marines and 2,500 sailors.

01:34:51.320 And now today we get a report out of Axios

01:34:53.040 that President Trump wants the Strait of Hormuz open,

01:34:55.880 and he's looking at taking this Karg Island,

01:34:58.340 which he's been tweeting about.

01:34:59.360 We attacked it in part, but he was saying,

01:35:00.740 I can go far worse, and I can decimate the energy facility there. But they're saying if he has to

01:35:07.020 take Karg Island and make it happen, that's what will happen. He's trying to raise his leverage

01:35:10.280 point against the Iranians to make them open up the strait by hitting them in this energy center. 1.00

01:35:16.120 If he decides to have a coastal invasion, this is Axios reporting, then that's going to happen.

01:35:21.880 But that decision has not yet been made. Then they go on, a senior official told Axios,

01:35:26.000 we've always had boots on the ground in conflicts under every president, including Trump. I know

01:35:30.000 this is a fixation in the media and I get the politics, but the president's going to do what's

01:35:34.020 right. So we're, we're, we appear to be amping up our ability to put boots on the ground there.

01:35:39.300 And it's all American boots, Joe. Um, and you tell me if we use 5,000 American troops to try to

01:35:46.820 secure the Straits of Hormuz, we're going to see the death toll, the American death toll go up

01:35:52.480 without question. Without question. I mean, when you put boots on the ground, it's inevitably

01:35:57.080 going to be bloody and you're going to lose people. And you're right, those would be all

01:36:00.480 American boots. The Israelis just don't have the, Israel's a small country, they don't have the 1.00

01:36:05.320 combat power to deploy boots on the ground in a meaningful way. And this would be a disaster,

01:36:11.160 I would heavily advise against it. I mean, just putting a small force on an island that's so

01:36:16.500 close to all of Israel's ballistic missile and drone technology would make our guys essentially

01:36:21.640 just sitting ducks. I have no doubt they could take the island. As a matter of fact,

01:36:25.400 The Iranians would probably let them take the island because they would then have them essentially as hostages in that in that area. 0.97

01:36:32.620 If we want to reopen the Straits of Hormuz, it's very simple.

01:36:35.500 You get the Israelis to stop offensive operations and you get the negotiating table as fast as possible.

01:36:40.820 President Trump did something very smart yesterday.

01:36:43.440 He signaled through Scott Besson that we would lift sanctions on Iranian oil that's already on the water or in barges.

01:36:52.140 And I think that right there is a step towards coming up with a peaceful solution to reopening the straits and getting us back to the negotiating table. All of that will be short-circuited if we put boots on the ground. Because the second we put boots on the ground, we inevitably will lose people. And then once you lose people, all you're going to hear from the media and then even a lot from people inside is that, hey, we've lost people. We can't withdraw now. We have to keep fighting. And that right there is the recipe for 20 years of quagmire.

01:37:17.780 Mm hmm. And I mean, it's the ceremony that you participated in for your beloved wife at Dover, body after body after body coming home and the president standing there and saluting. And, you know, after a while, that takes its toll on the president's psyche, on the nation's psyche. And, you know, not to be too crass about it, but we do have midterm elections coming up in which the balance of power is very much up for grabs.

01:37:43.720 Now there are serious discussions about whether the Republicans are likely to lose the Senate.

01:37:48.060 They seem almost certain to lose the House, but likely to lose the Senate.

01:37:52.620 So now you're talking about nonstop impeachment proceedings going on in the last two years of Trump's term and whether 2028 is seriously in danger.

01:38:00.600 I mean, let me ask your opinion on that as somebody who has run for Congress twice.

01:38:03.900 Right now, there's a division within the Republican Party.

01:38:07.960 The division that's more neo-conny, the division that's much more in support of the president, no matter what he does, like the core-core diehard MAGA, is on one camp.

01:38:18.440 And then there's the more isolationist wing of the party, which is smaller but real, in the other camp.

01:38:23.980 And it's somewhere under 20 percent of the Republican Party, if you believe the polls.

01:38:28.920 The problem for the Republicans is a candidate cannot win without that 20 percent.

01:38:34.540 And if you would take a candidate from the 20%, he cannot win or she cannot win without support from the 80%.

01:38:40.180 So the civil war that's happening within the Republican Party right now is great news for the Democrats, absolutely great news. 0.89

01:38:48.760 Neither side seems likely to back down because these are deeply held beliefs by both sides.

01:38:53.100 I mean, I think Cora Maga is just loyal to Trump, but like the neocons really think that this war is the greatest thing ever. 0.95

01:38:57.480 And the isolationist wing really thinks it might be the worst thing ever, that we might be in the beginning of World War III here.

01:39:02.640 So how do you see this playing out electorally?

01:39:05.800 You know, it's hard to believe the polls.

01:39:08.500 I do think there still is a lot of traditional thinking amongst, especially the baby boomer generation.

01:39:13.860 They're consuming mainstream Fox News, et cetera.

01:39:17.280 And they want to put their full faith behind President Trump.

01:39:20.740 They feel like that's the patriotic thing to do, especially when we're at war.

01:39:24.100 But I would just caution the people in Trump's orbit that are looking at those numbers, because right now those numbers probably look pretty good.

01:39:31.560 But Bush's numbers look good after initial military operations, too.

01:39:35.300 And we saw them quickly shift as you get further and further into the quagmire.

01:39:39.880 But I think the important thing here is that, you know, President Trump won the popular vote and he won the popular vote by really energizing these people who typically don't vote.

01:39:50.140 And they largely were able to do that effectively by having President Trump speak directly to the American people in long form on all these different podcasts, yours included.

01:40:01.100 And I think these polls miss a lot of that demographic.

01:40:05.720 So I think the more, when I would say, like, I don't know, America First, isolationists,

01:40:11.700 I don't think we're going to say isolationists.

01:40:13.120 I think we're more restrained.

01:40:14.720 But the people who don't want us getting involved in these wars, I think we're much more powerful

01:40:19.040 because of social media platforms like you and I are speaking on right now, like Tucker's

01:40:23.420 show, than I think the conventional wisdom really reveals.

01:40:28.020 And so I think this argument, it's going to be key in the midterms to a lesser extent, but in the lead up to 2028, this is going to be a very key issue, especially because this war will have played out even further by then.

01:40:40.620 I hope we end it soon.

01:40:42.340 I hope it's more of a theoretic debate than an actual practical debate.

01:40:46.220 Well, I mean, I do too, but given the role that you just held and resigned from, the biggest concern that I've had since day one of this thing is domestic terror resulting from another Middle East war.

01:40:58.020 I mean, you can go back to 9-11 and trace 9-11 to anger from these radical Islamists 0.88

01:41:04.580 over our alignment with Israel and foreign policy and so on.

01:41:07.860 And certainly what we've seen since the war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan.

01:41:12.880 You know, I mean, as a Fox News anchor for the past, you know, much of the past 20 years,

01:41:16.420 I was there for 14 years, just night after night after night,

01:41:19.540 we covered yet another domestic terror attack that had happened from angry Islamists

01:41:24.340 pissed off about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

01:41:27.080 That's my biggest concern in this whole thing, Joe, and this is truly your area of expertise.

01:41:31.900 So how do you see that threat?

01:41:34.820 Yeah, I mean, prior to this war kicking off, we at the National Counterterrorism Center and in coordination with the rest of the intelligence community, we authored a paper kind of on this topic and just said, hey, there is somewhat of a threat of potential sleeper cells, like where there's actual dedicated terrorists that came here specifically just to attack us at the right moment.

01:41:53.920 There's always a threat of that.

01:41:54.920 However, the true threat that's manifested itself recently, especially in this conflict and even before, is that you get individuals who are radicalized by what they see on social media, in the media, as a result of our foreign policy or as a result of very clever propaganda and individuals that are here that are Muslims. 0.93

01:42:14.460 But actually, even in the case of the Gaza conflict, we saw non-Muslims who were inspired to commit acts of terror and violence here in the homeland because of that. 0.60

01:42:24.700 So the potential of blowback terrorism or of the war in Iran becoming part of the anti-Trump, anti-ICE, etc., protest movement inspiring more violence.

01:42:36.640 I think at the time I said that that was the most likely course of action for what we would see.

01:42:41.060 And then immediately when the war started, we saw a series of terror attacks that were indirectly, some of them more directly than others, linked to what's taking place overseas right now.

01:42:51.440 And so that is a major issue. Our support for Israel does drive lots of blowback terrorism here at home.

01:42:59.020 But then the other issue, too, is that at the end of the day, the government has a finite amount of resources and attention that they can pay to any given topic.

01:43:05.580 Right now, the war on Iran is sucking up a lot of bandwidth, a lot of money, a lot of key decision-maker time.

01:43:12.240 And it's diverting away from the fact that we still have millions of illegals in our country, that President Trump, again, he ran on this.

01:43:17.900 He said the border is wide open. We've got to take care of that.

01:43:20.380 And he's worked very diligently to secure the border.

01:43:23.140 He did secure the border.

01:43:24.740 But I testified publicly as the NCTC director that we've identified over 18,000 known suspected terrorists who likely had access to America, many of whom had come here.

01:43:34.060 And the further we dug into the data as to who was in our country, the more it became clear to me that we had no idea.

01:43:39.540 The border was open for four years.

01:43:40.900 You get different confusing data sets.

01:43:42.560 And the only thing that was very clear to me was that for four years we didn't have any border security.

01:43:47.700 So in my opinion, the more that we divert into these foreign adventures, especially one that's taking up so much time, money, and resources, that takes away the ability for us to focus here on the homeland and on our security, which, again, this is a key thing that President Trump ran on, and it affects our day-to-day security.

01:44:06.080 Well, I mean, it's also like psychological capital, both for the president and for the

01:44:10.500 American people, because already his approval numbers on foreign policy are way underwater,

01:44:16.000 way underwater, and the economy times 10. I mean, his economic approval numbers are nil.

01:44:22.740 The public does not approve of the job he's doing on that front. And so, you know, you can only

01:44:26.900 expend so much of your negative capital on one thing. And already we were expending it on

01:44:31.760 immigration. And that whole thing in the middle of the country in Minneapolis didn't help. It was 0.99

01:44:38.560 a noble pursuit, but we've basically abandoned it. Tom Homan went in there and changed the policy to

01:44:44.600 just the worst first, and it seems to be the worst only, is really what now we're focusing on on the

01:44:49.520 immigration front, which is not what the American people wanted. They wanted everybody, everybody

01:44:53.100 who was here illegally to go. And there's plenty of possibility that there are Iranian dissidents

01:45:01.360 here who are not of the, you know, college educated, I want the old democracy, you know,

01:45:07.360 of Iran back, but are of the radical Islamic part who got in under Joe Biden, who would love to

01:45:13.800 unleash hell on us in the way that you've been talking about on, you know, Tucker's show and

01:45:17.860 others suggesting it may not be some terror cell. It may just be individuals who are radicalized,

01:45:24.720 like the guy who went into Austin and killed three people and shot another 15.

01:45:29.160 Exactly. I mean, I think that's one of the biggest risks. And again, even some of these people, just because of our broken immigration system, they have status in America legally. So that to me is the biggest threat. And again, at the end of the day, when you're in charge, when you're in any leadership position, you do have to make hard decisions about where you're going to commit your resources. 0.97

01:45:48.560 And right now I can tell you that the folks that are charged with our domestic security, border security, they're doing the best that they can.

01:45:54.080 However, the focus of the administration right now, it's on this war with Iran.

01:45:58.500 Just look at the budget request the Pentagon put in the other day.

01:46:01.440 That's going to the war in Iran.

01:46:02.780 That's not going to secure our border.

01:46:04.880 Yep.

01:46:05.580 I mean the numbers are stunning.

01:46:07.280 What you could fund domestically for $200 billion, and instead we're going to be spending it on fighting a war that we didn't have to start.

01:46:14.360 Um, I want to ask you whether like, what do you, what's your advice? Cause you're obviously a very

01:46:19.760 courageous person. I mean, truly like, I'm not trying to flatter you. You just obviously are.

01:46:25.120 What's your advice to people who are out there who are in the Republican party, maybe operatives

01:46:29.940 who are afraid. They're afraid to speak out against this because they know they will get

01:46:35.540 called an anti-Semite immediately. I mean, you can just say I'm opposed to the war. I don't

01:46:39.760 it's a good idea you'll get called an anti-semit um they they don't want the president crossing

01:46:45.360 them they have dollars on the line with the republican party and they're worried about

01:46:50.000 losing them if they cross the president on this what's your advice to them number one i i think

01:46:56.160 it's time for them to really reflect on if they think we're on the proper trajectory for our

01:47:01.920 country and i think if they have an honest assessment and they think why they supported

01:47:06.080 President Trump in the first place and the foreign policy that he enacted in his first

01:47:09.740 administration that he campaigned on, they'll see that we veered off the path. And I think if you

01:47:15.280 truly care about the people that you love and that you're chartered to protect and to serve,

01:47:20.560 when they go on the wrong path, you don't go on the wrong path with them. You try to guide them

01:47:25.640 back onto the right path. That is the loving and caring thing to do. And I think if you truly

01:47:30.000 believe in President Trump and this administration, then the right thing for you to do is have that

01:47:35.000 reflection. If you disagree with me, fine. You think things are going great? Okay, that's fine.

01:47:39.120 However, I think any honest reflection will say that we are not on a good path right now. And so

01:47:43.540 the respectful thing to do of President Trump is to say, sir, we disagree. We want you to change

01:47:49.560 course here. We have options. There are people who can offer you options. As a matter of fact,

01:47:53.220 I think President Trump can come up with options on his own because he's a smart guy. But he does

01:47:57.200 need to hear from his supporters that this is not where we need to be as a country. And people can

01:48:02.180 need that either, you know, they can do it online. They can do it by, you know, calling their

01:48:05.360 congressmen, calling their senators. There's ways to respectfully pressure President Trump to say,

01:48:10.380 hey, sir, you have other options. And that's a big part of what I'm attempting to do right now.

01:48:17.440 Do you think there are others in the Trump administration who feel the way you feel and

01:48:24.000 the way I feel? Because, you know, if you look at the polls, like there was one NBC,

01:48:27.840 they kind of got hit for this, but they just released a survey showing that President Trump

01:48:31.360 allegedly has a 100% approval rating among Republicans who identify as MAGA, which had

01:48:38.620 a lot of people saying, OK, the people who the president just the president Trump just

01:48:42.560 said days ago, you're not MAGA if you don't support Mark Levin, which led to a lot of

01:48:47.540 people saying that I am not MAGA.

01:48:49.540 I'm America first and I'm a Trump supporter, but then I'm not MAGA.

01:48:52.980 So if you self-identify as MAGA, you know, they say, NBC in this survey, that Trump

01:48:59.440 has a 100% approval rating.

01:49:01.700 So I wonder whether you believe that number

01:49:03.800 or whether you think there are others,

01:49:05.460 including in the administration,

01:49:06.860 who feel as you do and as I do about this war.

01:49:10.180 Yeah, I don't have a strong math background,

01:49:12.100 but I think the probability of anything

01:49:13.680 being polled at 100% is just like pretty low.

01:49:18.460 And so, I mean, I don't know,

01:49:19.480 even just the absurdity of believing a poll

01:49:22.000 that comes in like that at 100%,

01:49:23.340 I'd just be curious to see like how they weighed the poll

01:49:26.060 and like who they surveyed.

01:49:27.520 I mean, look, there are others. There's actually quite a few others in the administration who feel the way that I do. They may disagree with the tactics that I took, and that's fine. But I think if you get out there and you look at just X, you look at the social media platform that was largely responsible for President Trump's success, especially in the 2016 campaign, and you just see where a lot of people who are aligned with President Trump, what they're saying and how they're feeling right now about this war.

01:49:54.180 I think it tells a much more accurate tale of where the base is at compared to some poll put up by, you know, whatever, ABC, NBC.

01:50:02.140 And look, ABC, NBC, if I were them and I wanted President Trump to fail, I'd tell them, yeah, sir, everybody loves what you're doing right now.

01:50:07.760 Your base, MAGA, they love it.

01:50:09.300 Look, we got this poll of, you know, however they wait.

01:50:12.180 Yeah, keep going.

01:50:13.200 Yeah, that is like, just to me, kind of blatant sabotage.

01:50:17.480 Can I ask you about your personal life?

01:50:19.380 So your wife died, and you had these two little boys, three and 18 months, and then you did manage to rebuild your life.

01:50:29.400 You took care of your kids.

01:50:30.580 You kept working, and you did find love again.

01:50:32.920 So how did that happen?

01:50:34.780 It got us a plan.

01:50:35.840 So about a year after Shannon was killed, I met my wife now, my current wife, Heather.

01:50:41.660 Heather's also a veteran. 0.97

01:50:43.200 We never knew each other in the military, had some mutual friends.

01:50:46.460 Heather got out of the military after she deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.

01:50:50.600 She did a year in both, got out of the military and decided that she wanted to go to school for sculpture.

01:50:57.560 And so she started doing kind of anti-war pro-veteran sculptures.

01:51:01.400 She was going to do a piece on Section 60, where Shannon is interned in Arlington National Cemetery.

01:51:07.040 That's where most of the Global War on Terror veterans are in Section 60.

01:51:09.700 and so she she contacted me and just said hey i want to do this this piece uh on several veterans

01:51:15.040 your wife being one of them um is that okay with you and so we we started talking i had moved back

01:51:19.780 to the west coast where i'm from at the time and she she had just gotten accepted into uh a master's

01:51:26.400 of fine arts program out there uh and was planning on moving out there anyways um basically to two

01:51:31.800 miles away from where i was living uh so she did and you know the the boys had just lost their

01:51:37.320 mother. And so we introduced Heather slowly to the boys. And from there, the boys fell in love with

01:51:42.340 her. I fell in love with her and just really blessed to have her in our lives. And so we got

01:51:48.640 married in 2023. She adopted the boys formally. Since then, they just left. They're at their

01:51:53.740 homeschool co-op right now. So, you know, just God's blessed me twice with Shannon and now with

01:51:58.600 Heather. How old are the boys now? My oldest is 10 and then my youngest is 8. They both got

01:52:05.300 birthday well summer birthday so uh pretty pretty soon to be a little alert wow i mean are they do

01:52:11.120 they understand what you've done this week and what's happening vaguely yeah i think they

01:52:17.040 understand that you know obviously i'm not running off the work at four in the morning uh right now

01:52:20.600 uh but they're kind of used to me being fairly busy so i don't know if it's set in yet they

01:52:25.200 watched um about as much as you can expect an eight and a ten year old to watch over two hour

01:52:29.520 podcast with tucker they watched it the other night at at our friend's house um so they thought

01:52:34.480 was kind of cool um but i don't think it's it's fully said in yet but we we talk you know all

01:52:38.960 the time about the sacrifice that uh that shannon made and so service it's already very much a part

01:52:44.560 of their lives i think most people that have been around them for their adult lives have served in

01:52:48.640 one capacity or another would you encourage them to sign up for the u.s military this is honestly

01:52:55.280 the toughest question that i get um i'll talk about pretty much anything but i'm very very

01:52:59.680 very torn on this topic um i you couldn't have convinced me not to join the military uh basically

01:53:05.960 from the time i was my oldest son's age until i actually enlisted um my oldest son is already

01:53:11.080 saying he wants to join the military he wants to be a marine that's what you do when your parents

01:53:15.780 are in the army or the navy you gotta go to the marines um and so i understand that but i do have

01:53:21.480 some apprehensions about the way that our all-volunteer force has been used um to deploy

01:53:27.860 to these wars that didn't benefit our country. So I'm very, very worried about that. And I'm

01:53:31.760 worried about my friends that are still in. I'm worried about the young men and women. It breaks

01:53:36.040 my heart to see more caskets coming back to Dover. So again, I view it as my mission, hopefully,

01:53:41.020 to get our foreign policy back to a place where we only deploy America's sons and daughters when 0.87

01:53:47.040 there is a vital national security interest. And so that the military can be a place where young

01:53:51.540 men and women can go to serve our country, knowing and trusting our leaders have their best interest

01:53:56.580 and our nation's best interest at heart.

01:53:59.180 That's a tough one.

01:54:00.460 To me, it's incredible that we had a surge in sign-ups for the U.S. military

01:54:06.980 once Trump got elected and Hegseth took over as Secretary of War.

01:54:12.280 And I think, in part, it was getting rid of wokeism in the military,

01:54:15.380 but in part, it was a trust that he would not be sending troops off senselessly

01:54:20.600 to fight pointless wars in the Middle East.

01:54:23.780 And that's why I think one of the reasons why Tucker said, and I agree,

01:54:26.380 this feels like a betrayal it feels like more than just an error it feels like a betrayal

01:54:30.760 it does and i and i understand why i understand why people feel that way i truly do um i would

01:54:37.980 just encourage them uh when they as they're feeling betrayed that we still have an opportunity

01:54:42.880 and let's communicate effectively and with with love for the movement that gave us this opportunity

01:54:48.380 to fix our country don't throw out where where trump brought us to let's communicate effectively

01:54:53.880 with president trump and say hey we we love you we respect you you in essence saved our country

01:54:58.880 we need you to do the right thing now continue the legacy that you built don't listen to these

01:55:04.540 people that are seeking to drive us into a war and to destroy your legacy trust your gut instincts

01:55:10.060 i mean if he trusts his gut instincts and he does what he ran on this country will be i think in a

01:55:14.500 good place but he's gonna have to make some very very drastic and decisive decisions but again

01:55:18.920 that is President Trump's superpower in many ways. So I am cautiously optimistic and I hope

01:55:24.260 and I pray that we can influence him to get back to his core agenda. Yes, he has so many great

01:55:30.420 things yet to do domestically, and we need him to be successful in doing them. And we need to

01:55:35.520 maintain control of the, at least the U.S. Senate, ideally both branches. Joe Kent, you're a patriot,

01:55:40.720 you're a hero. Thank you so much for telling your story and for what you did.

01:55:45.180 Megan, thank you so much for having me on. I really appreciate it.

01:55:47.060 I look forward to watching how your career evolves, and I hope we have you on again soon.

01:55:52.180 Thank you. Anytime.

01:55:53.660 Wow. Wow. What a guy, you guys. Right? What a guy.

01:55:57.860 As you know, we were supposed to be off this week. That did not work out that well.

01:56:02.380 But there was no way I was going to pass up an opportunity to speak with him.

01:56:05.120 I mean, what an interesting man.

01:56:06.500 I'd love to know your thoughts on Joe Kent and his messaging and the way he handled his principles here.

01:56:12.700 I just feel like 11 combat tours, six bronze stars, that guy has my undying respect and had every right to speak his mind.

01:56:21.180 The president can take it.

01:56:22.460 It's criticism.

01:56:23.420 That's what it is.

01:56:24.120 Ultimately, it's criticism of the president's decision.

01:56:27.000 He's able to handle that, and we're able to discuss it in a way that I think is pretty illuminating today.

01:56:32.800 Anyway, lots of love to all of you.

01:56:34.060 Have a great weekend.

01:56:35.020 I will tell you that tomorrow we will have a live program, not a live program, but a new program.

01:56:39.720 It'll be the final part of our Nancy Guthrie special series.

01:56:44.020 Ashley Banfield joins us for that.

01:56:46.240 And then we are back live, back from our home studio on Monday.

01:56:51.460 Lots of love to you all.

01:56:52.460 And we'll talk then.

01:56:54.540 Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. 0.94

01:56:56.580 No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - March 20, 2026

Behind-the-Scenes of Trump Administration Ahead of Iran War, and Potential FBI Leak Investigation, with Joe Kent ｜ Ep.1277

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