(May 5, 2026)
If he decides to act, the US president will pull Israel into a state of alert that will delay the Knesset‘s dissolution and lead to the election being held as scheduled in October. If Trump chooses not to strike Iran again, Netanyahu will lead Israel to an election on Sept. 1. Sources who have spoken with Netanyahu recently say the prime minister is leaning toward moving up the election, partly due to the erosion of his security achievements.
(May 5, 2026)
If he decides to act, the US president will pull Israel into a state of alert that will delay the Knesset‘s dissolution and lead to the election being held as scheduled in October. If Trump chooses not to strike Iran again, Netanyahu will lead Israel to an election on Sept. 1. Sources who have spoken with Netanyahu recently say the prime minister is leaning toward moving up the election, partly due to the erosion of his security achievements.
The most striking moment of the interview came when Kent recounted his final meeting with Charlie Kirk, the Turning Point USA founder who was instrumental in the current administration’s rise and the selection of JD Vance as Vice President.
“The last time I saw Charlie Kirk on this Earth was in June, in the West Wing,” Kent told Carlson. “He looked me in the eye and he said… ‘Joe, stop us from getting into a war with Iran.’”
According to Kent, Kirk—who was assassinated on September 10, 2025—was one of the few top-tier advisors vocally urging the President to avoid a Middle Eastern conflagration and to “rethink” the unconditional nature of the U.S.-Israeli partnership.
Joe Kent publicly announced his resignation as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center on March 17, stating that he “cannot in good conscience” support the U.S.’s war with Iran.
Kirk was shot dead during a public appearance in Utah on September 10, 2025. A day after his resignation, Kent appeared on The Tucker Carlson Show, where he claimed that his investigation into the killing was blocked.
Joe Kent is a former Director of the National Counterterrorism Center and the President’s principal counterterrorism advisor, who served 20 years in the U.S. Army with 11 combat deployments fighting terrorist networks with the 75th Ranger Regiment, Army Special Forces, and U.S. Army Special Operations Command, earning six Bronze Stars. Joe is also a Gold Star husband whose first wife, Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer Shannon Kent, also served and was killed while fighting ISIS in Syria in 2019.
Trump aides and allies denounced Kent as a leaker immediately after his resignation became public.
Kent wrote in his resignation letter that Iran poses “no imminent threat to our nation” and accused Trump of initiating the war “due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.”
The FBI and the White House declined to comment.
Joe Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, talks to Tucker Carlson about Iran and his resignation letter. Ana Kasparian discusses on The Young Turks.
“There was no intelligence that said, hey, on whatever day it was, March 1st, the Iranians are going to launch this big sneak attack, they’re going to do some kind of a 9/11, Pearl Harbor, etc. They’re going to attack one of our bases. There was none of that intelligence,” Kent said.
Trump and the the White House have repeatedly cited an imminent threat posed by Iran as an impetus for launching strikes against the country.
Kent further argued that the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who died last month in joint US and Israeli strikes, had been moderating the country’s nuclear program.
Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.
It has been an honor serving under @POTUS and @DNIGabbard and leading the professionals at NCTC.
May God bless America.
Mr. Kent is the first Trump administration official to quit in opposition to the conflict. He said pressure from Israel had pushed the president into war against Iran.
(February 23, 2026)
Harris herself, in her memoir 107 Days, wrote that former President Joe Biden’s appearance of having issued a “blank check” to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hurt her campaign. She also wrote that she pleaded with him to show more empathy for Palestinians, to little avail.
DNC Chair Ken Martin reversed course last year when he said in December that the Democrats would not release the autopsy examining the causes of Harris’s defeat.
(February 23, 2026)
RootsAction, a progressive advocacy group that conducted its own analysis of Democrats’ 2024 loss, said in a statement that the DNC’s refusal to publicize its findings “undermines the goal of defeating Trumpism.” RootsAction’s autopsy, authored by journalist Christopher D. Cook, found “ample evidence that Harris lost many voters, especially young voters, Arab-Americans, and critical support in Michigan and elsewhere, due to the campaign’s failure to shift or even signal a potential shift in policy on Israel and Palestine.”
The DNC’s official autopsy, said RootsAction, “should be made public so Democrats can learn from past errors and win future elections.”
(December 18, 2025)
DNC Chair Ken Martin opted against releasing the report. In a statement provided to Newsweek, Martin wrote that the party has “completed a comprehensive review of what happened in 2024 and are already putting our learnings into motion.”
“Here’s our North Star: does this help us win? If the answer is no, it’s a distraction from the core mission,” he said.
(February 18, 2026)
The Israeli government installed security equipment and controlled access to a Manhattan apartment building managed by convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, according to a set of emails recently released by the Department of Justice. The equipment was installed starting in early 2016 at 301 E. 66th Street—the residence where former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak frequently stayed for stretches at a time.
The security operation at “Ehud’s apartment” was in place for at least two years, emails from the DOJ disclosure show, with officials from the Israeli permanent mission to the United Nations corresponding regularly with Epstein’s staff regarding security. The apartment was technically owned by a company connected to Epstein’s brother, Mark Epstein, but was effectively controlled by Jeffrey Epstein. Units in the building were frequently loaned out to Epstein’s contacts and used to house underage models.
(August 26, 2026)
The resolution had been met with resistance from DNC Chair Ken Martin, despite polls showing overwhelming opposition to Israel’s military actions in Gaza from Democratic voters. The weapons ban resolution was put forward by a first-time DNC member to represent the views of younger party members.
“While it’s disappointing that DNC leadership wasn’t able to recognize that this is an overwhelming popular position, a 90-10 issue within its base, it started a conversation,” the resolution’s author, 26-year-old DNC member Allison Minnerly, told The Intercept. “As we approach 2026, it’s not going to go away, the more we delay having a hard conversation like this one.”
(August 28, 2026)
It did vote for a resolution essentially restating the Biden administration’s position on the war: calling for a two-state solution, for the release of hostages, for an end to the conflict. That resolution said nothing, however, about America’s ongoing provision of the arms with which the Netanyahu government is waging its war.
The resolution that was adopted was authored by DNC Chair Ken Martin. The one that was squelched was authored by Allison Minnerly, a 26-year-old DNC member from Florida who’s a voter mobilization organizer. Her resolution was backed by most of the DNC’s young members, including the leaders of the College Democrats of America and the High School Democrats of America.
Britain can no longer avoid the costs of appeasing America’s predatory president
(…)
The word “crisis” is rooted in the Greek New Testament, referring to a decision, or judgement, in an unstable moment that forces a new clarity into being. While Trump’s exact motives for his aggression in our hemisphere remain opaque, our own predicament is now clearer. It is this: such is the new emerging order around us that we can no longer muddle through, finessing Trump’s instincts, hoping for the best so governments can focus on domestic political problems. Britain must choose.
(October 30, 2025)
Barak felt enormous urgency to secure a face-to-face meeting with Putin as soon as possible, before the conflict escalated further. Besides Epstein, he also requested comments from Ron Dermer, close confidante to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was preparing to become Israel’s next ambassador to the U.S. Barak wrote to Dermer, “i don’t care how you’ve corrected it. yours will be always better in clarity and conciseness than mine. try earlier. i don’t want events to overwhelm us.” Dermer swiftly returned a refined copy with more fluent English.
As was typical of Epstein’s style, he sent back a rough cut riddled with spelling and grammatical errors. Unlike Dermer’s narrower cut, Epstein significantly revised Barak’s piece, and added a new title: “Wait Until It’s Too Late.”
(November 12, 2025)
As the House of Representatives moves closer to forcing the release of the Epstein files by the Department feel Justice, we turn now to look at a new series by Drop Site News looking at Epstein’s ties to Israeli intelligence and how he secretly brokered numerous deals for Israeli intelligence.
On Tuesday, Drop Site revealed an Israeli spy stayed for weeks at a time with Epstein in Manhattan. Drop Site has also looked at Epstein’s role brokering a security agreement between Israel and Mongolia and Epstein’s role in setting up a backchannel between Israel and Russia on Syria.
4. Where the Evidence Is Strongest — Access, Not Agency
The most robust, verifiable element in the public record is Epstein’s access to Israeli elites and documented interactions with Israeli figures. Email exchanges, travel logs, and eyewitness reporting establish clear lines of contact and hospitality: meetings, invitations, and visits that show Epstein operated comfortably within Israeli political and commercial circles. Reporting also documents at least one intelligence‑linked individual reportedly staying at Epstein’s properties, which is a factual basis for speculation about intelligence interest but not proof of operational employment. Analysts stress the difference between being a useful network node and being a paid or directed intelligence operative.
(October 28, 2025)
According to The Associated Press, Israel notified the Trump administration before conducting Tuesday’s strikes — presenting the question of whether the U.S. would hold Netanyahu accountable for the latest round of ceasefire violations.
Speaking on Thursday at a conference organised by the Israeli daily Makor Rishon, Smotrich, who heads the far-right Religious Zionism party, said: „Sovereignty [over the occupied West Bank] is the real test. If Saudi Arabia tells us normalisation in exchange for a Palestinian state, then the answer, my friends, is no thank you – keep riding camels on the desert sands, and we will continue to develop economically and socially, and with all the great things we know how to do.“
“That will not happen,” Trump insisted. “I gave my word to the Arab countries. We can’t do this now. We have received strong support from the Arab world. If Israel were to proceed, it would lose all American support.”
Trump’s comments come amid ongoing U.S. efforts to stabilize a fragile ceasefire in Gaza, which has held for the past two weeks, and to advance a broader regional peace initiative involving several Arab states aligned with Washington.
Vice President JD Vance criticized on Thursday a vote by the Israeli parliament to advance a bill on the proposed annexation of the occupied West Bank, calling it „a very stupid political stunt.“
„I personally take some insult to it,“ Vance said at Israel‘s Ben Gurion airport as he departed the country after his visit. „The West Bank is not going to be annexed by Israel. The policy of the Trump administration is that the West Bank will not be annexed by Israel.
Ahead of his visit to Israel, Rubio stated that the Knesset’s initial vote to extend Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria risks undermining President Trump’s regional stabilization plan. He warned that such a move could prove “counterproductive” to ongoing peace initiatives and noted that several non–Middle Eastern nations are prepared to deploy troops to help secure Gaza.
Fact punch: A senior administration official told conservative reporter Curt Mills: “Hamas did nothing. Israeli tank hit an unexploded IED that has probably been there for months.”
Why it matters now: Netanyahu used the Rafah blast to halt aid, resume bombings, and blame Hamas — while Washington knew within hours it wasn’t a Hamas attack.
Moral clarity: When leaders knowingly weaponize a lie to starve babies and bomb civilians, that’s not fog of war — that’s policy.
Grim reported that “After Netanyahu said he was blocking all aid from entering Gaza in response, and unleashed a bombing campaign, the administration conveyed to Israel that they know what happened.”
Netanyahu “then announced he would re-open the crossings in a few hours,” he added.
Grim also cited Palestinian journalist Younis Tirawi as saying that the incident in Rafah was not a Hamas attack, “but rather a bulldozer operated by a settler company ran over some sort of explosive device or unexploded ordnance.”