Breaking News from Pod Save America - Trump FURIOUS After Top Official Quits Over Iran War

Episode Date: March 17, 2026

Top Trump counterterrorism official Joe Kent quits over the Iran war, exposing major cracks inside the administration. Alex Wagner is joined by journalist Susan Glasser to break down the latest. CHECK OUT OUR SPONSOR: ZIP RECRUITER - http://ziprecruiter.com/CROOKED Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The war in Iran is now in its third week, and we are determined to make it everyone else's problem. In a White House meeting with Irish Prime Minister Michael Martin on Tuesday, Trump continued his double speak. I guess that's what we'll call it. Contradictory statements, senseless droning on about the straight of Hormuz, where thousands of ships remain adrift in fear of becoming the Iranian regime's next target. Here is Trump on NATO's inaction in the region, while also claiming that he doesn't need NATO's help, and also NATO was in favor of this the entire time. Take a listen. Well, we don't need too much help, and we don't need any help, actually.

In fact, we just put out a notice. I was watching over the last couple of weeks, and all of our NATO allies were very much in favor of what we did. They thought it was very important. We were just discussing it, actually, very important that we take out the nuclear threat from Iran, and we've done that. I think it is safe to say that no one else is into this, maybe not even Donald Trump, joining me today to talk through all of this and so much more, is the New Yorkers Susan Glasser,

such an expert and a brilliant mind on all of this, Susan. It's so great to have you here. Thank you for taking a little time out of your day. Oh, great to be with you, Alex. Thank you so much. And also happy St. Patrick's Day. You may not know, but these are fresh clips from the Trump Oval Office. Everybody's in a green tie.

Aaron Gobra. There it does not seem to be a pot of gold at the end of this rainbow to use a heavy-handed Irish Leprecon metaphor season. The entire war in Iran, I'm going to call it that, not an excursion, is not going well for the president. This morning, we got news that one of his own, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Joe Kent, just resigned. And this is what Donald Trump had to say about Kent's resignation just a few hours ago.

I always thought he was a nice guy, but I always thought he was weak on security, very weak on security. But when I read a statement, I realized that it's a good thing that he's out because he said that Iran was not a threat. Iran was a threat. Every country realized what a threat Iran was. Okay, Susan. First of all, I mean, yeah, it's a good thing that the director of the National Counterterrorism Center is out at a moment like this. It's not like, oh, we're dealing with counterterrorism because terrorism and counterterrorism. threats. But first of all, what is your reaction to Kent quitting and the sort of unsurprising way

in which Trump is basically saying, don't let the door hit you on the way out? Yeah. Unsurprising is the right word in the sense that, you know, Donald Trump believes loyalty is a one-way street. No question. He's not going to like something like this. But it strikes me that Trump and if you look at some of his advisors, what are they out there doing? While they're dumping on Kent, they're saying, oh, yeah, we knew he was a leaker and that he he, you know, really was a problem, security problem. He wasn't read into our secret plans. Well, then why did you appoint him in the first place?

If you knew he was a threat, why did you leave him in office for months? And I guess the real backstory here appears to be that they're expecting him to go on Tucker Carlson and kind of undermine Trump with the MAGA, real MAGA wing of the party. And right now, that is, I think, one of the big contexts we're looking at. at, right, Alex, is that Donald Trump is asking an awful lot, even of his long-suffering base, right? He's asking them to jettison what they thought was a core principle of MAGA, and that was the idea of no new wars and especially no new stupid entanglements in the Middle East. And, you know, Donald Trump, you know, he's getting increasingly sorry for himself, right? You've heard him say in recent days,

like, well, hey, wait a minute, magas, anything I say it is. So who cares? You know, if someone like Tucker Carlson disagrees with me. But of course, they're worried. And I think that's why they're reacting this way. Well, yeah. And Kent sort of gets to the soft, the soft underbelly where Trump is most vulnerable. I mean, one would argue he's all soft underbelly, but I digress, which is the pressure that this war has created amongst Trump and the, well, just in terms of the pressure it's created on the coalition hanging together. Because Kent wasn't just some, you know, never-Trump or guard Ray Lee. He was a hardcore MAGA guy. And in his resignation letter, he touches on sort of the theme that's being embraced by some of Trump's fierce critics on the right,

including Joe Rogan and Megan Kelly. This is what he writes. This is Kent's resignation letter. I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby. I cannot support sending the next generation off to fight. and die in a war that serves no benefit to the American people, nor justifies the cost of American lives. I pray that you, President Trump, will reflect upon what we are doing in Iran and who we are doing it for. The time for bold action is now you can reverse course and chart a new path for our nation, or you can allow us to slip further toward decline and chaos. You hold the cards.

I mean, that's why I feel like the Kent resignation matters, because this is adding fuel to a fire that's burning brightly in the world of Tucker Carlson and Megan Kelly. And as much as Trump says, let's a little French for you, Maga, same moi. It's clear that he doesn't have a hold on the coalition. Do you think it's truly, I say this like every six months, but do you think it's truly in danger of splintering? I mean, look, we don't know what post-Trump MAGA looks like. To a certain extent, you could see this as one of many, many skirmishes.

to come over that. You know, for now, the polls suggest that Trump is right. You know, Maga's really he. I mean, you know, it's really him. You know, if you look at the polls, for example, while before he started the war in Iran, majorities, including of Republicans, were against the idea of bombing Iran. As soon as he did it, then you saw most of the partisan Republicans coming right back home and supporting him, and that's where they are today. For nearly a decade now, Donald Trump has

defined MAGA ideology and where it broke with Republican orthodoxy, the Republicans chose to follow him, whether it was on free trade or, you know, skepticism towards Russia and Vladimir Putin. It turned out that most Republicans, by definition, if they were remaining Republicans, were willing to jettison what we saw as their principles in order to stick with Trump. So I think that's still the case, whether it will be the case in the future or not, it's hard to say. But I also, I want to point out that Kent is an example, kind of like Marjorie Taylor Green. Like, you know, the left and just, you know, non-Republican observers of Trump risk falling into the trap of being like, well, this is great. You know, here's, they're criticizing Trump without looking at who exactly they are.

You know, this is an example of the extremists who are part of the MAGA coalition, whether they disenfellation. whether they disagree with him on this particular war or not look at the, you know, sort of very overt like, oh my God, you know, the Israelis made you do it statement. This is coming from someone who has a history of participating in radical events and being criticized as being part of the sort of white nationalist far right. You know, I'm thinking of Marjorie Taylor Green and the Jewish space lasers. You know, the act of breaking with Trump on something does not. ergo, it's not like some Socratic principle that therefore, you know, this is now a liberal

internationalist. And I think it's important. No, in a word, in a few words, he's fucking bananas. Like he is fringe. He's fringe. Very, very, very. Podsave 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 that perfect match for your role. And right now, you can try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com

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Trump has asked his supporters to cross is that they're going to quite literally have to pay a price for it in terms of literally money. Like this war is getting expensive for the American taxpayer, though. the White House has not been transparent about how much it's costing every day. But also, the implications for gas and oil and energy markets are very real, which brings me to the straight of Hormuz. I mean, literally, did we think we were going to be living in a world in which, like, 17 times a day we'd be saying straight to formoose?

I didn't, but nothing is ever on my bingo card. Trump isn't a real pickle, which is putting it mildly on this, Susan. And he has gone every which way to preserve his own fragile, fragile ego. as it regards the lack of support he has among the international community in terms of helping him reopen the Strait of Hormuz. No country, I believe, as of this recording, has publicly committed to sending ships in to help protect the strait. And then after Trump has asked the European Union and NATO allies to help protect the strait, he reversed course, I believe it was yesterday, and said he was only asking allies for help, not because he actually needs the help, but to find out how they react. kind of like a mental chess game. I just want to play for people who have not heard the specifics of what these other countries have said.

A little roundup we've done as far as our allies, gauging our allies' interest in reopening the straight of foremost. Take a listen. There will be no military participation. We have a situation which we did not provoke, which we don't cause at all. We are not engaged in these actions of the U.S. US and Israel. We're not engaged in offensive actions and we will not be engaged in those actions. We will not be drawn into the wider war. There are others who would have made a different decision two weeks ago. They would have rushed the UK headlong into this war without the

full picture of what they're sending our forces into and without a plan to get us out. That is not leading. It's following. I just think that maybe threatening to invade Greenland was not the best way to reassure our allies in Europe that we're all on the same page. I am actually impressed that Europe has been so definitive publicly on not wanting to get involved in what looks like it could be a quagmire. What's your thought about how the international community has responded to Trump's begging? Yeah, no, I think you're absolutely right to underscore this, that, you know, the, the feature. for a whole decade really was that Trump's version of America first would ultimately end up with America alone. And this appears to be the moment when the whole world is sort of seeing that

unfold in real time. And I point out, by the way, it's not just European allies, Japan and South Korea, which are also highly, highly dependent on American security support, who have been intertwined with the U.S. and trying to figure out a long-term strategy for deterring Chinese resurgence in the Asia Pacific, they've also said no in a very clear-cut way. Australia also said no, as well as the European allies. And I think it's a reminder that the Greenland incident was sort of the kind of culminating shock, but there have been so many that it frayed and ultimately sort of disintegrated whatever trust there would exist between the countries. And I agree with you that I was curious to see would Europe sort of follow through on its rhetoric.

Many of them, and I've spoken with many senior officials, I'm sure you have as well, of America's allies, who said in the wake of the White House issuing an actual written statement saying that it was holding open the possibility of a military option against a NATO-Alli, Denmark, to take over its territory. That happened just six weeks ago. And after that, you know, many Europeans said, this is the breakpoint, this is a moment, you know, we finally understand there can't be going back. But remember, there was also the tariffs

just three days ago. On Friday, Donald Trump unilaterally lifted sanctions on Russian oil for the next month. In order, his advisor said, to alleviate the price pressure from the closing of the Strait of Hormuz, By the way, it did not actually do anything to alleviate the pressure. But what it did do is send potentially billions of dollars into Vladimir Putin's pocket

in order to continue waging his war of aggression against Ukraine. This is for Europeans right now, the paramount security concern. And for Trump to have done that once again without consulting with allies, at the same time he had just launched this war in the Middle East that stands to directly affect European pocketbook. even more directly than American pocketbooks. I think that was yet another in kind of a long line of Trump strategic miscalculations. And that just goes to, I think, another point that Americans, you know, at times understandably, often miss, which is that Donald Trump is not just our president for better or for worse, but essentially

the most powerful and empowered actor in the world. and he's now claiming the ability to decide for himself without any consultations with Congress, with other world leaders, things that have impact on literally millions, if not billions of people on this planet. I was just looking at a piece before we came on, Alex. You know, universities are closed in Bangladesh because of the spiking prices. Schools are closed in Pakistan because of the skyrocketing energy prices. The major summit upcoming between Trump and Xi Jinping is being postponed. You know, Ukraine is worried about its ability to get crucial air defense weapons.

Do you know that the U.S. has ordered and its allies have already used more patriot missiles in Donald Trump's two-week-old war than Ukraine has ever been provided by the U.S. and its allies in the four-year war against Russia's invasion? And, you know, and we could go on. All of this is because Donald Trump woke up one morning in Marilago and decided to roll the dice. Your point is so well taken that the implications are really the people who are going to pay for this. I mean, Americans gas prices are going to go up. But really, like, you are seeing institutional effects around the rest of the world that Donald Trump is not even sensitive to, doesn't recognize and assumes, like, are negligible in his broader sort of ego.

I don't know what we call this. ego excursion in the Middle East that's like costing thousands of lives and billions of dollars. I do wonder, given how ill-advised this all is, whether you believe there is any back-channeling going on inside the Republican Party to convince Trump, for example, not to put boots on the ground, to try and find an off-ramp, whatever that may be, to try and have a more conciliatory diplomatic attitude towards allies. I was watching the Speaker of the House Mike Johnson this morning, not something I would recommend anybody do. But he seemed to be sending, I guess, what might qualify as bat signals towards the White House as far as this war.

Let's just take a listen to Speaker Mike Johnson wearing his Irish green this morning and trying to pretend like he has much agency at all as a Speaker of House. What is he mean? Well, I think his bones are informed by the intelligence, okay? So look, it's the commander-in-chief, whomever is the president, whomever is the commander-in-chief under our constitutional system, is given a broad amount of latitude and authority. Their decisions are informed by all the intelligence and the experts, a large panel of them from the Joint Chiefs of Staff on down,

who come in and advise the president, every president makes a gut decision. And hopefully they make a prayerful decision. I think this president will as well. He's getting great advice from great people. And I very encouraged about where we are. I think this will wind down quickly. And it's going to be in the best interest of America going forward and of the whole world.

Thank you. Okay. Just like listen to the other people and wind it down quickly because that's in the best interest of America. What do you think of that, Susan? And do you think anybody is trying to tell the president this is like maybe it's not a good idea, this whole thing? Well, I mean, first of all, too, my great. Johnson's point. Actually, every president has, since George W. Bush, and including George W. Bush, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Donald Trump, every single one of them, except for Donald Trump,

did make a gut decision not to do this exact thing that Donald Trump has now chosen to do. So I think it's very important to point out that every single one of them, perhaps they weren't making decisions purely on their gut or purely on their bones, but in fact, on the basis of exactly this problematic scenario that Donald Trump has encountered. And that's not speculative. You know, geography is geography. It doesn't take a genius expert to have looked at the map and to understand the problematic situation of Iran controlling the straight of Hormuz.

And, you know, it's almost like a painful joke that Donald Trump has so much hubris. while the same time claiming, you know, that he's a map guy who wants to, you know, rewrite the map of the world and put his name on it, that he couldn't have been bothered to look at the actual damn map and understand this was exactly the scenario that deterred all of his predecessors, every single one of whom wrestled with the Iran problem in the same way, you know, that Trump has presented it and concluded very reluctantly that this kind of an operation that Trump and Israel have now mounted was was, was, was, you know, that Trump has presented it. And concluded, you know, he concluded. And concluded, and was not a good idea. And so then you're left with this question of, is there a remaining off-ramp for Donald Trump for the political reasons that you've just outlined, as well as the geopolitical ones that are going to become ever more serious by the day? And I think that's where, as we're having this conversation a little bit more than two weeks into the war, that's where I think Trump is really getting deeper and deeper in it, because the obvious off-ramps are becoming harder and harder for him to justify. And I think, you know, this is what the economist might call the sunk

cost fallacy, where he has so much now riding on an outcome and yet fewer and fewer ways to prevent what looks like a really embarrassing climb down for himself and for the United States if he walks away right now. And, you know, I have to say, Alex, we had a bunch of people to dinner a week ago, all of them, you know, foreign policy types, very smart people, and went around the table. And for just this reason, I asked everybody, you know, do you think the U.S. will still be at war a week from now? And will Donald Trump or will he have found a way to get out of it? And interestingly, every single person, except for one, said they thought he would have already gotten out of it. And I think that's because of, you know, how bad things look right now.

you know, he probably should have done that, but he didn't do that. And so you're looking at more damage. You're looking at the fact that Donald Trump and Israel killed the Supreme Leader of Iran, and now he's been replaced with the exact same name. Exactly. How can Donald Trump claim that it's a victory if Iran forced him to end the war and he ends the war with a Supreme leader named Hamene? You asked if there was any way that there could be talks to end war, and it's interesting. I thought you met with the Iranians, but you were talking about with the Republicans. The truth is, just this morning, there have been reports from Israeli sources that the U.S. killed the remaining political power broker, Ali Laranjani, who was the head of

security for the Iranian government. Without an interlocker like him, at a time when we've not seen evidence of the new Supreme Leader, and he's reported to have been in. injured. It's not even clear who the United States would make a deal with to end the war at this point. Yeah. Also, the Iranians can keep bombing or threatening to bomb the Strait of Formuz or lay mines or target U.S. oil tankers or oil tankers bound for Europe or Asia as long as they want. They control it. They're letting Chinese oil through. They're letting their own tankers through. It's their game. It's their room. And we are just invited in or not, as the case may be. So Donald Trump can say whatever, but if he ends the war with gas prices at $5 a barrel

and a new, more radical, younger version of Ayatollah Khamini in power, that ain't no end and that ain't no victory. So it will be very interesting to see what happens. Your dinner party sound way more compelling than mine, Susan. That's all I know. I mean, maybe I should try that. It sounds like a good parlor game, if not a depressing reminder of our state of affairs here in the country.

and the world. Yeah, I suppose we should have talked about the Oscars or something else instead. Well, either way, it's one battle after another. Susan Glasser, brilliant mind, lovely, lovely old-time friend of mine. Thank you for joining me for our rapid response runaway country episode. I totally appreciate it. Great to be with you, Alex. Thank you all for watching this video.

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