The Dictatorship

Top counterterrorism official Kent resigns over Trump’s Iran war, says Iran posed no imminent threat

Published

3 weeks ago

March 18, 2026

Top counterterrorism official Kent resigns over Trump’s Iran war, says Iran posed no imminent threat

WASHINGTON (AP) — Joe Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, announced his resignation on Tuesday, citing his concerns about the justification for military strikes in Iran and saying he “cannot in good conscience” back the Trump administration’s war.

“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 said in a statement posted on social media, making claims President Donald Trump has denied.

Kent, a former Green Beret and political candidate with connections to right-wing extremistswas confirmed last July on a 52-44 vote. As head of the National Counterterrorism Center, he was in charge of an agency tasked with analyzing and detecting terrorist threats.

His resignation demonstrates that the unease about the war within Trump’s base extends to at least one senior member of his Republican administration.

The leadership change comes at a time of heightened concern about terrorism following several recent violent attacks in the U.S.

President Donald Trump pauses after signing an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, March 16, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

Justification for Iran strikes at heart of resignation

AP AUDIO: Top counterterrorism official Kent resigns over Trump’s Iran war, says Iran posed no imminent threat

AP Washington correspondent Sagar Meghani reports on the National Counterterrorism Center’s director resigning over the Iran war.

Kent’s decision came down to the reasoning behind the strikes on Iran, he wrote in his resignation letter.

Trump has offered shifting reasons for the strikes and has pushed back on claims that Israel forced the U.S. to act. House Speaker Mike Johnson has suggested the White House believed Israel was determined to strike on its own, leaving the Republican president with a “very difficult decision.”

Speaking with reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday, Trump said he always thought Kent was “weak on security” and if someone in his administration did not believe Iran was a threat, “we don’t want those people.”

“They’re not smart people, or they’re not savvy people,” Trump said. “Iran was a tremendous threat.”

A year ago, in nominating Kent, Trump praised him as a man who had “hunted down terrorists and criminals his entire adult life.”

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, whose office oversaw Kent’s work, wrote in a social media post Tuesday that it was up to Trump to decide whether Iran posed a threat.

“After carefully reviewing all the information before him, President Trump concluded that the terrorist Islamist regime in Iran posed an imminent threat and he took action based on that conclusion,” Gabbard wrote in the post. She did not mention her own views of the strikes.

Democrats strongly opposed Kent’s confirmation because of his past ties to far-right figures and conspiracy theories. But following his resignation, Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Kent’s concerns about the war in Iran were justified.

“I strongly disagree with many of the positions he has espoused over the years, particularly those that risk politicizing our intelligence community,” Warner said. “But on this point, he is right: There was no credible evidence of an imminent threat from Iran that would justify rushing the United States into another war of choice in the Middle East.”

Johnson, though, pushed back on Kent’s claims at a press conference on Tuesday.

“I got all the briefings. We all understood that there was clearly an imminent threat that Iran was very close to the enrichment of nuclear capability and they were building missiles at a pace no one in the region could keep up with,” Johnson said.

Johnson said he is convinced that if Trump had waited “we would have mass casualties of Americans, service members and others, and our installation would have been dramatically damaged.”

Departure follows three recent acts of violence

In New York City, two men who federal authorities say were inspired by the Islamic State group took powerful homemade bombs to a far-right protest outside the mayoral mansion.

In Michigan, a naturalized citizen from Lebanon rammed his vehicle into a synagogue, where he was shot at by security before he fatally shot himself.

And in Virginia, a man previously imprisoned on a terrorism conviction opened fire in a university classroom. Officials said the attack ended when he was killed by students.

Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and FBI Director Kash Patel are scheduled to testify before lawmakers this week about threats facing the U.S., an annual hearing likely to be dominated this year by questions about the Iran war and the revelation that outdated intelligence likely led to the U.S. firing a missile that hit an elementary school in Iran and killed more than 165 people.

A veteran and former congresswoman from Hawaii, Gabbard has previously criticized talk of military strikes in Iran. Six years ago she said that “an all out war with Iran would make the wars that we’ve seen in Iraq and Afghanistan look like a picnic. It will be far more costly in lives, American lives, and American taxpayer dollars — and all towards accomplishing what goal? What objective?”

A spokesperson for Gabbard declined to answer questions about Gabbard’s views on the current strikes.

A popular figure among Trump supporters

Kent’s military background and his personal story of sacrifice made him a compelling figure among Trump supporters.

Before joining Trump’s administration, Kent ran two unsuccessful campaigns for Congress in Washington state. As a Green Beret, he saw combat in 11 deployments before retiring to join the CIA. He also endured tragedy: His wife, a Navy cryptologist, was killed by a suicide bomber in 2019 in Syria, leaving him with two young sons. Kent, 45, has since remarried.

During the United States’ chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, Kent criticized what he said was a misguided desire for nation building by some in Washington, D.C.

“It speaks to our hubris,” Kent told reporters while campaigning for Congress. “For us not to have learned from all this just shows that there are people making money and making their careers at the other end of it. They’ve been doing it on the backs and dead bodies of U.S. soldiers.”

During his 2022 congressional campaign, Kent paid Graham Jorgensen, a member of the far-right military group the Proud Boys, for consulting work. He also worked closely with Joey Gibson, the founder of the Christian nationalist group Patriot Prayer, and attracted support from a variety of far-right figures.

Early during his first campaign, Kent acknowledged that a political consultant set up a call intended to broaden his social media reach that was joined by Nick Fuentes, a popular right-wing influencer who has said that Jews are holding the U.S. “hostage” and once proclaimed that “Hitler was awesome, Hitler was right.”

Kent later disavowed those ties and stated that he rejected all “racism and bigotry.”

During his Senate confirmation hearing, Kent refused to distance himself from a conspiracy theory that federal agents instigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the Capitol, as well as false claims that Trump won the 2020 election over Democrat Joe Biden.

Republicans praised Kent’s counterterrorism qualifications, pointing to his military and intelligence experience.

Sen. Tom Cotton, the GOP chair of the Intelligence Committee, said in a floor speech that Kent had “dedicated his career to fighting terrorism and keeping Americans safe.”

___

Associated Press writers Kevin Freking and Brian Slodysko contributed to this report.

The Dictatorship

Newly created Polymarket accounts bet big on US-Iran ceasefire in hours before Trump’s announcement

Published

17 hours ago

April 10, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Newly created Polymarket accounts bet big on US-Iran ceasefire in hours before Trump’s announcement

NEW YORK (AP) — A group of new accounts on the prediction market Polymarket made highly specific, well-timed bets on whether the U.S. and Iran would reach a ceasefire on April 7, resulting in hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits for these new customers.

These bets were made even though, in the hours before a two-week ceasefire was announced on Tuesday, President Donald Trump’s rhetoric had escalated sharply and there were few signals that a ceasefire deal was imminent. Early in the day Trump had issued a warning on social media that “a whole civilization will die tonight” if Iran did not meet his demand to open the Strait of Hormuz by his 8 p.m. ET deadline.

An analysis of publicly available blockchain data from Polymarket, using the crypto analytics platform Dune, shows that at least 50 accounts, or wallets, placed substantial “Yes” bets Tuesday before Trump announced the ceasefire in a Truth Social post at around 6:30 pm ET. These were the first bets made by these particular wallets.

One of these wallets, created Tuesday around 10 am ET, placed roughly $72,000 in bets at an average price of 8.8 cents. The buy-in for each betting event ranges from $0 to $1 each, reflecting a 0% to 100% chance of what users think could happen. This Polymarket user then cashed out for a profit of $200,000.

Another, which joined the platform on April 6 and traded on this exact event, shows a win of $125,500.

Another wallet, created 12 minutes before Trump’s post, made $31,908 of “Yes” bets at 33.7 cents, and is estimated to have earned a profit of $48,500. The higher price for “Yes” at that time may have reflected the efforts late Tuesday by the government of Pakistan to get Trump to extend his deadline by two weeks.

There is also the possibility that these individual Polymarket users placed their bets expecting Trump to back down, given his habit during his second term to make bold threats only to retreat — a phenomenon his critics have derided as “Trump Always Chickens Out,” or TACO.

While some users took handsome profits, others must wait for payouts because Polymarket has labeled the April 7 Iran-U.S. ceasefire contract as “disputed,” given that Iran was still placing restrictions on ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz and missile attacks in the region continued. That dispute could take 48 hours to resolve.

Public blockchain data cannot identify who controls the new wallets. Polymarket uses proxy smart contract wallets, meaning a single user can create multiple accounts. Only Polymarket has the internal data needed to determine whether these were new users or existing users opening additional accounts.

Polymarket did not respond to a request for comment.

Rep. Blake Moore, R-Utah, who has introduced legislation to regulate prediction markets, released a statement Wednesday saying: “It’s highly unlikely that these are good-faith trades; it’s much more likely that these are insiders with access to information ahead of the public. Without some kind of restrictions, there is nothing stopping government or military officials from profiting from their positions.”

The trading pattern of newly created Polymarket accounts placing strategic, well-timed bets mirrors earlier episodes on the platform. Newly created accounts placed large wagers hours before the January capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, and made hundreds of thousands of dollars in profit. Similar clusters of accounts have also repeatedly profited from well-timed bets on military actions involving Iran.

Such bets have repeatedly raised questions from the public as well as members of Congress about whether some traders are using inside information to profit in these prediction markets. Bipartisan groups of senators as well as representatives have introduced legislation that would broaden the definition of insider trading to include prediction markets.

Even the two biggest platforms in the industry, Kalshi and Polymarket, have said they see a need to broaden the definition of insider trading on their platforms.

“This is why these markets need regulation,” said Todd Philips, a professor at Georgia State University who has written on prediction markets and the industry’s regulations. “We can’t have people trading with inside information and expect other traders are going to be OK being in these markets.”

_____

Keller reported from Albuquerque, N.M.

The Dictatorship

Trump administration looks to sanitize George Washington’s slavery history

Published

24 hours ago

April 10, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Trump administration looks to sanitize George Washington’s slavery history

Apr. 9, 2026, 5:39 PM EDT

The Trump administration’s fragile white ego is in focus yet again thanks to newly proposed changes for an exhibit in Philadelphia centered on George Washington and slavery.

The administration is being sued by the city over its efforts to whitewash Washington’s history of slave ownership from the President’s House Site, the nation’s first official presidential residence. The push has been put on hold by a judge who compared it to the censorship depicted in George Orwell’s book “1984.”

The attempted alteration of the exhibit came after a Trump executive order demanded a review of national parks and museums to bar any displays that “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living.” Last year, Trump also lobbed a puerile complaint that Smithsonian musuems focus too much on “how bad” slavery was.

And all that kvetching provides context for the changes that Trump’s administration is seeking to impose at the President’s House Site — alterations that The Philadelphia Inquirer said places the first president’s slave ownership “in a more sympathetic light.”

The Inquirer flagged government renderings showing plans for new historical panels to be installed at the site, and it seems clear that the administration’s goal is to make Washington out to be a loving patriot or conscientious objector to slavery, rather than a racist slave driver.

First, note what the Inquirer said has been removed:

The panels taken down by the Park Service in January included displays titled ‘The Dirty Business of Slavery’ and ‘Life Under Slavery,’ as well as illustrations about the Fugitive Slave Act and Ona Judge, who was enslaved by Washington and later escaped.

So the administration wants to omit detailed references to Washington’s slavery history — which Black activists fought for years to include — while also promoting a whitewashed narrative that he was a fundamentally moral man despite the whole “claiming dominion over other human beings” thing. Per the Inquirer:

For instance, on one panel titled ‘Presidents Washington and Adams on Slavery,’ the Trump administration writes that ‘Caught between his private doubts about slavery and his public responsibilities as president, George Washington navigated a nation deeply divided over slavery.’

‘Privately, George Washington often expressed discomfort with the institution and a desire to see it abolished,’ the panel continued. ‘Yet as a Virginia plantation owner, his wealth and livelihood were deeply tied to it.’

And another example:

And later in the same panel: ‘Slaves living in the President’s House experienced a greater modicum of autonomy than elsewhere in the South such as to explore the city and sometimes even attend the theater, with Washington buying the tickets.’

When a censorship regime like Trump’s sees fit to tout a slave owner’s generosity — and the “greater modicum of autonomy” he purportedly granted to those he subjected to brutal bondage and forced labor — it leaves little doubt that the fundamental goal is to sanitize history, rather than teach it thoroughly.

A White House spokesperson told the Inquirer that the administration wants to acknowledge “the full breadth of our nation’s history” and that “no piece of history should be washed away.”

But “whitewashing” truly is the most apt descriptor for a plan that includes touting George Washington as some kind of selfless, principled gift-giver while brushing past, or deliberately omitting, details about his well-documented — and extremely lucrative — history of enslaving human beings.

Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.

The Dictatorship

Thursday’s Mini-Report, 4.9.26

Published

24 hours ago

April 10, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Today’s edition of quick hits.

* Crisis conditions in Lebanon: “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel vowed on Thursday to continue striking Hezbollah in Lebanon, hours after he appeared to make a concession by saying his country would start talks with the Lebanese government about trying to disarm the Iran-backed paramilitary group.”

* In related news: “More than 80 countries — which did not include the U.S. — condemned Israel’s lethal strikes on Lebanon. … Several international leaders have condemned Israel’s intensified strikes on Lebanon, which killed more than 300 people yesterday alone, according to The Associated Press, citing the country’s health ministry.”

* This wasn’t a problem before the war: “Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei vowed today to tighten control over the Strait of Hormuz and claimed victory in the ongoing war between his country and Israel and the U.S. ‘We will definitely take the management of the Strait of Hormuz to a new phase,’ Khamenei said in a series of posts on X.”

* Inflation news: “Core inflation held above the Federal Reserve’s target before the recent surge in energy prices, according to a key gauge released Thursday that offers the central bank a snapshot of conditions leading into the Iran war. The core personal consumption expenditures price index, which excludes food and energy, rose a seasonally adjusted 3% in February, the Commerce Department reported. The all-items headline inflation measure increased 2.8%.”

* The good news is, the vaccine saves lives; the bad news is, the Trump administration doesn’t want us to know that: “The acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has delayed publication of a CDC report showing the covid-19 vaccine cut the likelihood of emergency department visits and hospitalizations for healthy adults last winter by about half, according to two scientists familiar with the decision.”

* Even for this White House, her remarks were weird: “First lady Melania Trump denied any ties to convicted sex offenders Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell on Thursday. … ‘The lies linking me with the disgraceful Jeffrey Epstein need to end today,’ the first lady began in remarks delivered from the White House. … It was not clear who or which statements or reporting she was referring to.”

* On a related note, Donald Trump told MS NOW that he didn’t know about his wife’s press statement.

* Trump’s animosity toward the NFL has reached a new stage: “The Justice Department has opened an investigation into whether the National Football League has engaged in anticompetitive tactics that harm consumers, according to people familiar with the situation.”

See you tomorrow.

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”