Joe Kent

Friday

Cockburn

The Loomer-Levin love-in

Joe Kent has been making the rounds since resigning as director of the National Counterterrorism Center over America’s involvement in the Iran conflict. He’s appeared on Tucker Carlson’s podcast, Mark Levin’s radio show, Piers Morgan Uncensored, The Young Turks and UnHerd’s YouTube program. But it’s an interview with the Daily Caller editor-in-chief Amber Duke that earned the ire of Laura Loomer, the rabid pro-Trump, pro-Israel loyalty enforcer. In the Caller interview, Kent claimed FBI Director Kash Patel stopped an NCC probe into Charlie Kirk’s murder by Tyler Robinson. Loomer took umbrage with Duke’s style, which she characterized as “softball” in a lengthy X screed.

Tuesday

Cockburn

Welcome to All Kings Day

King Charles III is planning a state visit to Washington DC next month. He is rumored to be staying at the White House, attending a state dinner and possibly addressing a joint meeting of Congress. The last royal to address Congress was Charles’s mother, the late Queen Elizabeth II speaking to a full chamber in May 1991, during George H.W. Bush’s presidency, around three months after the end of Operation Desert Storm. Britain contributed more than 50,000 troops to Iraq during the Gulf War which was – and remains to this day – the largest deployment of British military personnel since World War Two. (Pay no heed to Punchbowl’s Jake Sherman, who this morning tweeted that “King Charles II” was coming: the previous Charles has been dead for 341 years.

Thursday

Jacob Heilbrunn

Iran isn’t Trump’s only ‘imminent threat’

President Trump thought it would be a cakewalk. Far from capitulating, his nemesis seems to be on the comeback trail. Gabbard acknowledged that there was no compelling evidence that Iran was seeking to reconstitute its nuclear program Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell thus announced on Wednesday that unless a successor is confirmed by the Senate, he has “no intention of leaving.” The bad news keeps mounting for Trump. Inflation is ticking up, King Charles’ upcoming visit is starting to look rather iffy, the President's gilded ballroom project looks as though it will be smacked down by a federal judge, and energy prices are rising precipitously.

Joe Kent
Reid Tillman Smith

Joe Kent’s resignation was an act of political positioning

Reflecting on the resignation of Cyrus Vance, James Thomson, the American historian and journalist, wrote in the Washington Post that the former secretary of state “has done us all a great public service.” In doing so, Thomson argued, Vance gave “new life and spine to a somewhat rare and weak convention in our nation: resignation in protest of an issue of principle.” The year was 1980. Vance had resigned in protest over the Carter administration’s decision to authorize Operation Eagle Claw, the ill-fated mission to rescue American hostages held in Iran after the Islamic revolution. The mission ended ignominiously. President Carter pulled the plug after equipment failures and a deadly helicopter collision killed eight service members. Vance was vindicated.

Wednesday

Cockburn

Which member of the ‘Houthi PC small group’ chat are you?

Most people use groupchats to share memes, organize brunch or gossip. The Trump administration plans air strikes. After Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg was inadvertently included in the "Houthi PC small group" Signal chat by National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, administration officials were eager to stress that no classified information was included in the unofficial chat. As a result, Goldberg published screenshots of the full conversation this morning. The messages offer a glimpse into not just the views of various cabinet members on foreign affairs; they reveal the texting styles of some of the most consequential government officials in the world. Some are relatable. "Having read thru the full Houthi PC small group logs, I've come to the sad realization that I'm the J.D.

houthi