Breaking News from Pod Save America - Top Trump Official FALLS APART at Explosive Hearing

Episode Date: March 18, 2026

Tulsi Gabbard falls apart during a Capitol Hill hearing, embarrassing Donald Trump. Tommy Vietor and Jon Lovett react. CHECK OUT OUR SPONSOR: ZIP RECRUITER - http://ziprecruiter.com/CROOKED Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right, love it. Today was the Intelligence Community's annual worldwide threat assessment hearing. That is the one time per year that the top Intel nerds testified in an open setting about all the scary shit happening in the world. It also gave Democrats a chance to ask Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, why the hell she was in Fulton County, Georgia, participating in an FBI raid on an election office. I'd love some answers to that too. Not surprisingly, a lot of the hearing focused on the war with Iran on Tuesday, a top Trump administration official named Joe Kent resigned saying he could not in good conscience support the war. and that, quote, Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation. That completely contradicts Donald Trump, who said Iran was two weeks away from getting a nuclear weapon.

So here's Senator John Asoff of Georgia, trying to pin gabber down on this question of whether Iran posed an imminent threat. Let's watch. The White House stated on March 1st of this year that this war was launched and was, quote, a military campaign to eliminate the imminent nuclear threat posed by the Iranian regime, end quote. That's a statement from the White House. quote, the imminent nuclear threat posed by the Iranian regime.

Was it the assessment of the intelligence community that there was an imminent nuclear threat posed by the Iranian regime? The intelligence community assessed that Iran maintained the intention to rebuild and to continue to grow their nuclear enrichment. Was it the assessment of the intelligence community that there was a, quote, imminent nuclear threat posed by the Iranian regime? Yes or no? Senator, the only person who can determine what is and is not— not an imminent threat is the president. False. This is the worldwide threat searing where you present to Congress national intelligence, timely objective and independent of political considerations. You've stated today that the intelligence

community's assessment is that Iran's nuclear enrichment program was obliterated and that, quote, there had been no efforts since then to try to rebuild their enrichment capability. Was it the intelligence community's assessment that nevertheless, despite this obliteration, there was a, quote, imminent nuclear threat posed by the Iranian regime. Yes or no? It is not the intelligence community's responsibility to determine what is and is not an imminent threat. Okay. That is up to the president based on a volume of information.

No, it is precisely your responsibility to determine what constitutes a threat to the United States. This is the worldwide threats hearing where, as you noted in your opening testimony, quote, you represent the IC's assessment of threats. You are here to represent the ICs assessment of threats. That's a quote from your own opening statement. Incredible. Gentlemen, there's no fighting in the war room. Are you, it's out.

Look, anyway, yes, crazy. You have one job. Your one job is to assess threats to the country. Yeah. She's like being too cute by half, right? She's like trying to make some argument that, well, we provide information to the president and the president makes a judgment about it. Your job, the president doesn't tell the intelligence community what the imminent threat is.

The intelligence community presents the information the president should respond to it. But you're not going to get out of your fucking core responsibility. That's bin Laden determined to strike within the U.S. The intelligence community comes and said, hey, the system is blinking red. We have an imminent threat. You have to deal with it. That is her exact job. You cannot get out of it.

We spend billions of dollars to resource that exact job. But the president then decides, okay, what do we do about it? Right. It makes a policy determination. By the way, I do just want to say, thank you, John Ossoff for asking questions. Yes. Some of the other, some of his colleagues were doing the thing where they give fucking speeches and all of a sudden their seven minutes are up.

And like, what is the point? Why are we here? Yeah, the long, the seven minute speeches, the long windups, you got to go and you got to push them over and over again. That was great. He did a really good job. And, you know, he had kind of like, kind of like, he was smiling when he did it. He wasn't a jerk. He wasn't yelling at her.

Well, it's going back to saying, this is. the threat we're in the threats hearing and reminding her what the better job is threat assessments but the whole thing is just it's absurd on its face you're you're oh you're you're you're the president tells you what the threats are that's that's exactly backwards that's been a big problem actually recently in our history yeah he's a busy guy he's got other stuff to do uh by the way please subscribe to pot safe america here in youtube we are not going to credulously regurgitate don't Trump's claims or published, you know, five-minute verbatim interview transcripts that are glorified press releases. So help us grow, help us get good information into the YouTube algorithm by

subscribing to POTS of America, maybe like the videos, maybe share them. All right, Senator Mark Warner of Virginia also seized on a pretty telling omission from Gabbard's remarks. Let's watch that exchange. And your last paragraph on page six, as a result of Operation Midnight Hammer or Nance Nuclear Mn Program was obliterated. There's been no efforts to try to rebuild their Richmond capability, you omitted that paragraph from your oral opening. Was that because the president said there was an imminent threat two weeks? No, sir. I recognized that the time was running long and I skipped through some of the portion.

So you chose to take my oral delivered remarks. You chose to admit the parts that can contradict the president. Did she think that was going to work? Oh, we were running out of time, sir. The fuck is she doing there? What is she, she, she, no war in Iran was her whole thing. Like, now she's there. She's all t-shirts.

Yeah, she won't, she won't say Iran was an imminent threat, but she won't disagree with the president. What a, like, what is this life for to you? It's like, what do you believe the purpose of being alive on this earth is? Like, what is your goal, like, in, as a human being moving through the earth? Her and J.D. Vance, like, their reason for being in politics, at least on foreign policy, was anti-interventionism, anti-wars in the Middle East, anti-regime change wars. and both of them have gone silent now in the face of this massive one that they just started. And remember, it was back at this hearing in 2025

when Tulsi said, the intelligence community continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and the Iranian supreme leader has not authorized a nuclear weapons program. And then right before, in the run-up to the Midnight Hammer operation, they asked Trump about that and he said, I don't care what she said.

That was his quote. And then she was gone for a while doing yoga on the beach and she shows up in Fulton-Fucking County. Yep, yep. She was literally photographing herself doing yoga on the beach the day before the Venezuela operation. Warner also pressed Gabbard on Trump's claims that no one predicted Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz or attack allies in the Gulf and whether the intelligence community had briefed him on these topics.

Let's see if he gets any more information from her here. The president continues to say as well that he had no idea. It was shocked that the Iranians had moved to take over the strait of Hormuz. Did you provide any intelligence that would say that it would be that it was not likely that the Iranians would try to move on the strait? I'm not aware of those remarks, and I think those of us here at the table can point to the fact that historically,

the Iranians have always threatened to leverage their control over the street of foremost. Why would the president say he was amazed? I'm not aware of those remarks. What about the comments the president made that thought that he was surprised again, reports that Iran struck the adjacent Gulf states? Again, I'm not aware of those remarks. Did you brief the president if he starts a war of choice, that the likely result would be that Iran would strike adjacent Gulf nations and close the strait of her movement?

I have not and won't divulge internal conversations. I will say that those of us within the intelligence community continue to provide the president with all of the best objective intelligence available to inform his decisions. Wow. Well, it actually, like, she really is, like, there's only two possibilities, right? Either the intelligence community did not tell the president of this widely predicted scenario, or they did, and he ignored it. Neither is a particularly good position. Like, she's avoiding, what she's avoiding saying is pretty damning about Trump, which is he was told about this and disregarded it.

Yeah, I mean, she's basically saying, I'm not aware of those remarks trying to duck it, but they're stupid. Right, you know what I mean? It's well known that they would try to close it. the straight-horn moves. Like, every war game ever has ended with Iran doing this. So, yeah, she's like, she's trying to duck the question, but in a way, you're right, she's kind of making him sound like an idiot.

And she's looking at her herself, too, in this hearing. She's not, like, like Radcliffe in this hearing goes much further than her to kind of tow the party line. And she actually won't, you know, even as she's part of the party and just sort of fully kind of covered in this fucking mess. Yeah, I wonder if she's loading on borrow time. Because, you know, after Joe Kent resigned, the White House was on full health, like attacking him, calling him a leaker, et cetera, saying they had told.

hold the DNI's office to fire him previously because he leaks. Right, they're trying to lay it at Gabbard's feet. Yeah, so who knows. Pod Save America Breaking News is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. What's the latest trend in hiring? It's skill-based hiring, which emphasizes capabilities over education and direct experience. According to experts, this leads to faster hiring and better job performance. If you're an employer who's adopted skills-based hiring, the best way to ensure that your

applicants have the right skills is with ZipRecruiter. ZipRecruiter recommends smart screening questions to help you hone in on perfect match for your role. And right now you can try it for free at ziprecruiter.com slash crooked. ZipRecruiter's powerful matching technology finds qualified candidates fast. You can easily add ZipRecruiter screening questions to your job posts so you get the highest quality applicants. Let ZipRecruiter help you find amazing candidates with the skills you seek. Four to five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. And now you can try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash crooked.

That's ziprecruiter.com slash crooked. meet your match on ZipRecruiter. And then finally, here's Senator Warner again asking Tulsi Gabbard, why the hell she was down in Georgia for the FBI raid on an election office. Director Gabbard, the whole country knows that you were recently involved in a FBI operation to seize ballots in Fulton County, Georgia. Yet this was despite the fact that the warrant showed no foreign interference or nexus. As a matter of fact, the warrant was based entirely.

on conspiracy theories that have already been examined and rejected repeatedly. I did not participate in a law enforcement activity, nor would I, because that does not exist within my authorities. You were present on the scene. Are the photos of you on the scene? I was at Fulton County, sir, at the request of the president, and to work with the FBI to observe this action that had long been awaited. I was not aware of what was in the warrant or was not.

And what was the president's specific request for you to go to, what was the specific request that was made by the president for you to show up in Fulton County? To go and observe the FBI's activity. Do you have the answer why the president was knowing about this affidavit before it was even served? I'm not aware that the president knew about an affidavit before it was served. Then why was he sending you to Fulton County? Why the fuck was she in Fulton County? No good answer there. We still don't know.

We really don't know. We don't know anything. We don't know why she was there because she's saying she can't be part of a law enforcement operation. right, which is just to legally protect the operation itself, that she was there to observe that the truck she was in was empty. She was in some kind of empty truck. What the fuck is she doing there? Yeah, Aesoff asked her why she was photographed inside FBI evidence truck.

She goes, well, it was an empty truck. Like, oh, okay, that makes it better. Yeah, well, observing what on whose behalf to learn what? And, like, by the way, Cash Patel is just sitting there. Yeah. Like, it is a testament to just how, just how many different ways this administration is creating disasters that this hearing is a lot of the news is about Gabbard. Cash Patel is sitting right there. And like, why did you think the national intelligence director was in Fulting County?

Was that to observe how? What are we doing here? Why were you chugging beers at the Olympics? Right. John Ossev later presses her on what day Trump requested her presence at the FBI raid? She says it was the day of the raid. So like, you know, he clearly knew about it in advance. And then he calls his DNI and it's like, get your ass down to Georgia right now, day of? Right. So he wasn't aware of it in advance, but had asked you to go to, how could he, how could he not know about it in advance and have you get there in time, even if it is day? Like, what are we talking about here? Yeah, it doesn't make.

They're clearly trying to get out the fact that obviously Trump knew this FBI raid was happening, probably because he ordered it or demanded it. And then he sends Tulsi down there. That makes sense. Assov's trying to pin down, like, how he was notified, how he called, like, did he call? Like, did he call her on her phone or something? Right. What was the process here?

And she realizes she's getting trapped and sort of steps back. Right. They're to supervise. There to observe, but not participate. To what end? To learn what? Like, it's very, it's, uh, uh, if they weren't such fucking bumbling oaths, it would be genuinely, it would be more terrifying, to be honest, but we just have no idea.

Agreed. Uh, final clip of one to play. So Senator Jack Reed asked CIA director, John Ratcliffe about a comment made by Steve Whitkoff, who's Trump's golf buddy turned like envoy for everything. he's been doing, he did the Gaza peace talks, did the Iran talks, has been doing Russia, Ukraine talks. Whitkoff was asked about reports that Russia is providing Iran with intelligence to help them attack U.S. troops in the region. Whitkoff said Putin denied this to Trump and that we can take them at their word. Here's that exchange.

U.S. special invoice, Steve Whitkoff, recently stated that Russian leaders told Trump on a call that they were not sharing intelligence with Iran. RICOA's quote, we can take them at their word. Director Gabbitt and Rackett, do you take President Putin at his word? I'll go ahead and answer. No, I don't take Vladimir Putin at his word. Are they providing intelligence to the Iranians? Well, we talked about this before. In the classified session, what we can go into is that the Iranians are requesting intelligence

assistance from Russia, from China, and from other adversaries of the United States. And whether or not those countries are is something we can talk about in the classified portion. But you've made an assessment. You've analyzed traffic communications and you can... I know the answer and happy to discuss that with you in the classified portion. He's basically like knock as a fucking idiot. No. No. Of course not. Of course not. Yeah. In the midst of all this, removing sanctions on Russia, which will allow them to fund not just the war in Ukraine, but also to fund attacks on American interests,

Americans are allies. They're supposedly doing this in concert with Israel while allowing Russia to gain more money to pay for the missiles and drones that are going to attack the It is the fact that like Vance got gabbert, their whole thing was no stupid wars. And this is truly in a tough category, the dumbest fucking war that we have like ever done is in the era of these dumb fucking wars. It's indefensible, which is why she can't defend it. Fuck Tussi Gabbard. Yeah, it is nice to see Ratclav there just be like, no, it's Tebowk's a moron. Because the biggest winner of this war is with the Russians. They're making, they're reportedly making $150 million extra per day.

because the price of oil is up. We're removing sanctions on them on a temporary basis, ostensibly to reduce the cost of the price of oil, but it is not working. We're burning up all the missile interceptors that we would have given to the Ukrainians to defend, you know, Kiev from missile attacks. And, you know, I don't think that Steve Wyckoff and Jared Kushner were anywhere close to getting Putin to a peace deal, but now all the pressure is off Putin. Like he is just going to step back, say, you know, attack the U.S. for this war of choice in Iran and laugh his way to the bank. And meanwhile, Trump's response, per usual, is to attack NATO for not getting involved in a naval convoy

in the Persian Gulf when their mission is to defend Europe and prevent wars in Europe. When he's been undermining NATO and basically threatening NATO members, which is unprecedented and left people in NATO be like, well, what the fuck are we supposed to do if NATO attacks NATO? Man, you know, the fact that also like Joe Kent, the counterterrorist chief got like a anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist with a panzer tattoo is the one showing fucking moral courage in this moment by resigning because obviously Tulsa Gabbard knows this is wrong and doesn't agree with it. J.D. Vance is leaking that he was actually kind of on the fence about the whole fucking thing. It's the conspiracy theorist is the one who's standing on principle.

Yeah, this Joe Kent, weird guy. His resignation letter blamed Israel for pretty much everything, including the Iraq War, which I don't really think that that math doesn't quite pencil out, Mr. Kent. But, you know, good for him, I guess, for saying that there was no imminent threat because this guy had access to the most sensitive intelligence in the entire U.S. government. He's saying there was no imminent threat. I feel like we should, you know, listen to him on that front. Yeah. Surprising Gabber didn't get a direct question about it.

Yeah, she's terrible at her job and hopefully we'll get fired soon. All right, that is it for the breakdown of this hearing, at least the morning session. Maybe we'll be back in the afternoon, but thanks for watching. A lot happening. Subscribe to Positive America here on YouTube.