Joseph Kent, the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, resigned. Political figures aligned with President Donald Trump came out to criticize the move. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt spoke against Kent on X, but her tweet contradicted an earlier claim she made about the Iran war.
Leavitt responded to Kent’s resignation letter. She wrote in a tweet, “As President Trump has clearly and explicitly stated, he had strong and compelling evidence that Iran was going to attack the United States first.”
This contradicts Kent’s claim that Iran posed no imminent threat to the United States. Kent’s position as the director of a government agency established to monitor domestic and international terrorism threats made him privy to an imminent threat posed by Iran.
The press secretary continued and said that Kent’s statement is merely a “false claim” that both Democrats and the media “have been repeating over and over.”
She added that Iran “waged war against our country, and openly threatened us all the way up to the launch of Operation Epic Fury.”
Leavitt’s pushback contradicts her tweet from March 12. Her statement attacked ABC News for broadcasting an FBI report. It pertained to a possible drone strike on the West Coast of the United States. She wrote on X about the ABC News report, “This post and story should be immediately retracted by ABC News for providing false information to intentionally alarm the American people.”
She also explicitly wrote, “TO BE CLEAR: No such threat from Iran to our homeland exists, and it never did.”
Clocking the discrepancies
Social media users were quick to point out the discrepancy in her statements. It’s important to note that two things can exist at once. She could deny the possibility of Iranian drone attacks on California while stating that there is an imminent threat. However, for that logic to apply, the ‘imminent threat’ spoken of by Leavitt and the Trump administration must be disclosed.
Political commentator Adam Mockler replied, “You literally just said there was no threat.”
The narrative behind the attacks on Iran has been ever-shifting. Other senators and congress representatives had already vocally opposed the war. Some of them claim that there are no firm war plans. Now that a Trump official with a top-secret security clearance has resigned, the move does little to support the war effort.
The MAGA rift on the war
Joseph Kent claimed there was no imminent threat to the United States. He also wrote that he could not support the ongoing war in Iran “in good conscience.” Additionally, he alleged that Trump was influenced by Israel to attack Iran—Trump’s allies clearly did not take kindly to Kent’s statement.
Regardless, Leavitt also claimed that Iran posed a threat because they would not give up their pursuit of nuclear weapons. Nevertheless, it’s still unclear why bombing Tehran would be the solution to obliterating Iran’s nuclear program. Even after deposing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and their decentralized forces have not stopped launching attacks against neighboring Gulf states. With Iran’s tight control of the Strait of Hormuz, the prices of oil and gas are soaring.
Trump’s MAGA bloc appears to be divided over the Iran war. Despite this splintering in political support, the Trump administration still has not given a cohesive and convincing reason for attacking Iran.
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