The Trump administration was rocked on Tuesday morning by the sudden resignation of National Counterrorism Center Director Joe Kent, who wrote that he “Could not, in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran,” because, “It is clear we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.”
Joe Kent may as well be a propagandist for the Mullah Regime. That someone with counterterrorism responsibilities could do this in the middle of major combat operations and during the DHS shutdown bespeaks “classic narcissistic injury masquerading as virtue,” as LHGrey™ said, blackmail or – who knows – MKULTRA?
On Wednesday evening, it was announced that Joe Kent is being investigated by the FBI over allegations that he leaked classified information and that this investigation preceded his resignation.
Tommy’s Podcast was joined on Tuesday afternoon by three retired Air Force commanders and an ex-Green Beret to discuss the shock announcement. Despite their disagreement with the opinions Kent expressed in his resignation letter, the panel members conveyed only reverence for Kent, who’s been well-respected in the veterans community for many years.
As we previously heard from former intelligence contractor, Tore Maras, the Iran operation was originally scheduled for after the Midterm elections but it was unexpectedly moved up. EM Burlingame says here that by initiating the Iran operation now, the administration was clearly operating under duress, which is to say under the kind of mortal threat that would cause them to act against their own best interests during an election year.
He says:
“The only reason this [the current bombing campaign] is happening is because there’s a credible threat to the United States, mounted, most likely, by members of our own f@cking intelligence community, you know – and the five assets and the Devil’s Legions. And it’s either, ‘You’re going to f@cking attack Iran for us and get this all started or we’re going to f@cking nuke Philadelphia!‘”
This is akin to what my friend, the ex-Marine SPECOPS Captain told me two weeks ago, that 5-50 million Americans might be dead right now and the whole Northern Hemisphere might be uninhabitable, because the Iranians were getting ready to arm an ICBM with a nuclear weapon – except that Burlingame thinks the perpetator might be closer to home.
Welcome to 5th Generation Warfare, where the NCTC may as well be th IRGC.
DNI Tulsi Gabbard asserted on Wednesday during her 2026 Annual Threat Assessment Briefing that Russia, China, North Korea, Iran and Pakistan are building nuclear missiles capable of striking US territory.
Podcast host, Tommy Kerrigan noted that on March 2nd, Secretary of State Marco Rubio had said that the US had launched preemptive strikes on Iran because an imminent Israeli attack would trigger Iranian retaliation against America.
Also, retired CIA officer, John Kiriakou told podcaster, Julian Dorey three months ago that the reason for Trump’s bombing campaign in Iran last summer was because the Israelis had threatened to nuke those enrichment facilities, themselves. So there’s a pervasive narrative thread about Israeli nuclear blackmail in this story, despite Trump administration denials.
Tommy’s Podcast was recorded on Tuesday afternoon, prior to President Trump re-posting an old tweet from Joe Kent in 2020 following the assassination of Qasem Soleimani, saying that the US should not sit and wait for the next attack; that Iran’s ballistic capability should be wiped out and that the lack of any US soldiers wounded or killed during the Soleimani operation was not due to any constraint on the part of the Iranians but rather a tribute to the professionalism of the US military.
IMAGE: TRUTHSocial post by President Trump on March 17, 2026 at 9:13PM
In addition, a clip from Joe Kent’s August 2024 appearance on The Shawn Ryan Show began to circulate on Tuesday night, in which he said, “Our troops in Iraq and Syria have been attacked 150-plus times by Iranian proxies.” So, Joe Kent’s position on the Iranian threat appears to have shifted dramatically since his appointment.
Another Air Force colonel, Rob Maness was less deferential to Kent than his colleagues on Tommy’s Podcast, despite his having personally raised money for him for his two political campaigns, telling Breanna Morello from InfoWars on Wednesday:
“What he is saying in the letter is the exact opposite of what he has said for years. And look, I’m not gonna character-assassinate him. The man’s a Gold Star husband. He’s got 11 combat tours, himself. He served this country but I am gonna question his judgment.
“And I am as shocked as you are, when I saw this letter drop. There’s a way to do this stuff, especially when you’re in a circumstance where the United States is conducting an industrial-scale war against the country that you’re mentioning in your resignation letter, and this was not it. So I supported Joe in his nomination for the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, but I am questioning all of that, at this point.
“Look, we’ve had four Islamic terrorist attacks, and one of them directly linked to Hezbollah, the one against the kids’ school in Michigan, the attempt where the terrorist was fortunately killed by private security guards before he could blow his vehicle up and kill a bunch of kids with his AR.
“So this is a problem that goes far beyond just Joe Kent. He’s given our enemies a tool and a set of tools to use against us in the propaganda part of the war, and he’s now enabled the left and the media in the left to question the judgment of initiating the combat operation altogether because of what he said in that letter. Very, very poor judgment.
“I’m shocked, surprised, saddened, but most of all, I’m very concerned about the lack of leadership at the National Counterterrorism Center and his view on whether Iran is an imminent threat is direct bearing on these attacks that we’ve now seen. What is going on there, and are they doing their job to protect the American people? That should be the number one concern of the director of that facility.”
The Gateway Pundit reported on Tuesday reported that Joe Kent was a leaker who had been cut from President’s intelligence briefings for months.
Former White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications, Taylor Budowich definitely didn’t hold back, when he tweeted that:
“Joe Kent is a crazed egomaniac who was often at the center of national security leaks, while rarely (never?) producing any actual work. He spent all of his time working to subvert the chain of command and undermine the President of the United States. This isn’t some principled resignation – he just wanted to make a splash before getting canned. What a loser.“
TRANSCRIPT
Tommy Kerrigan: Obviously, it just happened 45 minutes ago, was Joe Kent, head of the NCTC, resigned, and man, I first met him in 2021 doing the podcast. He came on my show like 30 times. He’s like the only, he’s the only politician I’ve ever been able to convince people to put a fundraiser together for that speaks volumes to who he is.
Obviously, he lost his wife, Shannon, a linguist to a suicide bomber. That dude is the embodiment of America, and yeah, I really, if he does something, I don’t think it’s ever good to blindly follow someone, but that’s pretty much, my mom texted me, and without even thinking, my thought was, well, I unconditionally support Joe.
Now, I’m going to shut up, because you guys all have the knowledge and experience in this stuff, and I’m just, I’m the hollowed-out vessel that just does the show, so.
Col Steven Murray: I’ll just say this, that, because I didn’t know Joe, watched a ton of his appearances, but I will say this, that when you meet the real thing, and you see the real thing, people rally around that, and it’s that simple. He was a real thing, and he was the right guy for counterterrorism, too. So, it’s a loud statement when he resigns the way he did, and that was done the right way. I’ll just leave that there.
Tommy Kerrigan: Colonel Watkins, thank you for joining us.
Col Roxane Towner-Watkins: Sorry about that.
Tommy Kerrigan: No, dude, don’t worry about it. General Holt.
Gen Blaine Holt: Yeah, so, I have always had nothing but respect for Joe Kent, but even more so, this morning, because you can tell in his letter of resignation how much deep, deep thought went into this.
This is not an emotional response. This is a guy who’s going, “I’ve made my decision. Now, how can I benefit the country for it? How can I benefit the President? How can I help by making my stepping aside, not getting in the way of policy, not making this about me? But how can I step aside with grace, professionalism, and at the same time, word my letter and word these things so that people can get a deeper understanding?” Not just us, the public, but in and around the President.
I think everybody in that administration today is taking a pause, no matter where they sit or stand on any of these political events. Again, kudos to Joe. Before he ever even did this, if you just said, “Oh, I think Joe’s going to quit,” I would have guessed that this would have been the path that he would have taken.
But I am always, always impressed by warriors who, when it’s time to stop, or they know that they can’t in good conscience keep going, that they do vote with their feet. I think the only reason we get to see this letter is because of the highly-charged political swamp environment in DC, so that nobody can pervert his words; make fake letters, make whatever. He absolutely is just being transparent. Just a class act, all the way.
If there’s anything that I’m sad for today besides the loss of his service, Tulsi Gabbard really needed him as a protector of a flank. Those are tough shoes to fill. So we march on.
Tommy Kerrigan: Colonel, again, not that I’m normally extremely over my head with the guests and the topics I have. I’m in the Marianas Trench, right now. I’m in one of those 1800s Jules Verne, “bottom of the ocean”, that’s how far and over my head I am. And I have all of you guys. So that’s why I’m going to shut up more than normal. Colonel Watkins, your thoughts?
Col Roxane Towner-Watkins: So, if I step back from all of this, whether intended or not, there is a massive exposure going on in the United States of the Israeli lobby. And that’s on multiple fronts. And they’re all happening simultaneously.
So I have always articulated the need to expose that and had no idea how you would do that. Because of the century-old embedding of the quote unquote “Judeo-Christian”, which is actually an oxymoron concept.
But it is a disease that a lot of people have in the United States, right? It has been a concerted effort, over a long period of time to bake that into the bread. So, how do you, then take that bread and actually expose the ingredients that have been invisible to people?
One of the ways you do it is with something like this. And I’m not at all saying this is a coordinated effort to expose that. But regardless of whether it’s coordinated or not, that’s exactly what’s happening.
EM Burlingame: Yes, I agree with that. I had two thoughts come to my mind, right? In the Sport of Kings mindset, rather than just the Great Game, right? Let’s say that the king, I’m gonna just use the monarchial system, right? But let’s say that the king is under duress, is operating under duress, right? And what is duress? That means that there is an imminent mortal threat to them or their close-in family that is impelling them to act again.
Col Steven Murray: Of course, we lose him right in the middle of his sentence. We lost you like right in the middle of the sentence.
EM Burlingame: Interesting. OK. So when someone’s operating on… Give me one second. I don’t know what’s going on. This is unstable. Is that better? Is it working? OK. So when somebody…
Isn’t that interesting? Just as I’m starting to explain duress. But what is operating under duress? You are under mortal threat, you or somebody close to you is under mortal threat of life or limb and that impels somebody to act against what they want to do or what they would normally do.
What we are thinking is, “Oh, this lobby,” when we put it in this context: “Oh, this lobby is so strong! The lobby is so this.” Well, that’s all true but that doesn’t impel somebody with real power to act against their own self-interest. Only mortal threat to family members or yourself – and usually, for folks like this, it’s family members – impels you to act against your own best interest.
And then, of course, what happens? The enemy paints what you’re doing as “your own choice”. You’re “in-league”. Well, that’s the very same people holding a knife to your f@cking kids’ throats. That’s this Praetorian problem I keep talking about.
OK, well, if if the President is doing something, because there is a mortal threat, credible mortal threat to he and his family or to the American people – of terrorist attacks or a dirty nuke – it doesn’t necessarily have to be just against his own family. And he’s operating under duress. How would you call that out? How would you bring that out to what to the open?
OK, the second piece. That comes to my mind is if he – (audio goes out)
Tommy Kerrigan: EM, you froze up.
EM Burlingame: …is he fell on the sword, in the old context, Joe Kent. What is Joe Kent the head of?
Tommy Kerrigan: NCTC.
EM Burlingame: The National Counterterrorism Center. If there was going to be false flag – (audio goes out)
Tommy Kerrigan: Yeah, you’re breaking up.
EM Burlingame: …to go along with it, who would have to buy into and back and support the narrative that it was the Iranians, the Persians? The NCTC. And if he wasn’t willing to do that, being an honorable man, what would he have to do to draw attention to that? He said it! People need to stop and get out of this –
Tommy Kerrigan: And one thing about Rubio the other week, he’s like, “Well, we didn’t want to. But Israel said, ‘We’re going to go ahead,’ so –”
EM Burlingame: That is signal –
Tommy Kerrigan: True blackmail duress is “Don’t say it. Shut the f@ck up.” So, it’s not that.
EM Burlingame: Yeah. So people are looking at the lobby and they need to shut the f@ck up and stop thinking about lobbying, as if somehow, this is about money. No, no, no, no!
The only reason this is happening is because there’s a credible threat to the United States, mounted, most likely, by members of our own f@cking intelligence community, you know – and the five assets and the Devil’s Legions. And it’s either, “You’re going to f@cking attack Iran for us and get this all started or we’re going to f@cking nuke Philadelphia!”
Gen Blaine Holt: There you go.
Col Steven Murray: And I’ve heard three or four different versions of that, just so you know. So…the good thing is it’s starting to spread through the community that, “Hey, this threat from Israel was real.” Now, I don’t know if they said they were going to nuke Teheran, you know what I mean? [This is what Marco Rubio said publicly].
EM Burlingame: No. For these folks to move like this, the threat was to the United States.
Col Steven Murray: I’m just telling you what I heard, right? Because you got to go off what you hear, not what you think, right? So the other part of this, too – and General, sorry for interrupting you – the other part of this is the threat’s right here. It’s nowhere else. It’s right here.
And people need to they need to get their head on a swivel and pay attention to their surroundings, because the one thing that I see the most is people are blissfully unaware of their surroundings. So this impacts us right now, right here.
And your point is very salient that the beacon of, “Hey, this is this is not something we’re going to support. This is not something that is good for America. And it’s the only way I can alert the public.”
The question really becomes that’s where I started going. “Will Trump see the message? Will Trump get the message?” That’s the question of the day.
EM Burlingame: Is Trump not already aware of it? Yeah, is Trump – see, this is the thing we need to understand, right? We need to understand that the princes are all in, now. They’re all in there. This war is on. Look at everything that’s happening. The war is on. The court is riddled-through with enemies.
Gen Blaine Holt: Yes.
EM Burlingame: And they’re extraordinarily capable.
Col Steven Murray: Well, you saw yesterday that a federal district judge blocked the HHS removal of X amount of vaccines and kept the original schedule like 74 vaccines. I didn’t realize the federal judge had that kind of jurisdiction!
Tommy Kerrigan: And I have to interject. Colonel Watkins, do you have the best manners of any guest I’ve ever had, which is unfortunately, bad. You’ve got to throw your elbows and get in here. Don’t don’t wait for people.
Col Roxane Towner-Watkins: I won’t. But to EM’s point, that is kind of the misnomer that people they focus – and I believe it’s intentional – on Israel. Israel is an arm of this entire – the government. And Mossad is an arm of this entire operation.
It is set up so that people stop there – intentionally – but to EM’s point, they are part of this entire network that we’ve been exposing for years, now.
And the network is very comfortable with allowing people to focus on Israel and the Israeli lobby here. But there’s people above that level that it’s set up so that people will stop there, because of this incessant focus on the government of Israel. That is not where it stops. They are part of a network.
EM Burlingame: And they’re disposable. But people need to understand that the Jews have been disposables going back to the Crusades. And they know their role. They know their place.
And they’re allowed to become well, ludicrously wealthy managerial class peoples. But they’re the disposables. Every time we’ve needed to periodically when sh¡t goes sideways and the regime is losing power or it’s, you know, the balance of power between the princes is shifting away from the resentfuls, they burn the Jews. And we all go for it.
Col Roxane Towner-Watkins: Yes, it is so well-documented in history where you have the court finance first. Yes, the appendages of the royals. And as soon as the royals get under duress, they focus on. “Oh, it was all the financiers. We’ve got to destroy them.” It is the disposables throughout history.
Tommy Kerrigan: It’s kind of like Santa Claus. How do you get a bunch of young kids who don’t understand or respect you because their brains aren’t developed? “Santa’s watching!” Dafuq, right? Alright.
Col Steven Murray: I’m not sure I’m I’m on board with all of that.
Col Roxane Towner-Watkins: They’re not innocent. That’s the thing.
Tommy Kerrigan: They’re not Boy Scouts.
EM Burlingame: That’s exactly what I said. They’re willing participants.
Col Roxane Towner-Watkins: Yes.
(Crosstalk – inaudible)
Col Steven Murray: There are some real shit bags out there.
Col Roxane Towner-Watkins: Oh, no, no, no, no. It’s all well known inside that circle.
Tommy Kerrigan: See, Steve starts buttoning up his Hugo Boss jacket!
Col Steven Murray: So I’m just like, you know, you got to look –
EM Burlingame: Nobody buys Hugo Boss anymore, by the way. High quality went to shit.
Col Steven Murray: Yeah. So I just got to temper this with I call things as I see them, right? Because there’s so much misinformation out there that everybody’s reading the tea leaves. And granted, you know, a lot of people have done the deep dive, but I see things that don’t add into this narrative.
Like, case in point, Netanyahu, his wife and his son are all missing. Right.
Gen Blaine Holt: Shocking!
Col Steven Murray: That signal, right? And that’s signal for a reason. And I’m not going to discount that. God, we talked about this Sunday. I don’t think the guy’s dead. I think he’s in a dungeon somewhere. He’s hiding out somewhere.
But he’s probably very much said, yeah, I don’t buy, for one minute. This guy was like they blew up the defense minister last night. Like that’s the kind of propaganda I’m seeing on a regular basis.
Like, Iran launches a missile and then immediately come out and say “BDA”. Like, yeah, good luck with that. That’s not how that game is played.
So and then, you know, and it’s like I see the propaganda and it’s like watching a ’70s Kung Fu movie. “Your words are strong, but my Kung Fu is stronger. I will use the cross. The cross.
EM Burlingame: I love those movies! Those movies are awesome. Don’t ruin that sh¡t for me, Steve!
