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White House Scrambles for Damage Control After National Security Official’s Abrupt Exit
The Trump White House is scrambling to contain fallout after Tuesday’s sudden, very public, and high-profile resignation of its top counterterrorism official — the first senior departure linked to the Iran war.
Joe Kent, who served as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, resigned in a letter to President Trump that he posted to social media.
“I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation,” wrote Kent, whose wife was killed by ISIS. “Until June of 2025, you understood that 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.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt quickly pushed back on Kent’s resignation, declaring that there are “many false claims” in his letter, including, she said, that “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation.”
Leavitt charged that this claim “is the same false claim that Democrats and some in the liberal media have been repeating over and over.”
READ MORE: ‘Clear All Along’: Backlash Grows as Trump Aide Shrugs Off Consumer Pain From Iran War
“As President Trump has clearly and explicitly stated, he had strong and compelling evidence that Iran was going to attack the United States first.”
Just five days ago, Leavitt reportedly “declared that Iran poses no threat to the United States,” as The Daily Beast reported.
“TO BE CLEAR: No such threat from Iran to our homeland exists, and it never did,” she wrote.
On Tuesday, multiple high-profile social media accounts mocked the Press Secretary over those very remarks.
According to a New York Times report two weeks ago, Trump’s “decision to order the attack on Iran, he said, was mostly a matter of gut instinct about Iranian intentions.”
“We were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was my opinion that they were going to attack first,” he said. “I think they were going to attack first, and I didn’t want that to happen.”
The Times added that Secretary of State Marco Rubio “had offered the opposite explanation the previous day, telling reporters that because Israel was going to act, Mr. Trump had no choice but to join what he called a ‘pre-emptive’ strike before Iran counterattacked U.S. bases and allies.”
But according to Leavitt on Tuesday, Trump’s decision to go to war against Iran was based on evidence that “was compiled from many sources and factors. President Trump would never make the decision to deploy military assets against a foreign adversary in a vacuum.”
Leavitt appeared to dismiss any other interpretations of what constitutes a threat to the nation.
READ MORE: ‘Sick, Demented, or Deranged’: Trump Issues Harshest Threat Yet Over Voter ID Bill
“The Commander-in-Chief determines what does and does not constitute a threat, because he is the one constitutionally empowered to do so – and because the American people went to the ballot box and entrusted him and him alone to make such final judgments,” she wrote.
Leavitt denounced what she called the “absurd allegation that President Trump made this decision based on the influence of others, even foreign countries,” calling it “both insulting and laughable,” despite what Secretary Rubio had said earlier.
She lashed out at Kent’s allegation that “it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby,” remarks that have been derided by both sides of the aisle.
Heath Mayo, founder of the pro-democracy center-right group Principles First, on social media on Tuesday warned his followers to not hold Kent up “as some paragon of principle.” He urged them to “recall this is the same man who flunked his congressional bid for his outspoken anti-Semitism, his ties to Nick Fuentes, and his insistence that the 2020 election was rigged.”
READ MORE: ‘He Was the Only One’: Trump Mocked for Declaring Iran’s Moves ‘Shocked’ Him
Image via Reuters
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
