Top Trump Official Resigns Over War

0:00This NBA Playoffs with FanDuel. You're not just watching the playoffs. You're a part of them. Steve's got the phone, opens FanDuel, and he's going for threes! Be a part of the action on FanDuel. All customers get a profit boost every NBA playoff game day. 21 plus and present in select states. Opt-in required. Bonus issued as non-withdrawable profit boost tokens. Restrictions apply, including any token expiration and max wager amount. See full terms at FanDuel.com slash sportsbook. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or 1-800-MY-RESET. With Uber's new women preferences, women riders can request a woman driver whenever they want.

0:34Like Amy, who's traveling solo in a city she's never been to before. Or Danielle, who works night shifts at the hospital. Or Kelly and Jana, who were way overdue for a night out. Because sometimes comfort comes from having another woman with you. Request women drivers with women preferences on Uber. Learn more on the Uber app. Welcome to The Beat, everyone. We begin with a high-level defection from Donald Trump's administration over Iran. We're talking about a top counterterror official. The role huge, whether you know the name or not, Joe Kent, resigning because of the Iran war. And this is an anti-war kind of conscience resignation, saying, I cannot, in good conscience, support the ongoing war in Iran, noting it posed, quote, no imminent threat to our nation.

1:32It's clear we started the war due to pressure from Israel in its powerful American lobby. Kent, who is a MAGA diehard, but also isn't exactly known for all factual mastery and election denier, among other things, puts this in a kind of conservative, even somewhat conspiratorial format. But to many on the right, that may resonate, saying Trump broke campaign promises until June of 25. He writes kind of direct directly addressing the president, quote, you understood the wars in the Middle East were a trap that robbed America of the precious lives of our patriots and depleted the wealth and prosperity of our nation.

2:08Democrats responding to this official speaking out, also noting some of the issues in the nomination. Like MTG, this is one of those situations where you can see the people around Trump and the MAGA movement are learning, slowly, late, delayed, or otherwise, that he didn't mean what he said. And yet, that doesn't mean that they themselves have always been credible. Now, Trump's pushing back. He says that Kent is weak. A White House official tells MSNOW there were internal concerns that Kent's departure might lead to other officials also resigning in protest. Again, this is Trump's war. We are in week three.

2:45Americans are dead. Tankers are on fire. There's economic problems and his own team, some of them, are resigning in protest. May not be Vietnam-level opposition, but it is right-wing opposition coming from within the MAGA world. As for the real world, Iran struck another tanker off the coast of the UAE. That is the 17th. Iran is strangling with a giant chokehold the Strait of Hormuz, cutting off about a fifth of the world's oil supply. Military experts say it's now the defining issue. They warned Trump will either have to find an off-ramp, something that we've been discussing since day one because there wasn't a clear goal, or if you actually wanted to stop the reality, as well as Trump would put it, the television images that you're seeing here around the Middle East and around the world, it might take ground troops.

3:35Here's Trump. The Iranian regime is still sky news. If you put boots on the ground in Iraq, it will be another VN. Are you afraid of that? No, I'm not afraid of, I'm really not afraid of anything. A note for journalists, if you ask Donald Trump a question and then say, are you afraid, he is going to say no. Meaning that while we're showing you the way he sounded regarding a boots on the ground question, that doesn't necessarily tell us what he's actually planning. Sometimes you have to watch what he does, not what he says. Israel says they killed two more top Iranian officials. U.S. intelligence believes Iran's regime, though, consolidating power.

4:14Despite withering airstrikes, officials see a, quote, weakened but more hardline government in Tehran, the Post reports, backed by powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps security forces. In other words, the question is not whether we're getting regime change thus far we are not. The question is whether the way the United States has waged the war thus far has given us an equal or more hardline Iran that is simply younger. And does that serve the strategic interests of the United States and our allies in the long run. I want to bring back an expert we've called upon since the beginning of this war, Ambassador Dennis Ross, an expert in Middle East affairs.

4:51He was a diplomat and peace negotiator. He worked in the Clinton and Obama administrations. You can see him all the way back here with Obama and then Secretary of State Clinton in 2010. You can go back further when you think about the players. Benjamin Netanyahu runs Israel today. He was also right here in this historic picture with Ross and Yasser Arafat all the way back in 97. He has been writing this week about an achievable goal in Iran, a regime weakening posture rather than regime change. Ambassador Ross, your view of where we are now and why Trump and some of his teams sound so different than a week ago, given the problems in the strait.

5:29Well, I think, look, you put your finger on what is the key to this. this war can't end for the president if Iran is in a position where they determine who comes in and out of the Persian Gulf and through the Strait of Hormuz. Rather than weakening Iran at that point, Iran looks like they have a whip hand. It looks like they have leverage over the world's oil supply. We cannot have an outcome where that's the case. Even if, as I think is probably the case, we have done a great deal to weaken the Iranians in terms of their ability to send missiles and drones and cruise missiles. There's no doubt in my mind that the numbers of weapons they have, the stockpiles they have, the production chain that builds those have all been weakened.

6:16They still exist, but they're dramatically different than they were. But for the president to say, okay, we can end the war now in a circumstance where Iran is controlling who can come in and out of the Persian Gulf, that's not a win. And so that fundamentally has to change. You're raising, Ari, what are the ways to do it? Well, one way to do it is to have convoys. We accompany all ships that come in. To do that, you're going to have to feel that you have an answer to the Iranian small boats and anti-ship missiles and drones. And how long would you do that for? I think unless the Iranians are prepared to accept that this is something they are willing to end the war over, I think you have to do that until it becomes clear they're prepared to accept a ceasefire.

7:05today if they don't to play that out you're saying that's a risk to play that out then you have a strategic posture where you said oh you did inflict air damage on their ability to hit out but now if you do that over the medium to long term they used to say no blood for oil now you have daily blood for oil because american soldiers are doing that in a proto-geopolitical capitalist goal open-ended. And some folks would say that actually is worse than the bad status quo prior to the start of the war. Well, the one thing that would happen is if we're the ones who are doing the convoys, we're not going to be convoying the Iranian ships.

7:45If they are bringing us in, then they are denying themselves their own revenue. They don't have a lot of other revenue, especially now. We know they have profound economic problems. So in a sense, you're countering their leverage with leverage of our own, and maybe that creates an incentive to find a way for each side to say, okay, let's find a way to end this war. Right now, both sides are kind of locked into a position where we're going to continue to weaken them, and they're going to continue to use their leverage over the supply of oil. Yeah, and you're speaking to the so-called cards. You know, Trump lectured the Ukrainian leader about you don't have the cards.

8:29And people take that for how you take it, real politic. I'm sure in your diplomacy, you guys have different types of conversations in public and in private. You know, you were a Middle East peace negotiator, for goodness sake. I'm sure all kinds of talk, but Trump was saying it brashly and there was some criticism. Here, you have Politico reporting, quote, they hold the cards now talking about Iran. Trump allies fear Iran is out of the president's control more than two weeks into the campaign. Some of the allies believe Trump no longer controls how or when the war ends. They fear the attacks on the oil and the strait are boxing Trump in the situation of escalating the conflict is the only way to credibly claim victory.

9:09Is that overwritten or Or is that a version of what you're saying? It is a version of what I'm saying, because basically, if they control access to the Persian Gulf, that's a position we've never allowed any country to be put in. When we went to war against Saddam Hussein, one of the main reasons was suddenly he had control over the supply of oil out of the Gulf. We were never going to let the Soviet Union to gain control. You're talking Kuwait? Yes, 1990, 1991. And prior to that time, a vital national security interest in the United States was to ensure the Soviets didn't gain some kind of control over the flow of oil out of the Persian Gulf.

9:52We're talking about 20 % of the world's oil. And we've seen what happens when not all of that, because the Saudis right now are able to export through the Red Sea because they're using their pipelines, about 5 million barrels a day. so it's not at 20 but we're seeing how disruptive this is even if it let's say it's at you know 17 18 or 15 this is this oil is fungible so when you're reducing that amount of oil on the world stage that bids the price up that's where we are we cannot allow a hostile power to have control over the supply of oil pretty pretty straightforward very and you're sort of remind it's almost like in the first week, there were so many factors.

10:38The president was struggling to just define why this was good. And some of the critics, other than the general mood, were struggling to find all the ways that it is risky. It could have five risks. And if one of them occurs, you're in a problem. And it seems like we're in the oil and economic version, which frankly is not the first thing that many progressive critics of Trump talk about first. And yet it's become his problem. So it's interesting you say that. I want to give you a chance to respond to the Trump resignation today and the chatter somewhat on the right and somewhat on the far left about and somewhat fed by sloppy things the administration has said about whether Israel is quarterbacking the United States here.

11:26And we can't get into all of it at once, but the Netanyahu government is controversial for many reasons. and there's valid criticism of its foreign policy, its treatment of the Palestinian people. We've covered a lot of that. Then there is a point at which you start hearing this and you say, well, what are people trying to say? And does it go beyond? And you're so experienced in this and you have credibility on all sides. Walk us through what you believe is the valid way to think about it, perhaps, and where the line is, if you know what I mean. I do, and I think there is a very clear line. Did Prime Minister Netanyahu make a case to the president about the fact that Israel would at some point this year have to go after the ballistic missiles?

12:07Almost certainly. Is that the reason that the president made his decision? I'd put it this way, Ari. Was it Prime Minister Netanyahu who said we're locked and loaded in response to the demonstrations in Iran? Was it Prime Minister Netanyahu who said help is on the way? was the Prime Minister Netanyahu who said, we're sending a big armada there. It was the President of the United States. It was not the Israelis. The argument that somehow the Israelis are the ones who pushed us into this, I don't think that's the case at all. I think the President in this case, one should take him at what he says.

12:44I think he sees himself doing what no President for the last 47 years was prepared to do against Iran. You can argue he didn't need to do it right now. And I suspect one of the reasons for doing it was a perception of a moment of opportunity. A, because the perception was that the Iranians were weaker domestically, given the reality of having to put down and kill large numbers of their citizens, and also weaker because they had no real air defense. So I suspect there was a sense of opportunity. I also believe there was a miscalculation or misperception. I think the misperception was if you take out Khamenei and the 40 top leaders, the regime is going to collapse.

13:27And that ignored, this is a regime that has built institutions over time. Even if it only has 15 to 20 percent of the population that supports it, it has a pretty dedicated structure of those who believe in it and who realize they're out of power if the regime falls. And maybe it's not just being out of power. So they see a personal risk. So they have a stake in preserving it. It doesn't mean by the same token, in my mind, this is a regime that when the war ends is going to be sustainable over the long term. Before the war, it had no answer to any of the grievances that drove its population in all 31 provinces, including the countryside, out into the streets.

14:10It has no answer to the shortage of water or electricity, a currency that has no value. It has no answer to being able to offer that public any hope or possibility for the future. It has even less capability now than it had before the war. So it's long-term survivability, I think, is profoundly in doubt. Yeah. But in the near term, right now, they have an attitude that, okay, the regime's survival is at stake and they'll do whatever it takes to preserve it. Yeah. Ambassador Ross, on several aspects of this tonight, thanks for being here. My pleasure. Absolutely. Tonight, we look at a shakeup in Donald Trump's so-called deportation agenda and journalists intersecting with one of the most mysterious artists and people say liberal political dissidents in the world.

15:00I have that story. You got to see it to believe it. That's later on tonight. But first, in 90 seconds, we hear from Rev and Molly.

15:15We began tonight with what's happening on the ground in Iran, and we heard from a noted expert in the region. There are other aspects to this, though, when you look at a fundamentally MAGA figure who was in a counter-terrorist spot resigning and saying what a lot of other people on the right are saying, which is Donald Trump is breaking his vows. There's discord over the war in Iran. There is the problem of the reason or the rationale or the lack of threat posed by Iran. And then there is the sort of unusual world of MAGA. This comes up all the time if you look at who Donald Trump relies on and who are the sort of narrators of their movement.

15:54You end up looking at people who are, nicest way you could say it is violent thugs who hate America. The meanest way you could say it is convicted seditionists, one of the most serious crimes against the United States. And so in no way are we saying these are Iran experts, but they are part of Donald Trump's chosen team. Stuart Rhodes, the Oath Keepers founder who was convicted and then pardoned. So boy, does he owe Donald Trump saying this. I no longer call myself MAGA. I am an America only patriot. I'm a Christian nationalist, an American Christian nationalist. And so I have to open my eyes to the reality in front of my face.

16:36And it's caused a division inside of MAGA. It's caused a division on the political right, but so be it. And so if I lose my pardon because of that, then so be it. He's out. He can't lose the pardon, although many police might wish otherwise. Again, not an Iran expert, not an honest law-abiding citizen. And yet someone who you would expect owes his liberty to Donald Trump literally did crimes for Donald Trump and now says he's out because of the no more wars promise. Meanwhile, Americans squeezed by the economic consequences. Donald Trump ran on lowering prices. He had failed to do that before the start of this war.

17:16Now he's got gas prices going up, which everyone who works in this field says was a foreseeable consequence. That was known at the Pentagon, it was known at the Treasury, and it was known across Wall Street. So here's Trump's economic council director on that problem. The fact is that the U.S. economy is fundamentally sound and that if it were to be extended, it wouldn't really disrupt the U.S. economy very much at all. It would hurt consumers. And we'd have to think about, you know, if that continued, what we would have to do about that. But that's like really the last of our concerns right now, because we're very confident that this thing is going ahead of schedule.

17:57I am joined by our experts, Molly Jong-Fast and Rev Sharp. Durev, when you start losing your Jan 6 oath keepers politically, what does that tell you? It tells me you're very weak. It tells me that you are probably risking a lot of Republican seats in the midterm. And you probably have had no real strategy in the first place. So you're just stumbling along. And because they're really not giving a rationale to their own crowd of what they're doing. And I think by not having a rationale and having a real blueprint, they're asking their own followers to make it up for them. And they're saying there's nothing to make up here.

18:41We we drunk the Kool-Aid and we're doing what you told us. We were going to do America first and we're not. It's also I have to say as a minister, strange to me, a guy calls himself a Christian nationalist. But it's all right to kill over 120 kids in Iran, innocent kids. I don't think that's much Christianity being demonstrated there. And Molly, I don't know if Stuart Rhodes is a literary type, if it's poetic license when he says you could take my pardon back. But what he's signaling to his audience is you're going to say I owe Trump, but this is how strongly I oppose what Trump's doing. A year in, forever war is one of several broken vows.

19:25Yeah. And I think it's important to remember a lot of Trumpism 2.0 is fealty to Trump. So remember, he has that cabinet, that sort of rogues gallery of a cabinet because they sign off on whatever he does. So the fact that you have someone from Trump world resigning is meaningful because it's all about staying in line. And I think, look, there's a larger issue here, too, which is the anti-Israel stuff, which is a huge is causing a huge schism in MAGA. And you saw that with Megyn Kelly and Infowars. And so there is a real disconnect. But this is the thing, you know, Donald Trump has promised everything to everyone.

20:04And you can't both be a Christian nationalist and a Zionist. Well, and Rev, I asked Ambassador Ross about this earlier. Concern about the Netanyahu government and its treatment of people and the Palestinian people is obviously valid. And this is a foreign policy issue. Tucker Carlson hosting the virulent anti-Semite, Nick Fuentes, and all of these Israel dog whistles feel like foreign policy as a shell around anti-Semitism and hate. and you've clashed with some of these folks. You're familiar with the dog whistle. Sometimes they're not all that subtle. How do you view that piece of this? Because Molly points out that, of course, it's valid to oppose this war or criticize the Israeli government's policies.

20:47But Nick Fuentes goes well beyond that and Tucker Carlson's given him a platform. I think that they are not going after Netanyahu's policies. They're going after Jews. I mean, let's face it. They have, in many ways, personified evil as Jews in Israel or beyond. And they've been unapologetic about it. And I think that when you look at such blatant anti-Semitism and you do not see the president and anyone responding to it, it's very interesting that he's easy to call any of us radical or whatever, But he's not called these guys anti-Semites. Yet he's supposed to be Israel's best friend. And Trump met with Nick Fantasik.

21:38And yay. For a lot of people, it was hard to decide who was more controversial. And that is my point. So my point is that the inconsistency in terms of how he measures is something we're used to. What I'm calling out is why are the people that cheer him on when he calls somebody too radical or too woke or whatever, not saying, well, wait a minute, why are you dealing with known anti-Semites who have no problem being called that? Why aren't you attacking them? What is the measure that you use? I think that's fair. On a lighter note, how do we get lighter, Molly? We have Jon Stewart. So that's helpful.

22:22So he makes the point, very straightforward, that it might be in the U.S. best interest to find an off ramp, to not do this for three more weeks. For sure. But what if that makes Donald Trump feel that he's not tough? Take a look. But not to worry. This sudden bottleneck of the world's oil supply, it's not a big deal. It's barely closed. The only thing prohibiting transit in the streets right now is Iran shooting at shipping. I know you may not want to sail the slowest moving vehicle on Earth, packed with the most flammable liquid on Earth, through the most active war zone on Earth. But on the other hand, it's also costing more than a billion dollars a day.

23:13So we have lives, we have American dollars and we have American adventuring, which is what Donald Trump said he wasn't going to do. And we still haven't gotten a reason for it, which I think is the most perplexing part of it is they still haven't been able to cook up some kind of excuse for it. I think that that is when you look at I mean, just look at the objective person looking at the news. We have not funded the government. We have TSA workers going into the second week not getting paid. But you're spending a billion dollars a day in Iran for a war that you still have not defined to the American people.

23:53And you have not told us when it's over and why it's going on. And I've seen over 120 kids killing a school and it took you three days to say, yeah, we did 120 kids. I'm going back to that morality of it. And I think that when you put all that together, that's why even his own base is saying that I'm not with him. And Rev, you know this man. I mean, you've tangled with this man for how long? 30 years, 40 years. and he's always been certain things, but some parts of him seem to get worse. Lying about the war and hitting the school is worse than some other types of lies. I think people can understand.

24:31You got lives on the line. Lying this week about a president agreeing with him to some sense on Iran and then they just check. Ain't that many presidents. So like the newsrooms, you know, this isn't like when someone says, well, someone in Congress said this And you're like, well, we could make four and thirty calls. Who knows? And all living presidents said it wasn't me, Shaggy. And so it's a serious thing. I know that he wants a low bar, but if we hold him to the normal presidential bar, it's a serious thing to lie about a living president who still is briefed by intelligence and has a certain role and say that they agree with you on Iran when they don't.

25:08Well, it's not only a low bar, it's almost no bar because you have no president that said this. And this is the man now that just with all the tapestry came out with the Board of Peace or something. So he was going to replace the U.N. And now all of a sudden he can't find one president that will back up his fantasy that they're supporting him in Iran. So we've done Venezuela. We have now gone into Iran. We're talking about going into Cuba. But what happened to Greenland? I mean, have we forgotten that we're going after Greenland? I mean, what is the foreign policy? Right. It would be funny if it wasn't so absurd.

25:49And it would be OK if it was just like a risk board game where you just try to get all the pieces. But this is the chessboard of the world here. And real people, the girls in the school you mentioned, that's all there. I want to get you guys on the midterms where the Republican messaging has gone from avoiding Trump to ducking the war to now just outright panic for Republicans in the midterms. Both our guests say we're on that next. There's only one Ozempic. Hello, I'm Ozempic. And I'm other GLP-1s, kind of like him. Ozempic, you redid your jingle? Ah, thanks for noticing. Catchy, right? No. Okay, then.

26:26Well, ask your doctor about which FDA-approved uses of me, the Ozempic pen, may be right for you. Call 1-833-OZEMPIC or visit Ozempic.com to view the medication guide and learn more about Ozempic. Semaglutide injection, 2 milligrams. Only Novo Nordisk makes FDA-approved Ozempic. There's only one Ozempic. I told you it was catchy. This NBA playoffs with FanDuel. You're not just watching the playoffs. You're a part of them. Steve's got the phone, opens FanDuel, and he's going for threes. Be a part of the action on FanDuel. All customers get a profit boost every NBA playoff game day. 21 plus and present in select states.

27:03Opt-in required. Bonus issued is non-withdrawable profit boost tokens. Restrictions apply, including any token expiration and max wager amount. See full terms at FanDuel.com slash sportsbook. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. or 1-800-MY-RESET. With Uber's new women preferences, women riders can request a woman driver whenever they want. Like Amy, who's traveling solo in a city she's never been to before. Or Danielle, who works night shifts at the hospital. Or Kelly and Jana, who were way overdue for a night out. Because sometimes comfort comes from having another woman with you. Request women drivers with women preferences on Uber.