What A Day - MAGA Meltdown Over Trump’s War

Episode Date: March 18, 2026

Joe Kent – someone you’ve probably never heard of – made huge news on Tuesday. He was the director of the National Counterterrorism Center – until he posted a resignation letter on Twitter. In it, Kent wrote directly to President Trump: “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.” This is the first major defection from the administration over the war – and it might not be the last. For more on Kent’s letter and what it means for the MAGA Right, we spoke with Jonathan Lemire. He’s a staff writer at The Atlantic and co-host of Morning Joe on MSNOW.And in headlines, the SAVE America Act is creating real problems for Senate Majority Leader John Thune, Chief Justice John Roberts speaks out against targeting judges, and FBI Director Kash Patel hosts his own version of a meet and greet at Quantico.Show Notes: Check out Jonathan's reporting – www.theatlantic.com/author/jonathan-lemire Call Congress – 202-224-3121 Subscribe to the What A Day Newsletter – https://tinyurl.com/y4y2e9jy What A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcast Follow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/crookedmedia/ For a transcript of this episode, please visit crooked.com/whataday

It's Wednesday, March 18th. I'm Jane Koston, and this is What Today, the show that is learning something new every day from Republicans like Pennsylvania Senator Dave McCormick. Here he is on Fox News Tuesday. I mean, you have to have voter ID or you have to have an ID to get a six-pack. You have to have it to give blood. You have to have it to have a child. This is a common sense thing. I don't think actually that you need to provide ID to have a child. On today's show, President Donald Trump's beloved Save America Act is creating real problems for Senate Majority Leader John Thune. And FBI director Cash Patel is taking his rock star lifestyle to the next level with his own version of a meet-and-greet at Quantico, which doesn't vote incredibly well for the future of the FBI. But let's start with how the Iran War is dividing the Trump administration. Joe Kent, someone you've probably never heard of, made huge news on Tuesday. He was the director of the National Counterterrorism Center

until he posted a resignation letter on Twitter. In it, Kent wrote directly to President Trump, quote, 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. Kent, a veteran and former CIA officer,

was nominated to his role by President Trump in February of 2025, probably in part because he is a massive Trump supporter. But according to Trump on Tuesday, he barely knew who Joe Kent was. Your director of National Counterterrorism, Joe Kent, he just resigned today. He said he can't support your conflict with Iran. What's your reaction to that? And did you talk to him? Well, I read his statement.

I always thought he was a nice guy, but I always thought he was weak on security, very weak on security. I didn't know him well, but I thought he seemed like a pretty nice guy. So weird that Donald Trump nominated someone who was weak on security to a top national security position. Speaker Mike Johnson, on the other hand, argued Tuesday that obviously Joe Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, just didn't get the right intelligence about the war with Iran. Iran was building up ballistic missiles at such a rapid pace, and we knew that their plan was to fire them upon Americans. The commander chief and his administration had a very difficult decision to make. I don't know where Joe Kent is getting his information, but he wasn't in those briefings, clearly,

because the Secretary of State, the Secretary of War and everyone, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Kane, they had exquisite intelligence that we understood that this was a serious moment for us. So weird that someone in a top national security position wouldn't be in those meetings. Let's be clear, Joe Kent's resignation is a major blow to the Trump administration. You can tell by the fact that the White House is hitting him hard, even telling Fox News that Kent was a, quote, known leaker who had no role in planning the war in Iran. It's a clear effort to make Kent persona non-grata on the right, which hasn't exactly worked. According to Axios, Kent is due to sit down with Tucker Carlson this week.

Of course he is. This is the first major defection from the administration over the war, and it might not be the last. So for more on Kent's letter and what it means for the Magal Right, I spoke with Jonathan Lemire. He's a staff writer at the Atlantic and co-host of Morning Joe on MS Now. Jonathan, welcome to what today? Glad to be here. Thank you. On Tuesday, Joe Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, made a bombshell announcement. He is resigning over the Iran war and that, quote, Iran posed no imminent threat

to our nation. How big of a deal is this coming from a top counterterrorism official? It's a big deal. And we can get to the sort of fraught nature of his resume and beliefs in a moment. But in terms of the war and Iran, this is significant. This is a public official, a top official, breaking with the administration, offering his resignation, and most notably disagreeing with what the president and his team have said. They have justified this war. I mean, they've offered a variety of excuses, some very muddied. But Trump has said on a number of occasions that he believed Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States, potentially the United States mainland, but at the very least are assets abroad.

and Kent, who would have access to our most secret and best intelligence, broke with that. It says that's simply not the case. And he said in good conscience he couldn't continue to serve the administration as it conducts this war. He announced his decision to leave the position on Twitter. Did anything specifically stand out to you in his letter? A few things. I mean, first, let's remember this is someone who's appointed by President Trump. And it's a high-level position.

He's very close with Tulsi Gabbard, the head of the president of. DNI. One thing that has been very striking about Trump's second term is the lack of dissent from his top administration officials. Now, that was a defining characteristic of Trump 1.0. We know there was a lot of infighting. There were guardrails. Administration officials talked the president out of a lot of things, and there were even some resignations and plenty of firings. This time around, Trump deliberately stalked his administration with true believers. And it's by design that there isn't dissent. So the fact that this, arguably, Trump's most consequential decision as president, but one that

we know is not all that popular among the MAGA base would lead to what we saw today from Kent. It's notable because you referenced Trump wanting to hire true believers. And Joe Kent was a true believer. He's a 2020 election denialist. He is someone who with close relationships with a lot of people on the far right. I noted that basically he dropped this letter and then immediately agreed to do a podcast with Tucker Carlson. But can you give me a little bit more background on who Jo Kent is and how he came to lead the National Counterterrorism Center, given that now we're hearing all this backchaling from the White House, that he was a leaker and that all of this other stuff, which raises more questions.

So he was a veteran of the Iraq War. His first wife was killed in a suicide attack, a terror attack in Syria back in 2019. And we should take a moment to note here that he has believed by many to be an extremist and harbors some real conspiracy theories. He also has spoken out against Israel and a number of times. And in his letter today, that was one of his more incendiary claims that the president and therefore the United States were sort of pushed into war by Israel and Israel's powerful friends. And I'm paraphrasing just slightly, but his phrasing there set off a lot of alarms for people who said, That's an anti-Semitic trope. You know, he is someone who has a lot of ties to sort of fringe elements on the right,

and that includes Tucker Carlson, but it also includes Tulsi Gabbard. And that's why this is so interesting, because Gabbard, of course, holds a top position in the Trump administration. Now, she has been sidelined from a lot of big decisions. She wasn't involved famously in the Venezuela operation from earlier this year. She is someone who preaches more isolationist views. Right. She was selling shirts that said no war with Iran.

This was a core belief. Now, she's tried to get back in Trump's good graces on other matters of late. In fact, she's sort of been the tip of the spear and a lot of their election investigations, the 2020 nonsense, you know, probes into Arizona, Puerto Rico, and the like. But the timing is such where she's supposed to appear on Capitol Hill this week and is going to, face now really pointed questions about Joe Kent's decision to step away. Yeah, something else I keep thinking about is how much political capital did the White House spend on getting Joe Kent this job in the first place? A fair amount.

Now, it is a Senate confirmable position, so they're going to have to go down that path again with whoever his replacement might be. But I think it was a different time. Let's remember Trump is much weaker politically now than he was a year ago. You know, he was able to get through all of his nominations, with the exception of Matt Gates, who really stood no sort of chance. But it raises also this point. And you brought it up at the very beginning of our conversation here. The White House went on the offensive and really attacked Kent. You know, White House practice secretary, Carolyn Levitt took to Twitter about it. President Trump spoke about it in the Oval Office. A lot of Trump allies were deeply critical, said he was an egomaniac.

He wasn't to be trusted. He was a leaker. We didn't give him access to, like, the most sensitive material. Well, then that begs the question, why was he hired in the first place? And that's just it. That's what undermines these attacks is that clearly he was good enough for them to begin with. Right. So keeping with Kent's views and history of conspiracy theories, how seriously should we be taking what he says in this letter? I think we should take it very seriously.

First of all, on what possible domino effect in the administration. There are going to be a lot of eyes right now on Tulsi Gabbard to show. if she follows him and eventually heads for the exits. Now, she put out a statement later on Tuesday on Twitter in which she says, look, President Trump is the one who makes the ultimate decision. So she should have defended Trump in his decision-making process, but the statement is notable where she does not say she agrees with the conclusion that Iran was an imminent threat.

She says that Trump did, but she does not actually say that she herself thinks that's the case. So I think we'll be watching her. And I think this is perhaps, and again, it's only a perhaps, the first fault line in terms of the divisions within the administration about the Iran war. Because we know, polls suggest it's not popular. We know the majority of Republicans don't think this was a good idea. To that end, I keep thinking about Vice President J.D. Vance, whose place in this movement has been kind of at the forefront of the purported America First Wing, talking about how Trump would never get us into another stupid war, but former Vice President Kamala Harris obviously would.

and now he's stuck in between a rock and a hard place between the mega podcast crowd and the president. And he has not really spoken on his own about this war. Where do you think Vance goes from here, especially if he's thinking about 2028? Well, he's definitely thinking about 2028. And you're right. This is a dilemma for him. He has been noticeably absent these last couple of weeks. We have not seen him as much in terms of a public schedule.

When he has appeared, it's been much more focused. on domestic politics. Now, he is saying publicly that he supports the president, but his aides on background have offered more of a mixed picture to reporters suggesting he did voice some reservations or, you know, that, yes, he says it's the president's authority, so therefore, of course, he'll support it, but he made it clear this is not in line with his worldview. And we, you know, look, most Republicans to this point are still with Trump, but there are some whether it's Steve Bannon or Megan Kelly, there are some sort of on the extreme right who oppose it. And J.D. Vance is sort of their representative in some ways. He's made it clear he does not want to be in these foreign entanglements.

That was a key Trump campaign promise back in 2016. That's what he said too. Trump's obviously changed his tune. Vance has not. And right now, he is stuck. It's almost impossible for me to look at what's happening now without thinking to the Iraq war and thinking about, you know, how there's been a reconsideration or perhaps a performed reconsideration from a lot of lawmakers who now say they regret supporting the Iraq war 20 plus years ago. I was in high school. It can't have been that long ago. Whatever. We are watching people pick sides in real time. I know that this is a very difficult question to answer, but how do you think this war will age? We're talking a little bit about 2028. How much of a role do you think that this

conflict will play then or in the future? I think it truly depends how long it lasts. We are now, even more so than in 2003, and it is hard to believe how long ago that was. It can't have been that long ago. I was in high school. I was just out of college myself. Impossible. The news cycle moves so fast.

You know, Trump is a master at diversion tactics and changing the conversation. Now, this is different. It is war. This isn't just some scandal that's going to evaporate into the air. But I do really believe it depends on the duration. If in a few weeks, Trump does declare some sort of victory and pull out, and let's say there's a deal struck to reopen the street of Hormuz. And I will note, that's no guarantee because Iran does not really have an incentive to do so. But if that were to happen and things were to largely return to the status quo, now, I think there would be long-term, potentially very negative consequences to what we just did.

You'd have an embittered Iranian regime with no reason to ever take. trust the U.S. again in terms of negotiations, much more incentivized to work on a nuclear weapon. But in the short term, oil prices would likely fall, the troops would come home. It would not be great for Republicans, but it wouldn't necessarily be a fatal blow. But if this war continues, let's say even through late spring, early summer, and those gas prices continue to rise, there is a lot of conventional wisdom that in a midterm campaign season, a lot of views are hardened over the summer. And if gas prices are soaring and if more American lives are lost, particularly if Trump does okay, even a limited ground invasion, then that's going to be devastating for Republicans who privately admit the House likely lost, but that would really put the Senate in play too.

And then in terms of the legacy of the war, you know, what it does to cloud Trump's last two years, I mean, again, that would just be difficult to see. But there might be less of an appetite for these sort of military interventions, and he's fallen in love with them, if this really does go badly. that it's just simply too soon to say. Jonathan, as always, thank you so much for joining me. My pleasure. Happy to do it again soon. That was my conversation with Jonathan Lemire. He's a staff writer at The Atlantic and co-host of MS Now's Morning Joe. MGA is fracturing more and more every day and we're keeping track of it for you, partly because it's important and partly because it's just fun to watch. If you enjoy the infighting too, make sure to subscribe, leave a five-star review on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, watch us on YouTube and share with your friends. More to come after some ads.

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And it's got to stop. It's Wednesday, and the news is newsing really hard. So I wanted to chat with Matt Berg, Crooked's Washington correspondent, who has been reporting on the biggest stories in politics. Hey, Matt. Hey, Jane. So Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts spoke at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy on Tuesday,

offering some milk toast pushback to President Trump's and he inscrides against judges who rule against him without actually, like, saying Trump's name. Over the weekend, Trump railed at the Supreme Court for ruling against his beloved tariffs, writing on Sunday night, quote, this completely inept and embarrassing court was not what the Supreme Court of the United States was set up by our wonderful founders to be,

and adding, quote, our country was unnecessarily ransacked by the United States Supreme Court, which has become little more than a weaponized and unjust political organization. I had to yell for ransacked because it's in all caps, because it's Trump. Will this pushback from John Roberts change anything about how Trump treats judges like his personal peons? Probably not. Yeah, it probably won't do much to change Trump's mind.

I mean, even though Roberts is the chief justice, there's no sign that Trump necessarily cares that much. This matters a lot because there's a lot of important cases coming up this term like the challenge to birthright citizenship and the attempted firing of Federal Reserve Board member, Lease Cook, and even a case about mail-in ballots in some states. We've seen over and over the court has ruled in favor of Trump, especially when it comes to emergency orders with things like immigration policy and federal agency's actions. The Supreme Court is being tested harder than ever And the question now is, I mean, are conservative justices growing tired of the president? Roberts's statement there makes it seem like maybe.

And it's definitely not a good idea to make Roberts of all the justices mad. But Trump, again, clearly does not care. It's funny because Trump 100% believes that the Supreme Court's job is to rule in his favor. Like, that's why he nominated those justices. And every time the justices are like, no, no, no, like, we're independent. We're not supposed to do that. And then Trump bangs in like the Kool-Aid man being like, you are my judges. I nominated you.

You are supposed to rule on my behalf. It's just kind of funny. Maybe he thought that Roberts was nominated by him. Maybe he forgot somehow. Honestly, it would not be surprised. In other news, the Senate has been overwhelmed by Trump's favorite piece of legislation, the Save America Act, which would make it way harder to vote by requiring citizens to register with a passport or a birth certificate.

which millions of Americans either don't have or don't have access to. The Senate voted to launch debate on the legislation on Tuesday. But wait, the legislation could get worse because Trump wants to throw in a bunch of restrictions on mail-in voting, which is tough for Republicans who actually like mail-in voting, and he also wants to toss in a bunch of anti-trans bullshit. Now, what's actually funny about this terrible bill is that there's like a really good chance it doesn't pass.

And this not passing is a big problem for Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who currently lives in hell. Yeah, basically, Maga wants Thune to throw bombs and help them get whatever Trump wants, but Thune does not want to end the filibuster for this bill, and he doesn't want to do a so-called talking filibuster either. Thune is basically trying to do his job here, which is to help his party, or at least make decisions that are not going to hurt it too much in the long run. You'll often hear Thune on Hill saying, like, I have made tough decisions and not everyone's

going to like what I have to do, but these are things I have to do, and his job has made infinitely harder when Trump is posting on truth social and trying to say, I'm the leader, you're not John Thune. If Thune agreed to nuke the filibuster like Maga wants, Democrats could pretty much just take advantage of that decision when they win power again. Democrats are already confident that they're going to win the House. They could even win the Senate. Who knows? But all we know at the moment is that Thun is between a rock and a hard place. And he probably just wants this week to end even more than we do. Yeah, it's been funny because the filibuster is terrible if you have the majority and it's great if you're in the minority.

And every, like every couple of years, whoever wants the filibuster blown up switches sides. And four years ago, it was Democrats. And now it's mega Republicans. And no one remembers anything. Speaking of people who don't remember anything or know anything, FBI director Cash Patel may be Donald Trump's most effective official. When it comes to making himself look stupid a lot. His latest embarrassment involves being photographed signing pictures of himself at Quantico. Patel was outed by an attendee who posted a picture with him on LinkedIn because, of course,

it was on LinkedIn, the social media network for people who say rise and grind, but like, seriously. The person wrote of Patel, he is a humble individual who speaks highly of his agents and the people around him. I enjoyed our conversations, sir. In response to a commenter, the attendee said, Patel is a super cool dude. down to Earth and didn't rush anyone away. I'm not surprised. Again, these were people who wanted autographs from Cash Patel. This LinkedIn post was the gift that just kept on giving to.

There was a photo that came out of Cash Patel wearing a pair of colorful shoes, which led some people to say, what are those very colorful shoes that the FBI director is wearing? A pro-publico journalist William Turin confirmed that Patel was wearing a pair of customized Nike sneakers, which featured the number nine, because he's the ninth FBI director, a Punisher's skull from the Marvel Comics, and his personal logo, which is K dollar sign H. He has a personal logo. This comes after news that Cash distributed a personalized challenge coin to colleagues last year, which is basically just like a coin that symbolizes who you are, I guess, and

you give to your friends. And then, of course, Patel was partying at the Olympics recently and chugging beer. Is he really a child trapped in the FBI director's body? What do you think, Jane? He may be a child trapped in the body of the director of the FBI. I still think he would be better off going to hockey games and MMA fights and getting personalized sneakers made and not doing his actual job. The problem is I have a really bad feeling that he's going to need to do his actual job a lot more often now, and I don't like that. I don't like that he's going to need to do his job. I don't like any part of it. But Matt, I like hanging out with you. Thank you so much for joining me. Thanks for having me. And that's the news. Before we go, this year's Oscars gave us historic first,

surprise wins, and a best actor moment that ended with the winner grabbing in and out with a statue. On this week's Keep It, Ira and Lewis are joined by Guy Branham and Nina Parker to dish out the hottest takes on the night's biggest wins, shocking upsets, and unforgettable speeches. Plus the moments everyone will be arguing about for weeks. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, read the letter of the White House sent to senators outlining their offer to end the Department of Homeland Security shutdown and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading, and not just about how one of the items the list. White House is promising is to not deport U.S. citizens, like me, What Today is also a nightly newsletter.

Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe. I'm Jane Koston. And again, the White House is promising not to deport U.S. citizens in its offer to senators to end the DHS shutdown. U.S. citizens. Citizens of the United States. Maybe that's partly why the DHS is shut down. What Today is a production of Crooked Media. It's recorded in a mix by the United States. Desmond Taylor. Our associate producer is Emily Four. Our producer is Caitlin Plummer. Our video editor is Joseph Tutra. Our video producer is Johanna Case. We had production help today from Greg Walters, Matt Berg, and Ethan Oberman. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison, and our senior vice president of News and Politics is Adrian Hill. Our theme music is by Kyle Murdoch and Jordan Cantor.

We had helped today from the Associated Press. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. I don't know.