3/20/26: Saagar X Joe Kent: RESIGNATION, Israeli NUKES, Epstein, Charlie Kirk, Mike Huckabee

Summary

Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

March 20, 2026 — Saagar X Joe Kent: RESIGNATION, Israeli NUKES, Epstein, Charlie Kirk, Mike Huckabee

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Episode Overview

This episode features an in-depth interview hosted by Saagar Enjeti (with Krystal Ball off-mic) and special guest Joe Kent, the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). Joe Kent recently resigned in protest over the Trump administration’s escalating war with Iran. The discussion explores the circumstances around his resignation, the mechanics of influence in the White House, Israeli-American relations, intelligence assessments on Iran, concern over Israeli nuclear actions, the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the Epstein files, alleged intelligence operations, and the ongoing politicization of foreign policy.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Joe Kent’s Resignation: Motives and Allegations

• Background: Joe Kent became the highest-profile presidential appointee in modern U.S. history to resign at the start of a war—in this case, over escalating U.S. involvement in Iran.
• Motivation:
  • Kent describes feeling he "expended all options for helping us get out of the current state that we're in" [04:53].
  • "I could no longer be part of that in good conscience, knowing that this was a war of choice. This was the type of war that I fought in. My late wife and so many of my good friends lost their lives in." [05:09]
  • Felt that being kept from directly influencing the President necessitated resignation and public explanation.
• Allegations of Leaks: Kent denies allegations that he leaked classified information to media or Tucker Carlson. "No." [03:57]

2. Israeli Influence on U.S. Iran Policy

• Kent outlines a pattern in which Israeli officials, "in an official [or] unofficial capacity," successfully entrenched a maximalist U.S. policy on Iranian uranium enrichment, moving President Trump’s redlines through a feedback loop involving pro-Israel U.S. media and personal relationships [07:03–08:29].
• Notable critique:
  • “The Israelis force our hand in this. The only thing that was imminent about the operations in Iran was the fact that the Israelis were going to attack the Iranians, setting off a series of events that would get us deeply involved in this war.” [05:42]
  • Described a process where “their unofficial folks come in and say, hey, it's really the enrichment that's the issue. And then they would have that echoed in their pro Israel media apparatus here in the United States.” [07:03]

3. White House Decision-Making & Echo Chambers

• Kent notes being "walled off" from Trump by intermediaries, with the President existing in a “echo chamber” surrounded by a narrow set of advisors and external actors (notably Israeli) [07:03–08:29].
• On internal dissent: Despite robust initial debates before the “12 Day War,” the most recent escalation lacked such internal review, leading to riskier, more easily “captured” policy choices [25:43, 30:48].
• Saagar points to a “bespoke process” involving key Trump advisors at Mar-a-Lago and the Situation Room—bypassing traditional NSC vetting [29:04].

4. Resignation vs. Staying Inside

• Addressed critiques from the right that Kent should have stayed inside the administration: "The easiest thing for me to do was to just ... be a good soldier... It would be the easy thing to do." [09:36]
  • He advocates for a multi-pronged strategy, needing both insiders and outsiders pushing for restraint.

5. U.S. and Israeli Redlines on Iran Nuclear Program

• Kent challenges the logic and evidence behind the “no enrichment” redline, calling related intelligence “absurd.”
  • “If you got a nuclear expert in the room, they would say, no, that's not how any of this works at all.” [11:57]
  • U.S. officials “breathed life” into Israeli talking points to the detriment of sober policy debate.

6. The Prospect of Nuclear Weapon Use

• Saagar asks bluntly about the likelihood of nuclear use:
  • By the U.S.: “Relatively low”
  • By Israel: “The Israelis are the wild card … The Israelis view the threat from Iran as existential...I certainly am [worried], absolutely.” [21:53–23:18]
• Kent warns that Israeli strategic goals are not regime change in the American sense—chaos, migration, or a broken Iran would suit their aims.

7. Ground Invasion Speculation & Military Escalation

• Kent cannot confirm a ground invasion, but stresses: "If military commanders feel that their troops are in danger ... they'll deploy them." [23:39–24:52]
• On U.S. military bureaucracy: CENTCOM “is a very big war machine...if you give CENTCOM vague guidance...they're going to run until you yank them back in.” [24:52]

8. Internal Frustration and Advice to Officials

• "If you find the global warrant there, you don't have an excuse. We've seen this before." [34:43]
• Kent urges officials to consider resignation if their views are stifled: “How many lives could have been saved had more government officials said, no, I'm not going to do this?” [34:43]

9. The Dangers of Escalation — Iran

• Kent criticizes lack of clear objectives: "That has not been clearly fleshed out, that has not been clearly articulated." [37:16]
• Warns that tactical steps like occupying islands would escalate into quagmires reminiscent of Iraq and Libya, and that “killing off their leaders” will not produce moderates, but escalate hardline retaliation. [37:16–40:47]

10. Assassination Attempts & The Case of Charlie Kirk

• Saagar delves into Kent’s ominous statements about assassination attempts on Trump (Butler) and Charlie Kirk:
  • Kent on Charlie Kirk: “We did not get an opportunity to fully investigate the potential for foreign links. I'm not saying foreign governments, but I'm saying foreign links...we were stopped from finishing our job.” [41:08]
• Kent remains frustrated at being blocked from investigating possible links, especially given Kirk’s vocal internal opposition to the Iran war.
• As for Butler, Kent says: “There was never actually any, according to what we've learned from the trial, not a direct threat to the President. So that's as serious as that was.” [47:54]
• Accusations that U.S. investigations into both plots were curtailed by the FBI and DOJ.

11. On Jeffrey Epstein’s Ties to Intelligence

• Kent: “Yeah, I do, that's my opinion [Epstein was an intelligence asset].” [50:52]
• Sees Epstein as a “privateer” who did contract work with different agencies—potentially as part of a much wider, darker network.
• Acknowledges, “most Western governments would use several layers of cutouts...there'd be very limited files about it.” [53:33]

12. Israeli Espionage in the U.S. and Mike Huckabee Controversy

• Kent: “Of course [Israel still runs espionage in the U.S.]…[but] most of it, they don’t have to necessarily spy in a traditional sense. I think they've done a very good job of moving a lot of money around Washington, D.C. via influence campaigns.” [54:24]
• On Mike Huckabee inviting convicted spy Jonathan Pollard into the U.S. Embassy:
  • "It's despicable...as an intelligence officer and a veteran and as an American, there's no reason why our ambassador ... should be meeting with him." [55:38]
  • Warns of the depth of “Christian Zionist” influence and calls for a more clear-eyed policy on Israeli lobbying.

13. Rebuttal of Resignation as Political Move

• Kent dismisses speculation he’s setting up a political run: “I have no desire to run for office ever again...my goal is...to hopefully get through to the President, or to have enough public pressure that we change course.” [58:25]

14. Epstein Files and the “Distraction” Theory

• Dismisses idea that war in Iran was orchestrated solely to distract from Epstein files but admits, “It was probably a welcome distraction...if you want people to rally around the flag, start a new war." [51:46–52:19]

15. Extraterrestrial Life (Light Moment)

• Kent never saw direct evidence, but mentions hearing of credible reports and “the Sky Watcher Project.” [59:25–60:08]

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Notable Quotes by Timestamp

• On the cause of resignation:
  "I could no longer be part of that in good conscience, knowing that this was a war of choice..." — Joe Kent [05:07]
• On Israeli pressure:
  "The Israelis force our hand in this. The only thing that was imminent about the operations in Iran was the fact that the Israelis were going to attack the Iranians..." — Joe Kent [05:42]
• On media echo chamber:
  "[Israeli] unofficial folks come in and say, hey, it's really the enrichment that's the issue. And then they would have that echoed in their pro Israel media apparatus here in the United States." — Joe Kent [07:03]
• On nuclear weapons risk:
  "The Israelis are the wild card... The Israelis view the threat from Iran as existential... I certainly am [worried about nuclear use], absolutely." — Joe Kent [21:53, 23:18]
• On the danger of escalation:
  "If you commit troops to [Carg Island], they're essentially going to be used as bait... that would tactically be a massive blunder..." — Joe Kent [37:16]
• On advice to officials:
  "...If you find the global warrant there, you don't have an excuse. We've seen this before." — Joe Kent [34:43]
• On the intelligence establishment:
  "You have the right to question anyone in the U.S. government. And you should just look at the data from the last 20 plus years. Question, question every single aspect of the government, regardless of who is in power." — Joe Kent [50:09]
• On Epstein:
  "Yeah, I do [think Epstein was an intelligence asset], that's my opinion. I...never touched any of the Epstein stuff. That was all under DOJ J. Lock and key." — Joe Kent [50:52]
• On Israeli espionage:
  "Of course [Israel still runs espionage in the U.S.] ... They have so many dual citizens... But of course, Israel is a very aggressive and very competent intelligence service." — Joe Kent [54:24]
• On Mike Huckabee and Pollard:
  "[Inviting Pollard] is despicable ... But Pollard was a spy against the United States of America." — Joe Kent [55:38]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [03:30] Start of Joe Kent interview / Resignation context
• [05:07] Kent outlines motives for resignation (quote above)
• [07:03] Israeli influence on Trump/Iran redlines
• [11:57] Evidence and media for Israeli influence
• [17:51] The meaning of “imminent threat” and intelligence assessment
• [21:46] Concern over Israeli (not U.S.) nuclear first-use
• [23:39] Prospects and dangers of U.S. ground invasion
• [30:48] Breakdown of White House decision process, Mar-a-Lago/Situation Room split
• [34:43] Kent’s advice to officials who oppose current policy (quote above)
• [37:16] Why military escalation against Iran would fail
• [41:08] Charlie Kirk assassination, investigation blocked
• [47:54] Butler/Trump assassination attempt, lingering doubts, blocked investigations
• [50:52] Epstein and intelligence networks
• [54:24] Israeli espionage in the U.S.
• [55:38] Huckabee, Pollard, and religious influence in US policy

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Memorable Moments

• Saagar’s “double-click” on the Colin Powell/Iraq analogy: “What if Colin Powell had told the truth?”—a call for integrity [35:59].
• Candid discussion about nuclear risk and escalation scenarios with Israel as “wild card.”
• Saagar’s and Kent’s frank mutual critique over resignation vs. loyalty, and how best to confront a runaway foreign policy.
• Kent’s repeated distinction between “intent and capability” in threat assessment, and his frustration with the politicization of intelligence.
• Public call to government employees to speak out against war when their input is excluded.

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Where to Follow Joe Kent

• X (Twitter) account (as the main public site for updates and calls to action).
• Kent urges listeners: “Call your senator, Call your representative...tell them that you don't support this war.” [60:19]

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Tone Summary

Joe Kent is steadfast, sober, and—despite significant personal and professional risk—committed to transparency and public debate on the war. Saagar’s questioning is direct, forthright, and skeptical in tone, with a persistent focus on accountability, process failures, and the real motives behind U.S. foreign policy moves. The overall tone is deeply critical of foreign policy groupthink, ill-defined objectives, and American deference to Israeli lobbying and intelligence.

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For Listeners

This episode delivers a sobering inside view of how policy is driven in crisis; the risks of unchecked escalation; insider’s warnings about Israeli and intelligence-community influence; as well as how internal dissent is sidelined. If you want to understand the forces driving U.S.-Iran relations, the role of Israeli policy, and the stakes for democracy, this is essential listening.

Transcript

[Joe Kent]

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[Krystal Ball]

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[Saagar Enjeti]

Hey guys, Sagar and Krystal here.

[Krystal Ball]

Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election, and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show.

[Saagar Enjeti]

This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.

[Krystal Ball]

So if that is something that's important to you, Please go to BreakingPoints.com, become a member today and you'll get access to our full shows, unedited ad free and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.

[Saagar Enjeti]

We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see [e-mail] hello, everybody. We are about to record an interview with Joe Kent. He's the former NCTC director. The National Counterterrorism center resigned in protest over the Iran war. Many of the questions that we pulled were from our premium subscribers. So I just want to say at the top, thank you all very, very much. He submitted over 500. They were so helpful. I actually paraphrase many of them into many of the ones that I have that are prepared. So with all of that, let's get to. Joining us now is Joe Kent, the former NCTC director. He resigned in protest over the Iran war from the Trump administration. We have a lot of questions for him and we thank him very much for his time and his heroism. Joe, thank you so much for joining us.

[Joe Kent]

Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Oh, absolutely. Well, it's a very interesting time. I did, of course, want to give you at the very beginning an opportunity to respond. Mac, if we can go and put this up here on the screen. Multiple stories now coming out from the Trump administration alleging that you leaked classified information specifically, specifically to multiple media outlets and to Tucker Carlson. And so just at the very beginning, did you ever leak classified information of any kind?

[Joe Kent]

No.

[Saagar Enjeti]

So do you believe that this is political retribution against you?

[Joe Kent]

I do. If it's even true. I mean, these, they're saying I'm being investigated, which would be a leak onto itself. So I think this is more of a media campaign than anything else. I. So I don't even think it's necessarily retribution. They released all this at the same time my interview with Tucker was coming out. So I think they're just trying to kind of capture the narrative.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Got it. So capturing the narrative, obviously, to try to discredit some of the allegations that you've made here in public. Obviously, we believe that these are very serious. And to my knowledge, you are the highest president, highest profile presidential appointee in modern history to resign over a war and then specifically at the beginning of a war. So I do want to give you the opportunity, even though many others may have heard your explanation that you laid out in your resignation letter. Why did you decide to do this?

[Joe Kent]

So I decided to resign at this juncture because I thought that I had kind of expended all options for helping us get out of the current state that we're in. So basically, from the time that the lead up to the 12 day war happened, Operation Midnight Hammer, and then everything since, I did the best job that I could to paint an accurate picture of the intelligence and why we had more options with regards to Iran and that situation. Then the war kicked off and I saw the trajectory that we were on, and I could no longer be part of that in good conscience, knowing that this was a war of choice. This was the type of war that I fought in. My late wife and so many of my good friends lost their lives in. And I promised myself long ago if I was ever in a position of responsibility or had a way to make my voice heard, that I would be against something like this. But also what was critical for me was to really explain to the American people, but really to the President, because I couldn't get through to the President anymore more from the inside. I needed to do it from the outside. And I truly believe, and really Marco Rubio, President Trump speaker of the House, and many other government officials, public statements confirm this. I truly believe that the Israelis force our hand in this. The only thing that was imminent about the operations in Iran was the fact that the Israelis were going to attack the Iranians, setting off a series of events that would get us deeply involved in this war. So there was no imminent threat posed by Iran itself. If anything, the Iranians, since President Trump came back into office, they had showed that they were willing to, number one, get to the negotiating table, number two, that at times of conflict, they would use a very deliberate escalatory ladder because they took President Trump very, very seriously. And because, in my personal opinion, I think the data supports this. They did want to reach a deal. And we can get into all the details there. But that's basically why I felt like at this juncture, I needed to resign.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Sure. So you opened up that statement saying you no longer felt you could get to President Trump. So who specifically was keeping you away from President Trump or people like you who had those ideas?

[Joe Kent]

Look, I don't want to get into specific people. I don't want this to become a he said, she said palace intrigue of the Trump administration. I just feel like there was a wall put up around President Trump so that he was not getting a wide variety of options. And so he was kind of existing. And unfortunately, in this echo chamber where you had highly influential members of the Israeli government that would come to President Trump in an official unofficial capacity or members of his very inner circle. And they did a very effective job of moving a key red line. President Trump has always said that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. And as a matter of fact, the former Supreme Leader since 2004 had said the same thing, that Iran will not get a nuclear weapon. So the Israelis knew that actually this was very dangerous for the Israeli agenda because the Israelis wanted regime change and they saw that President Trump and the Ayatollah basically had a place where they could start negotiations. So the Israelis very, very effectively took the policy of no enrichment and they breathed life into that and they basically made that into the US Policy by having their unofficial folks come in and say, hey, it's really the enrichment that's the issue. And then they would have that echoed in their pro Israel media apparatus here in the United States. And so that was kind of all the President was hearing. And so I wanted to be able to express that to the. And I felt like I was kind of out of options to do that from the inside. And so having to go this route was the best course of action.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Right, So I guess just to make it very clear, you're not going to be specific, but you were obviously kept out of the room by your telling. If that's the case for other people in the administration, do you anticipate any other resignations of your caliber?

[Joe Kent]

I'm not sure, honestly. I know there's a lot of folks who feel the same way I do that have the same concerns and as me and they may or may not approve of the, you know, the method that I'm using right now because it does, you know, incur a lot of risk. So I, you know, honestly, I don't know. I could see it going either way.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Well, let's talk about that then. There's a theory and I've seen leveled against you within maga. One was Joe, to be a truly loyal patriot, you know, you should have stayed in the administration and you should have continued to work at this end. I believe I speak to probably some of the same people of those mind in the administration and that's their theory is I need to stay in order to try and effectuate what kind of change I have. You clearly felt that the situation was so dire that you had to end up resigning. So talk us through that process and what that interim three week period before your resignation ended up happening, what was going through your mind?

[Joe Kent]

So I completely understand the theory that you laid out and it's just like I'll Stay here, I'll stay at my level and I will continue to make a difference from the inside. I'll soldier on. And quite frankly, I did that for over 20 years and I didn't see a result and I did it for over a year here and this administrat. I think there's some places where we had some, some very significant victories. However, I felt like I had reached my maximum level of effectiveness and quite frankly, just because I had pledged to myself so many years ago that I would take action at a time like this, I felt called to do this. But I do think we need to have a multi pronged strategy and part of the strategy is keeping people that are on the inside. And I say strategy, I don't mean I'm conspiring with anybody. I don't want to start a witch hunt within the administration. But I think we need people on the inside who are still going to try to steer the ship. So for people who are frustrate within MAGA and think there should be mass resignations that wouldn't work any more than everyone's staying in kind of grinding and keeping their nose to the grindstone, I think we need people doing, you know, kind of both. So for me, I, I felt like considering the fact that I have soldiers on for so long before, I have tried this before and honestly it felt like the easiest thing for me to do was to just like kind of go back to my default mode, which is I'll be a good soldier, I'll salute, I'll move out, I'll try and make a difference. You know, it feels good being the NCTC director. People are very, you know, kind to you and you have a cool office and you have a cool title. It would be the easy thing to do. And whenever you, for me anyways, whenever I feel like I'm doing the easy thing, I always try to check myself. And I said I'm in a unique position right now because of my experiences in my past life in the military, in the CIA and even running for office, I feel like I have a pretty thick skin for this type of stuff. So I think that the most value add I can have right now is in this role. If the Israelis were able to get into President Trump's ear using the media, it's time for me to do the same.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Got it? Well, I think that's obviously very admirable. So let's talk then. The specific allegation I've seen about this is that you are misrepresenting how this went down is that you have not provided specific evidence for how the Israelis manipulated President Trump. I think that's pretty clear to your explanation. So you've talked, you know, I think in some vaguer terms about, you know, they presented shifting red lines, etc. But what did they do to get him to accept those red lines? Because ultimately he's the one who has to agree. So how did that play out?

[Joe Kent]

So, look, if I were to give very, very specific examples, I could put myself in a lot of peril. However, like what's already publicly out there. I think the Secretary of State and the President's own statements about, well, Israel was going to go, so we had to go, really tells you pretty much everything you need to know about the off balance relationship that we currently have with the State of Israel. But it works very simply. The Israeli officials would come to us either through intelligence channels or through official engagements with the President, with members of his cabinet, their counterparts. And look, these guys are, they're good, a lot of them, they're very good at what they do. A lot of them are dual citizens, native English speakers. When you deal with the Israelis, it's different than dealing with any other foreign government, really, because they sound like us, they look like us. You can get pretty comfortable with them. And they have a very competent intelligence service. They're good at what they do. And so you're kind of like a little bit, you can be impressed by the intelligence that they can offer. And so these officials would come in and they would kind of shop around different ideas and different concepts that would basically get us to the point where we would need to take action against Iran. And they knew that President Trump had always said no nuclear weapon for Iran. And so they took this line of zero enrichment, knowing that the Iranians had a red line of their own. And the Iranian red line was very pragmatic. It was that they wanted the ability to enrich uranium. And it's kind of common sense why? It's because they watched Gaddafi and Libya say, hey, I don't have any more nuclear weapons. I'll give them all up, look what happened to him. Or if you bluff where you try to develop nuclear weapons, you end up like Saddam Hussein. And so the Iranians had this, I just call it the Goldilocks solution, where they said, you know, we don't have nuclear weapons, but we could have them if we want them. And so that was their red line. So the Israelis came in and they took this talking point, and to my knowledge, and people can fact check me on this to my knowledge, the first Trump official who said no enrichment for Iran, that was Mike Pompeo in the first Trump administration. And I haven't seen anyone else come in and say, this is the US Policy. However, it was repeated enough in official channels that they can't have enrichment. Enrichment equals like Lindsey Graham would say, 10 nuclear bombs in 10 days or something. Just absolutely absurd. If you got a nuclear expert in the room, they would say, no, that's not how any of this works at all. Plus, the Ayatollah and his government had enforced their no nuclear weapons stance since 2004. And so we had no intelligence that reflected that enrichment equaled a nuclear bomb. It was pretty clear what their strategy was. So they came in with their officials and they would say, like no enrichment because enrichment equals a bomb. They would kind of just repeat it. But then they would do a good job of coordinating that with their surrogates in the pro Israeli media here in the U.S. mark Levin, Sean Hannity foundation for Defense and Democracies. They'd have it on Fox News, they'd have it in the Wall Street Journal, New York Post, et cetera. The next thing you know, they're hearing it enough that it kind of, they kind of breathe reality into it. And then we're having a debate over no enrichment and we basically reach an impasse. I think prior to the 12 Day War, again, this is just, this is just my opinion. I believe that Steve Wyckoff was on the cusp of getting a deal. Now, it wouldn't have been the Iranians just giving up everything in terms of enrichment, but they were talking about enrichment and what levels and how would it be monitored. And we are making a lot of progress. And again, every time we'd get close to a place where there's progress being made, the Israelis would come in with a bunch of crazy intelligence, usually just to see which would stick. You know, they're, they're, they're developing ballistic missiles that are being, you know, pointed directly at America that can reach America, things like this. And they would, they would try and generate enough hype to take away the President's decision making space.

[Saagar Enjeti]

So something I've noticed here is about Wyckoff. I don't know what to make of Wyckoff. I'm hoping that you can maybe shed some light on this. I was very optimistic about Steve Wyckoff and early days. Clearly him and President Trump were willing to exert a lot of influence on the Israeli government to attain a ceasefire. But then it went away. Then we ended up with a 12 day war. You said you were optimistic about those negotiations. However, a member of the British government has basically said he thought that Wyckoff and Jared Kushner were effectively acting like Israeli assets in their negotiations. So do you think that that's true? Are they Israeli assets? Are they working on our behalf? Is there some, some communication being lost in the flow here? What's your actual assessment as somebody who saw this a little bit more on the inside?

[Joe Kent]

To my knowledge, both Steve Wyckoff and Jared Kushner were doing their best to get a deal. I mean, that's all I know. I wasn't in the negotiations, so I don't want to over inflate like what my access to negotiations were. I spent a good deal of time with Jared Kushner in the previous Trump administration, and I spent a good deal of time with Steve Wyckoff in this administration. And I think that Steve Witkoff was working diligently from the time that even before President Trump was inaugurated onwards to develop the relationships necessary. Necessary to get us a deal. And like I said before, I, I truly believe that there was a deal that was very, very. That was within our sights, within reach prior to the, the 12 day war. And the fact that the negotiations picked up after the 12 Day War, it shows you where the Iranians headspace was. I mean, we, we did Midnight Hammer and you know, the Iranians launched back an equal number number of missiles at the far end of a base in Qatar they knew was empty and within short order. I mean, they were right back at the negotiating table.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah, well, let's talk about this imminent threat. So that's another thing I've seen leveled against you. Imminent threat. Only the President. Mack, we can put Director Gabbard's statement up there on the screen. She said that the ODNI and your. I guess the office you used to work for, your job was really just to assess the intelligence. The only person who can determine what is and not an imminent threat is the President. Do you believe that statement? Do you think. Do you think that statement. Because clearly you're saying that there was no imminent threat. And I'm assuming you had access to the same level of intelligence.

[Joe Kent]

I mean, this is one of the reasons why I had to resign. I think this is. I believe the DNI is speaking the truth. At the end of the day, the President was elected by the American people. So if the President wants to say, like my tolerance for imminent. Is anybody pointing a weapon generally in our direction, well, okay, okay, you're the boss. You're the commander in chief. I don't agree with that. And I had to resign because basically, if that's the bar that we're going to have, then we're going to need to start a lot more wars for a lot more countries. I think when you assess intelligence, there's intent versus capability. I think that's absolutely key. There's a lot of people who intend to do us harm, who are just some guy yelling on the Internet and they have no capability. And then there's other actors that have the capability to do us harm, and they don't have the intent. Again, we had so much data even of over 20 years of conflict with the Iranians, but especially under President Trump and the post Qasem Soleimani strike era of seeing what the Iranians exploratory ladder was, but especially since the 12 Day War, I mean, so at this juncture, when we had negotiators back in the negotiating table, it was pretty clear that the Iranians weren't going to do a preemptive strike on us, that they weren't going to strike unless they were stricken first by the Israelis. And the Israelis knew this, which is why they took the action that they did.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Right. Okay, let's talk about Trump now. So, I mean, and I'm saying this from a very visceral feeling, I truly understand what you're trying to do. You're trying to influence President Trump. You did resign in protest because you ultimately felt you can't serve. But per your reasoning, it's to try and influence Trump. Much of the meta narrative here is about how the Israelis manipulated Trump. But isn't Trump responsible? Like, he's the commander in chief. He chose to believe it. He could have called you if he wanted to. He could have called Gabbard. He could have listened to any of these people. He ultimately chose not to. Do you feel like you're stripping a little bit of agency away from the president by, I wouldn't say laying all the blame on the Israelis, but a lot of the blame on the Israelis.

[Joe Kent]

I think we'll have plenty of time for that later on. I think right now we're in a crisis. And what I want the president to know is that right now, I mean, probably for the next, you know, hopefully two weeks, but maybe even less time, he has time to turn this thing around. So that's the most important thing to me. That's the most important message I want to get out. At the end of the day, he is the commander in chief, and he understands that, and that's why I think for him to truly capture all of his tower back and for him to actually govern based on the mandate that 77 million people gave him, I think if he reflects right now on the way that this whole debacle happened and we got into the state that we're in right now with the Straits of Horn moves in peril and the price of energy and no end in site, I, I, I think the main focus has to be on getting him to, to change course. So I guess we'll, I guess we'll have this conversation again later to say, you know, who, who deserve blame later on. But right now my focus is on hopefully letting, let getting him the space to, to change his mind.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I, I, I see the tactical approach that you're trying to make here with TR and again, I really do respect it. It is just that I, I guess, you know, where we're in different positions here because my relative confidence for that happening is basically zero. Oh, what's your confidence on that?

[Joe Kent]

That I, I have hope. I hope and I, I hope and I pray like if anybody, if any leader can change his mind and change it decisively and rapidly, it's President Trump and then sell it to the American people. There's a lot of red lines, I know you and Tucker discussed them, that we need a total surrender. There's been, there has been a lot of bellicose rhetoric that that gives me concern because total surrender, it means only like one of two things, like we're going to go in and ground invade for the next, I don't know, however long it takes to conquer Iran. I don't want to find out or we're going to use you drastically a nuclear weapon or allow the Israelis to do so. However, if anyone can turn that around, it is President Trump because he has decisive people take him seriously, the Iranians will take him seriously and the Israelis will take him seriously. So look, I still have a lot of hope. I think it's possible.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Joe, what's your assessment of the use of a nuclear weapon? Do you believe that it's a possibility by the United States or by Israel?

[Joe Kent]

By the United States, I would say it's relatively low. However, the Israelis are the wild card. If you would have asked me before they shot cruise missiles or they shot ballistic missiles at Qatar, when we had active negotiations going on, I would have said there's no way they would do that, but they did. If you would have told me a year ago that the Israelis were just going to attack Iran to get Us entrenched in the conflict, I'd be like, no, I don't think that they would do that. The Israelis view the threat from Iran as existential. They also believe that this is a very, very limited time that they have to affect the result they want, which is regime change and not regime change in the way that Americans think about it. Americans think about regime change in the way we go in and we take out the leader, we put in a new guy or whatever, and then we're kind of done with it. The Israelis don't really care what happens to Iran. They just want the Ayatollah and the IRGC degraded or just completely taken out. And if chaos ensues from there, chaos in the straits of Hormuz, the country fracturing into a bunch of different warring factions, a migration crisis in Iran, Europe, they don't really care because in their minds they've taken away the threat. And from the Israeli perspective, I understand that. But that's where we have to be clear eyed as Americans and say us and our partners, who we may like in some regards have very, very different strategic goals here and we have to pursue our interests.

[Saagar Enjeti]

So you are worried about an Israeli nuclear use?

[Joe Kent]

I certainly am, absolutely. Okay. Yeah.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Okay. Well then let's talk then a little bit about, you know, this escalation. This is one of the reason here that you decided to resign. What I'm curious is in this escalation there was a lot of spec. Joe Kent's resignation means a ground invasion is coming. Can you clear that up? I mean, do you think a ground invasion is coming? What's your personal assessment?

[Joe Kent]

I don't, I. Look, I don't know any like, secret, I don't know any military plans. I couldn't give them up even if I did. But the President has said all, all options are on the table. And one thing I do know from being in combat for most of my adult life is that things can change very, very quickly. And there's decisions you think that you're going to have time to make, but you don't necessarily have that time. And if you have capabilities deployed, they tend to be used. I mean, if military commanders feel that their troops are in danger or if they've been given a military objective of, hey, we need to take out all the ballistics, we need to take out the Iranian navy, we need to take out the IRGC and they have those resources on hand, they'll deploy them. Look, I respect everybody that's at CENTCOM right now. I spent most of my life in the CENTCOM aor. But centcom is a very big war machine, and that's a good thing if you can actually rein them in. However, what I've learned in 20 plus years of seeing this play out is that if you give CENTCOM vague guidance or even kind of like relatively specific guidance, they're gonna run until you yank them back in. It's what they do. You've gotta be able to really tame that lethal machine. And that's what makes me nervous right now, where this could happen really quickly.

[Saagar Enjeti]

So my assessment, this is based on several sources, people who I've spoken to. What I'm told is that I see a lot of Pentagon leaders. They've come out anonymously and they're leaking. They're like, no, we warned Trump about the Straits of Hormuz. From what I know, that's not 100% true. Again, I am not absolving Trump of any responsibility. They certainly told him that it was going to be a potential issue, but they sold a much more optimistic vision at the beginning. This is not just the Israelis. This is also our own Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who I'm speaking about specifically. And the narrative again, that I've been told is that the people who did share that view were excised from their command, which you could see it's public knowledge, it's been reported out there. I'm curious for what you heard about the way that that went down, many of those critical meetings in the Situation Room.

[Joe Kent]

Yeah. You know, I think the imagery that's been publicly released is very telling, where you had one small group that was down in Mar? A La that night, and then you had the rest up at the Situation Room at the time. Look, in the lead up to the 12 Day War, we were having very robust debates that were part of the National Security Council process. The principal small group. We'd have the Deputies Committee meetings, we'd have very robust debates with all 18 intelligence agencies, with the Joint Chiefs Staff, et cetera. And that played out over the course of about a month in the lead up to the 12 Day War. And to include that ahead of Midnight Hammer, where a lot of us said, okay, fine, if you bomb these sites, that's all well and good. We take out Iran's ability to enrich that meets our strategic objective. Problem is, the Israelis are going to come right back to us in a couple months and demand more because their goals, regime changed. They're not beating around the bush about this. And so that was known. And so from my optic in the lead up to this last iteration, that process didn't play out and people can say, oh, Kent doesn't know because he wasn't invited. But I can tell you the robust debate with the Deputies Committees, National Security Council that simply wasn't happening.

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[Saagar Enjeti]

[e-mail] so to non nerd speak, I think this is important. What you just laid out is a normal process. The Deputies Committee, Principals Committee, nsc. All options and views are presented to the President. Even the Iraq War. The most disastrous thing in the world, or at least in my lifetime, that played out that way. That's how it did. You can go and you can read about it. What you are talking about is effectively a bespoke process which played out with some advisors down in Mar A Lago, others in the Situation Room. I guess you are confirming, by the way, the White House told us that there was nothing to be seen about that. But from your telling, obviously there was something that we could gleam a little bit from that takeaway. So I do think it's very important to say then that if some bespoke process played out, we have to really investigate that bespoke process and the information that's not that was getting to Trump then and also now. And so I, again, I respect your want to not play the ins, the, what was it, the palace intrigue story. But I will say for people like me, it is deeply frustrating to watch people who told us to our face privately and publicly, we're not going to do this. And then it happened. And what we've seen publicly reported is that when you took your concerns to the vice president and to the DNI that they told you not to make a big thing about it. I, I wonder if you can comment about your frustration, first of all, if you can tell us whether that report is true or not. But really to just to tell us what that tension is like for the people who ostensibly did share those views and what they're doing right now in the way that they're even voicing any concern to Donald Trump

[Joe Kent]

in terms of the process. It was, it was just frustrating to see the stark night and day difference. I was, I got to a place where I was okay with, with Midnight Hammer because we had had such a robust debate. And I've heard criticisms of me where they say, hey, if you, if you don't like what the president's doing as one of his appointees, then go ahead and voice your op behind closed doors, offer other options. When he smacks the table, you salute and move out. Okay, that was, that was where I was at with the 12 day war and with Midnight Hammer because our voices were heard. It was a robust debate. And at the end of the day, hey, you know, we lose, whatever, that's fine. Live the fight another day. This last iteration, like I said that that didn't play out neither if they wanted to just kick me out. You know, I've heard people say, well, they kicked Ken out because, you know, whatever he, he talked to Tucker Carlson or something, okay, that's fine. But then There still was plenty of other deputies they could have had had in that meeting. Actually a pretty robust staff that was. That would offer a wide variety of options. And I just didn't see that play out. And there is frustration with that internally. And like we talked about before, there's some guys who say, okay, I'm going to stay here, I'm going to stay, you know, keep my eyes on target. And I think there's others that may be considering leaving. Obviously, I report to the nctc. Directors have an odd job. You're a presidential appointee, President's chief counterterrorism advisor. So I technically report to the President, but then like for administrative funct, I also report to the dni, but I'm also her counterterrorism advisor and just, you know, to be, obviously, I think most people know friends with Tulsi prior to being in these positions. I served as her Chief of Staff before I was confirmed. I ran the beachhead team and the landing team for her before she was confirmed. So we have a good relationship. I brought my frustrations to her over and over again. And then same thing. The Vice President has always been, and I'd say given me probably more time than he should, very, very generous. He's got a lot of people that want to get in his ear and he would always give me the time of day whenever I said I had a concern. So I'm deeply appreciative of that. And so he would hear me out. When it came time for me to resign, I wanted to do it the proper way. I said, hey, I'm happy to take my letter in to the President and to resign to him, if that's proper. I got to speak with the Vice President. One on one, the DNI joined us. And then later I got a phone call from the President. President. But that was kind of the way it went down.

[Saagar Enjeti]

So then how did you make of it when the president, Mack, I think we have this. He said he always thought you were weak on security. I mean, how does that feel? Personally, I. I assume you knew it was coming of some kind, but genuinely, like as a person who served your country, who served multiple combat tours, who lost your wife in combat, I mean, how does that feel? Does it make you question, you know, how this all went down the last year, probably two years of your life that you dedicated to serving him, to helping him get.

[Joe Kent]

No, I mean, all things considered, I wrote a pretty pointed letter. And for him to say that, you know, weak on security, I've seen the President be much harder on peaking before. So, like, look, I kind of knew it was coming. People got to say what they got to say. Yeah. So at the end of the day, I had. Before I left, I had a really good phone call with the president. He called me, and I believe that we parted on good terms.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Okay. I mean, I think that's admirable. I do think it's kind of interesting. I've been talking, you know, about your situation with a lot of people. You're one of the only whistleblowers I've ever. If you don't, you don't have to call yourself that. I'm saying I'm elevating you. Somebody who's resigned. You're not whistleblowing or leaking anything. I just want to be very clear. But somebody of that caliber who is coming out, resigning in protest, who still seems to have some confidence in leadership. And I mean, we've talked about how you're squaring that circle, and again, I appreciate it because you're trying to make a tactical point about the problems that we have. At what point, though, do you think that other people need to follow your lead? Is it a ground invasion? Is it a, you know, a consideration of. Is it a feeling of not having your voice heard? Like a lot of people are going to listen to you right now for guidance. I know that for a fact. We're working in the United States government. What's your advice to them for the people who share your view?

[Joe Kent]

I think for my former colleagues, once they reach a point where they think that their, their advice and their counsel is not being heard, they need to consider doing, doing what I did, and the calculus is going to be different for everybody. I understand. There's, there's even like, hey, can I pay my mortgage next week? There's, there's, there's those types of considerations as well. However, I would just really implore my former colleagues to just think about where we were at this time in 2003 in the Iraq war, How many lives could have been saved had more government officials said, no, I'm not going to do this. And honestly, those guys kind of had an excuse. 9, 11 had just happened. We didn't have this access to media. We didn't have this access to information. I don't think our generation has an excuse. If you find the global warrant there, you don't have an excuse. We've seen this before. So I do think they need to reflect. If they're fighting in place, they're fighting from the inside. I completely respect that. However, if they reach a point where the options that they're offering aren't being heard at all and they're not even allowed in the room, they're not even allowed at the chain of command, the reports aren't even being read. They've got to reflect internally and think about how this is going to. Gonna impact future generations or impact the men and women that are gonna have to go fight and die overseas.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I, I want to just double click on that. What if Colin Powell had told the truth?

[Joe Kent]

Amen.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Can you imagine the world? Can you imagine that? What that world? The prestige of someone like that. And I, and I implore anyone listening to this to think about your comments and your background of your. You know, honestly, I think you're, you're almost faithful, perhaps to a fault, to the administration, which I don't think has treated you particularly well. But to look at somebod who has the courage and to think and reflect about what that could have had some sort of impact, maybe we'll get there at the end, it may be possible, but you probably want to be doing something about it, unlike Colin Powell, who went along and lied to the American people. Moving on here a little bit with Iran. A lot of our audience, we asked them for questions because you knew we were coming on. A lot of them actually. Want to hear some of your tactical breakdown. Why would would. Because, I mean, one of the presumptions in your resignation is that more military escalation with Iran is bad, is a nightmare. Why don't you lay out that case beyond just loss of American life. American presidents can stomach that if it's for a greater objective. Clearly you disagree. Why would more escalation or any sort of ground invasion, even a limited one like Carg island, why would that cross a line for you? And why do you think it's a bad idea?

[Joe Kent]

Well, let's just start with. Actually, let's start with probably the most important thing saying. The most important thing if you're going to commit troops to a fight is you have to state up front what your strategic objective is. Why are we doing this? When this is all said and done, this will look like what. And that has not been clearly fleshed out, that has not been clearly articulated. We've said very vague things like, well, Iran's not gonna have a nuclear weapon. We're going to take away their ballistic missiles, we're going to take away their navy. Those are, those are tactical things, taking away equipment, essentially capability. Those are tactical capabilities. I know some of them technically, for the wonks out there have strategic. Have strategic impact, but that's not a true end state. We actually have to have a true end state. And if we're going to go with the whole regime change thing, we've got enough data from the last 20 years that anytime we try it, it ends up screwing up the region even more. So I think, number one, that homework hasn't been done as far as putting people on Carg Island. I mean, I don't think you need to be a tactician to say if you commit troops to that, they're essentially going to be used as bait. Because Iran, regardless of how degraded we think some of their capabilities are, they can pin down that island with. With a good deal of ballistic missile, a good deal of drone fire. They could essentially cut off the straits. And then. Then any ship that goes to reinforce them, any airplane that goes to reinforce them, it's just a matter of time before they can pick them off as well. So I think that that would tactically be a massive blunder and we would lose lives. And if we lose lives, then we're stuck in this cycle of, well, we lost lives. We have to double down and avenge them, and we have to commit more. Taking the island didn't work. So now we just got to take all the beachheads and we'll secure the Straits of Hormuz by having soldiers and Marines, you know, like, on the shore. And for how long? For what end? Once again? So this is where I think the fight there is just. It could just end up being a massive quagmire. And look, and if our goal is regime change, the last thing that we should have done was kill the last ayatollah who was putting a lid on the development of a nuclear weapon. And look, there's no formula to. I think a lot of folks would have you believe, and this is kind of the Israeli theory of the case. If you kill enough of these guys, you're eventually going to get to the moderates. That's not the way this works. Every. If you kill these guys, you're going to get more and more radical people. There's always been a tension in Iran between, you know, hardliners and the clergy and some of the more moderates, but then the IRGC in particular, and the irgc, these are. These are the soldiers of Qasem Solmani. And Somani was like, literally a very, very hardcore Competent General. The IRGC's leadership. These guys cut their teeth. They grew up fighting in the Iraq Iran war. They grew up fighting us in Iraq. They Grew up fighting with Lebanese Hezbollah against the Israelis and then most of them fought heavily against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. These are battle hardened guys and they've been screaming essentially at the clergy and a lot of the political leadership, like the guy who the Israelis just killed, Laranjani and some of the other ones, Arachi, that hey, you're going too soft on the Americans, like let's go, let's throw down, let's use our proxies, let's get deeper and deeper, deeper and deeper, engaged in this. And so I think a major problem in the major quagmire we could have is that if we continue this cycle of just killing off their leaders, the whole country, their fragments into absolute chaos, which is going to have the Libya effect on steroids or we're going to just continue to get more and more hardline folks and that's going to keep like what the effect that's going to have on the Straits of Hormuz that's going to impact global energy way more than it already even has in terms of not just fuel production, not just natural gas, but also what's going to happen to fertilizers in terms of, you know, being able to grow crops, cops. So these are very, very big issues that again, I don't think we did our homework on in terms of what's our strategic objective.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah, I want to turn a little bit to some comments you made with Tucker Carlson. You made some very ominous comments about the Butler assassination attempt and about Charlie Kirk's assassination. And I want to be super clear, like do you think that there was foreign involvement in the Charlie Kirk assassination?

[Joe Kent]

The only thing that I will say for certain is that we did not get an opportunity to fully investigate the potential for foreign links. I'm not saying foreign governments, but I'm saying foreign links. That was NCTC's role. And I think just even a casual observer of the Charlie Kirk case will say, hey, I know we got the guy that has his fingerprints on the gun. So it sounds like it's a slam dunk case, but most people, they know that there was folks posting online ahead of time that Charlie Kirk's gonna die at UVU on this specific date. And so it seems that the investigation is complet. What I can tell you from, from our vantage point, from what NCTC's function was supposed to be, was investigating foreign links. And without getting into too many details, I can just say we didn't get the opportunity to fully run down every lead with foreign links. I'm not Implicating any government. I'm not implicating any people. I'm just saying we were stopped from finishing our job.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Okay. And then tying that in. Back to the Iran question, clearly. I mean, look, I do frankly think there's been a lot of conspiracy stuff out there.

[Joe Kent]

There.

[Saagar Enjeti]

However, you, as you testified to in your Tucker interview, Charlie was a very vocal voice behind the scenes against the war with Iran. And what I'm trying to square is why. Why exactly that this assassination has. This assassination has become almost like fan fiction, you know, in a really disgusting, grotesque way. In my opinion, however, when somebody's so credible like you, who is in charge of potential exploring foreign or foreign links, I have to take very, very seriously. So do you remain, like, committed to this? I guess committed to an anger or a frustration that you weren't allowed to do so? And is. Do you think that that had a potential impact on the current situation that we're in?

[Joe Kent]

Look, Charlie was one of the most vocal advocates that had access to the president from the outside against going to war with Iran. And at some point, we have to look at, like, the bigger picture. So you've given me credit for being very gracious to President Trump, and I am. I think President Trump has a lot of agency and I think he can turn this around. We got on this topic on Tucker's program because he said, like, we. We know Trump is a smart guy. Why didn't he let this happen? And I said, there's. There's two schools of thought. One is the most likely, which is what I outlined basically in my letter and what we've been talking about up to this point. The second is if you just take a look at the totality of things that could influence President Trump's decision making, you have the assassination attempts attempt in Butler, that in theory, the assassination attempt in Butler is not linked, according to the official narrative, to what took place with Asif Merchant, who was hired by the Iranians to come to America, hire a sniper, arrested two days prior to Butler. That case is shut. We're not allowed to ask any questions or see if there's any linkage between him and Crooks. We were told that Crooks was just a lone gunman, no online presence. We attempted to look into that, too, and essentially we're blocked by the FBI. And I know, damn. Bongino disputes that, that. However, Tucker Carlson himself, his own investigative reporters, dug up the fact that Thomas Crooks did indeed have an online Persona. And so all I'm saying is, like, we need to run that down because those are potential foreign links as well. As a matter of fact, Tucker's investigative journalists found some of those. So Trump's life was threatened a few different times before he even took office in a very real way, obviously the most real way in Butler. And there's lots of unanswered questions there. And then there's multiple breaches of President Trump's security perimeter. And then we have what happened with Charlie. And Charlie was vocal against the 12 day war. He was vocal against Midnight Hammer, eventually got on board because he supported the president. But in the lead up to Midnight Hammer, Charlie was in the Oval Office. And Brett Weinstein's confirmed this with text messages. Others have as well. People can say that Charlie and I didn't talk, but like I said on Tucker the last time I saw him, and I can't pretend to be close with Charlie, I didn't even. I didn't text messages from, but he saw me in the hallway and we spoke a lot during the transition. He said, stop us from getting into war with Iran. And he was there to lobby the president for that. That. And then after Midnight Hammer, a lot of us in the more restrained camp said, the Israelis are going to come back to us and ask us to do this again. And Charlie was aware of that as well. Then Charlie is killed in September again, same thing. Are there blinks? Is there more leads to run down? All of that is stopped. And here we are with a nice, clean narrative that we're really kind of yelled at for questioning, which I don't fully understand. And so if you take all those things, things in totality, and I think one of President Trump's strong suits is he can take in large sets of information and he can come up with what the leverage points are, what the vulnerabilities are and what his interest is. And so whether or not there is some grand conspiracy or not, there is a potential that he views all of that as a deciding factor. Again, that's not my number one theory of the case. But for some people who are saying President Trump is too stupid or too smart to fall for all of this, and I don't think he necessarily fell for it. I just think with the ecosystem that was created, I think he was heavily influenced, the alternative course of action is that he is under some degree of coercion. And so that's what Tucker and I were discussing there.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah, well, I mean, that's why I brought it up. I mean, this is shocking stuff. And to have somebody of your caliber with the highest security clearance who served in the United States government, who served at the pleasure of the president. President, bring it up. I mean, it really troubles me. And I talked about it on our show yesterday. I genuinely dismissed a lot of this as Kookery. But to hear you talk about that makes me really question whether some of my initial dismissing specifically around Charlie Kirk was wrong or not. And so. And you continue to, to believe that there was at, you know, a blocking of your investigation and that whether I guess, some plot or not, that it created a potential impression in Trump's mind. Mind. I do want to make sure though, on this Butler assassination, this Iranian alleged assassination attempt. Mac, we have that screenshot. Trump said, I believe I got the Ayatollah before he got me. So does your impression here then? He says, they tried me twice. Is your impression that this was an actual Iranian plot? Is it an Israeli plot? Because if it, only if it was an Israeli plot, would it make sense to try and box him into something, some sort of attack on Iran? What's your assessment here of the actual plot itself that was supposed or may have been tied to Butler?

[Joe Kent]

So after Trump killed Qassem Soleimani, the Iranians were rather vocal. I mean, you can find most of this, I mean, they said a lot of it publicly that they were going to avenge Qassem Salmani by targeting President Trump. So that's known. The only person that we know of that actually was deployed to America to work on this is Asif Mershant. And we know the Iranians sent him over here. Here. We, we gained knowledge. So do we know that?

[Saagar Enjeti]

See, see, that's my thing. Do we know that for sure? Like that? That's what I'm asking you, is that, was he, was he actually sent by the government of Iran, Your assessment?

[Joe Kent]

To my, to my knowledge, he was. To my knowledge he was. Now, again, like, intent versus capability with the Iranians, they have other capabilities. And so I, I think the Iranians are pretty competent when they want to be. This seemed pretty half assed to me if they were serious, because these guys are serious. They know what it takes. I mean, come on, cost him some money. The people that he trained, Hezbollah, like, when they're serious, they deploy serious people. I mean, you can look at the trial that's now been covered in Maran. He's not a serious guy. Could be dangerous. You have to take it seriously because, you know, unserious people can commit violence. And so, sure, I'm not downplaying the risk. I'm just saying didn't seem to Be that serious to me. But to my knowledge, the Iranians did deploy. They recruited him, they deployed him, he came here to the US we had prior knowledge of that through intelligence means. And so when he came to America, he was basically, you know, in the pocket, unbeknownst to him of the FBI. The FBI then leveraged a confidential human source at him. So there was never actually any, according to what we've learned from the trial, not a direct threat to the President. So that's as serious as that was. Now there, there wasn't, in my opinion, enough due diligence done to see if there was anyone else that merchant was speaking with that could be tied to Butler because Butler. Butler got wrapped up just so quickly. And all the requests that we made once we came in to the FBI and to the DOJ to investigate leads that could confirm or deny whether or not there was any linkage between anyone that Mershant and in particular the human source they used and Butler crooks or anyone in Butler, those were all denied that. That wasn't looked into. And it's been publicly reported that the DHS Inspector General, he's also been blocked from investigating a lot of the DHS activities that day on the ground in Butler. Butler.

[Saagar Enjeti]

So ask you just final thought on this about the FBI. You know, many of us have read over the years. I've, I, I will tell you what made me a lot more libertarian during the global war on terror was reading the indictments of a lot of these terrorists where I'm like, is this a terrorist or is this entrapment? And so what is your assessment of the FBI having been blocked or seen blocking two investigations? Like do you trust these individuals to really carry out their duties? Kash Patel, Specifically. Specifically,

[Joe Kent]

look, I don't want to ruin any ongoing investigations. Again, the palace intrigue I really don't want to make a part of. But what I think is important is for us as Americans to exercise our God given constitutional rights. This is a beautiful country. I took a note to support and defend the Constitution, fought for it. You have the right to question anyone in the U.S. government. And you should just look at the data from the last 20 plus years. Question, question every single aspect of the government, regardless of who is in power.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Okay. All right. I do want to also ask you about Jeffrey Epstein. So you had, I'm sure you probably have been reading the news. You were inside the administration also at this time. You did have a very high level security clearance. Do you think that Jeffrey Epstein was an intelligence asset?

[Joe Kent]

Yeah, I do that's my opinion. I, I, the nctc, we never touched any of the Epstein stuff. That was all under DOJ J. Lock and key. So I don't really have any insider knowledge beyond what I've read personally. Same stuff you've read on the Internet, but yeah, to some degree. Now, was he a freebooter, a privateer who occasionally would do contract work with different intelligence agencies? That's just my opinion. That's kind of the realm that he was in. But there's obviously something much darker there. There's something else that speaks to just the power dynamics in our world. I think that's in those files. And I think we should, again, again, we should continue to question everything about those files and we should demand that our government actually gives us transparency.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I, I agree. Well, considering that, you know, our colleagues over at Dropside News, they commissioned a poll. A lot of Americans believe that the war in Iran was to distract from the Epstein files. Do you think there's any credence to that idea?

[Joe Kent]

That's an interesting theory. And I actually, but I would say I would disagree just in the sense that the, the drumbeat for the war with Iran has been going on, I think, longer than most people knew. What Epstein who Epste. So, But I think it was probably a welcome distraction considering how much it was in the news, because again, if you want people to rally around the flag, start a new war, that's kind of like politics 101, tragically. So I think that factor. But I don't think it was specifically for Epstein. Had the Epstein files never existed, there'd still be, unfortunately, a neoconservative Israeli lobby for a war with Iran.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah. Sticking, I think, a little bit with the Epstein question. That's another one. And look, I'm not saying I believe this, but I have seen a lot of people who do they think you talk there about Trump potentially being influenced by a threat to his safety. Another theory is about Epstein. His conduct around Epstein has been bizarre, if we're being honest. I can say that you don't have to say it. Do you think there's any credence to that?

[Joe Kent]

I think if Trump was in the Epstein files, they would have used it to take him out long before he even got the nomination back in 2016. I just think that's. Even if you don't like Trump, I think that's just kind of obvious. But again, we go back to, we go back to. This is a, this appears to be a very powerful network. And so for people who've been Anywhere near it. Are they intimidated by it? That that's a potential.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah. And sticking with that, you know, given your assessment, you now you've worked at the highest levels of the United States intelligence community. You said you do think Epstein is an intelligence asset. Not specifically for any one country. So given your experience within that, I would just want to be very, very clear. It would not be out of the question to have powerful networks like this which are linked to United States intelligence, Israeli intelligence, Russian intelligence. Yes or no?

[Joe Kent]

Of course. Yeah. I mean, I mean, I think most Western governments would use several layers of cutouts, and all the people who could be called to testify probably actually wouldn't know anything. And it wouldn't. And there'd be very limited files about it. It's just my professional opinion.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Okay, see, I, I, and again, I, I think this is very important. It's been dismissed as a conspiracy theory theory. I think your opinion on this matter, considering your expertise here, is, is really, you know, vital because you've actually seen some of this up close. And so, you know, I think people who have been dismissing this for quite a long time should really, really take that to heart. Whenever we're talking about the Epstein story, which, of course the mainstream media, if they do want to talk about his intelligence connection, it's to Russia, never to anybody else. Last question here on Epstein and intelligence. Do you think Israeli spy operations continue on US Soil?

[Joe Kent]

Of course. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I mean, I think the Israelis run a good deal of espionage against us. I think most of it, they don't have to necessarily spy in a traditional sense. I think they've done a very good job of moving a lot of money around Washington, D.C. via influence campaigns. And again, look, man, the Israelis are good. I mean, they have so many that are dual citizens. I think there's people that work on, on their behalf who don't even think they're really working on the Israelis behalf. They just think they're doing the right thing. So I think the subtle influence and some of the, I think folks who are just sympathetic and they've been told for years that we kind of have the same objectives over and over again, carry a lot of water for them. But of course, Israel is a very aggressive and very competent intelligence service. And the Israelis pursue their national interest with a rigor that's actually pretty admirable. And I wish we could pursue our national interest for the same rigor. They do that theirs.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Right. As, as much as I criticize them, if we just had that same spirit around our own Interest. It would be amazing. What, as a veteran, as a member of the US Intelligence community, what did you think when the US Ambassador, Mike Huckabee, invited convicted spy Jonathan Pollard into the United States Embassy in Jerusalem?

[Joe Kent]

It's despicable. It's despicable. And look, I think there also is a good chance that Tucker Carson and I will get looked at by the FBI with more scrutiny than Mike Huckabee will for that. Now, look, I don't know if Huckaby cleared that. I don't know what the gain was there. But Pollard was a spy against the United States of America. And whatever, a deal was cut and he ended up going back to Israel. But in my opinion, as an intelligence officer and a veteran and as an American American, there's no reason why our ambassador, our, the president's representative in Israel should be meeting with him.

[Saagar Enjeti]

What do you think of. So, first of all, I mean, again, I'm trying to tap dance here, but for me, how do you do that, not get fired? I just don't get it. How do you do that, not get fired? You get defended by the White House, by the president. His most recent interview with Tucker Carlson. I mean, I'm curious for your view. I mean, it. Maybe it is, Jeff, genuine, considering his religious beliefs? How do you view that type of religiosity when it's paired with our actual United States government, our national interests? And what, what did it look like on the inside? Like, are there more Mike Huckabees than we know about who are working inside of this administration?

[Joe Kent]

I think with Mike Huckabee, it's genuine. I don't think he thinks he's being disloyal to America. I think he has a very strong. I don't know if I actually have the, the right. I look like he's the right religious doctrine. I think he's a Christian Zionist, Christian evangelical, and not all evangelical. I go to evangelical church, and it's not like that. So. But I think he strongly believes he is doing the right thing, which to me means, like, he probably shouldn't be the ambassador to Israel. Like, he could probably be the ambassador kind of like anywhere else, but maybe not Israel. So that's a major issue. But look, the fact that no one removed him, that does speak to the power that the Israeli lobby has on our government. And the fact that, like, you have to resign from the government and come out like I am and say this, you really can't say it from within the government and be taken seriously or even listened to. That just shows you how powerful these guys are. And it's not like they're around every corner threatening people or paying people off. But there is enough of a power dynamic there. I mean, we had. Adelson was at the dinner last night at the White House, and she gave over $100 million to the President. Like, look, these people are powerful, powerful. That's just the way politics is. And at the end of the day, again, just like our relationship with Israel on the battlefield, I think we have to look at what our relationship is with Israel here in Washington, D.C. and in terms of foreign lobbying and say, is that good for the country? And I don't think it's healthy for us to have that relationship with any country.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I completely agree. Joe, last couple questions here. There was some speculation that you had resigned to make a splash so you could run for office in the future. Is that your plan? What are you looking at?

[Joe Kent]

I ran for Congress twice, and I'm not in Congress, so if that's my plan, it'd be pretty wild. No, I have no desire to run for office ever again. I hope to serve in the government, to serve our country in some capacity once again. If it doesn't end up working out, that's fine, too. I got to fulfill my childhood dream of being a green brain, getting to go to war for my country. So right now, serving in this capacity is what I'm focused on on. Again, I have no desire to run for office. I know because I got a lot of views and stuff on Twitter. People are like, oh, you're going to run in 2028. I know the nuts and bolts of having to run for just Congress. So I can't really even wrap my head around what having to do that at the presidential level would be. So, no, my goal is. It's really clear. It's to hopefully get through to the President, either myself or to have enough public pressure that we change course here in the next couple of weeks. And we walk back from the.

[Saagar Enjeti]

This last question for issue, very near and dear to my heart. Did you ever see any evidence of extraterrestrial life while you were in government?

[Joe Kent]

I did not know I was most. Mostly in the Middle East. I. I didn't. I've got some friends who, who were pretty involved in. In looking for. For those. Those types of things.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Okay. Did you hear anything?

[Joe Kent]

Yeah, no, I. I heard a good deal. The. I think it's called the Sky Watcher Project. There, There's. There's a good deal online. I. I know one of the Guys who was involved in that, not in, like the ESP St. To signal them through. Through signals. Very credible guy. And so what he found and what he's talked about, I think is. Is worth taking a look at. But I was never. I was. I was a kind. I was a terrorism guy. And so I didn't run across any. Any aliens in terrorism.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Well, you never know. There are several orbs. There are a lot of orbs that appeared in battlefields in Syria and Mosul.

[Joe Kent]

I'll send you 100%. I've seen the footage. 100%. I saw it.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Okay. All right, fair enough. Last question, then. Where can people support. What's your plan? Where can people support you. You if they want to?

[Joe Kent]

I think my X account is probably the best place to do it. All these different podcasts and stuff I'm going to be doing. There'll be clips and stuff on there, but that's the only support, I would say, if you share my views. Call your senator, Call your representative. There's primaries and there's elections happening in 2026, and tell them that you don't support this war. Because unfortunately, some of the most active polling that's going on right now, it's getting put up on Fox News, on abc, the mainstream media, media. And for lack of better terms, I think that either those polls are fake or they're pulling just a bunch of baby boomers. And the people that are tuning into media like this who actually got President Trump into office, I don't think they're reflected in that polling. So we've got to make our voices heard on social media and by contacting your representatives.

[Saagar Enjeti]

All right, well, Joe, thank you very, very much for your time again. Yeah, we were. We got you out on the time that we needed to thank you again for the heroism and your action. I have almost never seen it in my. My life. And I think it's commendable. This fact that you don't have any plans to run again for office speaks also volumes to the mission that you're trying to accomplish here. And I hope that we can speak again sometime under better circumstances.

[Joe Kent]

Absolutely. Thank you so much. I really appreciate having me.

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