#291 Joe Kent - His Message to President Trump on Ending the War With Iran

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**Shawn Ryan** (1:04)
Welcome back, man.

**Joe Kent** (1:05)
Thanks for having me. Great to be here.

**Shawn Ryan** (1:07)
It's an honor to have you. So, you resigned last week.

**Joe Kent** (1:12)
I did, I did.

**Shawn Ryan** (1:13)
How's that going?

**Joe Kent** (1:15)
About as good as resigning to The President Can Go, I think.

**Shawn Ryan** (1:20)
Well, it's definitely created a lot of buzz. I just wanna commend you, man. I mean, I know that took a lot of courage. That took some serious balls to do that, especially with the statement you made. Wow. And, you know, internally, but just me, myself, I haven't been happy about really much of anything that's been going on. I feel like it's been a 180 bait and switch from what we were told in just about every aspect. And I've been wondering, because I know there's people frustrated up there, and I've been wondering, what are you still doing in the position if you're not doing the fucking job that you were supposed to do? Why are you still there? Is it power? Because it's not power. They might think it's power, but if you're not able to do the fucking job that you're there to do, then you're powerless, right?

**Joe Kent** (2:16)
That's the conclusion that I came to. I mean, after a year of really trying as hard as we could to advance what we believe the agenda was, in particular, keeping us out of endless wars and preventing more bloodshed overseas and then potentially more blowback terrorism here.
I just felt like we weren't being effective. I wasn't being effective anymore. And so for me, it's like I don't want to stay just because I have a title, some degree of prestige, whatever. I don't want to stay for that. I want to stay for the mission. But then also just seeing, I'm sure we'll get into it, the things I mentioned in the resignation letter, seeing the way we're being slow walked and then rapidly entering this war, I had to say something about it. I had to, I couldn't, number one, I couldn't be a part of it once the coffin started coming back from Dover, from overseas to Dover. I just couldn't be a part of it just based on all the experiences I had had previously. Because I had said to myself years ago, if I was ever in a position to prevent us from getting involved in a quagmire, I wouldn't be quiet about it. I would say something about it. So that weighed heavily on me. But then I truly believe, like I said in the letter, that the way that the president was influenced by the media, but then also by Israeli government officials, and the way that decision-making was took place in a compartmentalized environment. Compartmentalized in the sense that the president didn't have a bunch of, didn't have much in terms of people giving him alternative viewpoints, that our country was in a bad spot, and the most effective thing that I could do was resign, resign publicly.

**Shawn Ryan** (3:59)
You get a ton of hate, and you're being attacked, the FBI is coming after you, you've been accused of leaking, you've been accused of all kinds of stuff. It's ridiculous in my mind. But I think the one thing that you've been accused of, the most, is, I mean, people are pissed that you called Israel out. They're really, really upset. And they make it sound like there's zero justification for that. But, you know, I have a couple of things right here that I want to read off. I mean, you're saying that the administration president himself was influenced to strike Iran for Israel's benefit. I mean, Rubio said that we hit them because Israel was going to hit them first. Then the Wall Street Journal had an article out, I think it was last week, maybe the week before. And this is, this is quoted.