Whether he was anticipating it or not, the war abroad has opened a second, ugly front for Donald Trump.
He’s unlikely to admit it publicly, but the growing crisis at home threatens to tear apart the polarising US President’s intended legacy.
While the 79-year-old says the trouble with Iran will be easily overcome, the same can’t be said for regaining the loyalty of millions of Americans who once thought of him as the solution to the nation’s ills.
There were already cracks appearing within the coalition that helped return him to power, but Mr Trump’s backflip on one of his major campaign promises — to be a leader who ends wars — has left a sour note in the mouths of many.
Joe Kent has become the latest embodiment of the MAGA-exit.
In a revealing resignation letter, the now-former Director of the National Counterterrorism Center called out what he believed to be a series of lies the administration had used to justify the escalation, namely the existence of nuclear weapons and Iran’s supposed plot to strike the US imminently.
Kent also shone a spotlight on the broader issue eating at former Trump loyalists, who say he has bent to Israel’s wishes and waded into a war that will ultimately hurt his voters at home.
“I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. 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,” Kent wrote.
In a heavily circulated interview with popular conservative figure and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson the day after his resignation, Kent described the circus behind the curtain at the White House, claiming that the decision-making process had narrowed in the lead up to the war.
Level-headed advisers, he said, were being squeezed out of the room.
Mr Trump, well known to throw out the words of advisers and “trust his gut”, was now acting on his own accord “behind closed doors”.
“In the lead up to this last iteration, (a) good deal of key decision makers were not allowed to come and express their opinion to the president,” he said.
While there had been “robust debate” before earlier strikes, Kent argued that this time, the intelligence community’s ability to provide a “sanity check” was “largely stifled in this second iteration”.
“They had that discussion, you know, behind closed doors, and there wasn’t a chance for any dissenting voices to come,” he added.
That account was reinforced, indirectly, by reporting around his role. A senior Trump administration official told CNN that Kent had previously been sidelined from participating in intelligence briefings, including those related to Iran.
Kent then went on to strip down the administration’s core justification for the war.
“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 (or) Pearl Harbour, that they’re going to attack one of our bases,” he said.
“There was none of that intelligence,” he said.
Kent also challenged assumptions about the consequences of the strikes themselves. While he says the former ayatollah had clearly presided over crimes against humanity, the US should have been more conscious of the long-term fallout to removing him as leader.
Washington has a long list of case studies from years of activity in the Middle East and has learned the hard way that subjecting millions to prolonged military violence also plays a role in forming extremists.
“I’m no fan of the former supreme leader, you know, Ali Khamenei, however, he was moderating their nuclear program. He was preventing them from getting a nuclear weapon,” Kent said.
“If you take him out, if you kill him aggressively, people are going to rally around that regime.”
‘Who is in charge?’
Kent has done the rounds following his resignation, appearing on multiple news platforms to press his point against the administration.
In an interview with the Washington Post, he said he’d always hoped to sway his nation away from a senseless war if he had the opportunity.
“I said, ‘If I ever have a seat at the table, I’m not going to put up with this. I’ll do whatever I can to prevent it’,” he said.
He also argued that Israel had played a decisive role in shaping US actions, pointing to comments from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who openly admitted the US had been drawn in because Israel warned Mr Trump it would strike first.
The supposed intelligence that Iran was preparing to strike had prompted Israel into its own pre-emptive plan, which eventually turned into pressure on Mr Trump.
As war talk swirled, Kent felt his influence inside the administration was diminishing.
“It became really clear to me… that our message just wasn’t getting through,” he said.
“I know what happens if I stay, and I go along with this, I’m going to be, you know, knee deep in it, trying to just chip away and make a difference. But my ability to have, you know, my voice heard, to present data that runs contrary to the trajectory and the agenda that the administration’s on, that’s going to be squashed before it even really reaches the White House.”
Republican figures moved to discredit Kent’s position rather than engage with it directly. Former Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell condemned what he described as “the virulent anti-Semitism” of Kent’s resignation letter, saying: “Isolationists and anti-Semites have no place in either party, and certainly do not deserve places of trust in our government”.
Mr Trump himself attempted to ridicule Kent this week, bragging that he only gave him the counter-terrorism job out of pity.
Kent ran as a pro-Trump Republican for Washington’s 3rd Congressional District in 2022 and 2024, but was defeated both times by a Democrat.
Mr Trump actually said he was being a “nice guy” by giving Kent a seat at the table.
“Instead of letting him live out his life, I brilliantly have my people call him and offer him a job in security,” Mr Trump told reporters this week.
“And what does he do? He goes out and he says that Iran is not a threat to get publicity.
“This is what he does to me. You know, being a nice guy doesn’t pay off too much.”
Open and often comedic ridicule of his rivals is a tactic that has won Mr Trump a lot of supporters in his decade-long culture war against progressives, but he’s finding out just how loyal libertarians are when another war begins.
Prominent alternative media platforms, which played a big role in Mr Trump’s popularity leading up to the 2024 election, are quickly changing their tune.
Carlson said the attack on Iran was “absolutely disgusting and evil” and warned: “This is going to shuffle the deck in a profound way”.
Podcasting giant Joe Rogan said the war “seems so insane” and that “a lot of people feel betrayed”.
Conservative darling Megyn Kelly argued that there was no need to send another generation of Americans to the Middle East to fight a vague threat.
“No one should have to die for a foreign country,” she said, adding that the US government’s job “is not to look out for Iran or for Israel. It’s to look out for us”.
A drone strike to the polls
Polling for Mr Trump suggests those concerns are filtering all the way through the country.
In the weeks after the war began, his approval ratings largely drooped.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted between February 28 – March 1 found his approval at 39 per cent. But then Quinnipiac’s March 9 poll put it at 37 per cent, with 38 per cent approving of his handling of the situation with Iran and 57 per cent disapproving.
Economist/YouGov polling in mid-March also showed overall approval at 37 per cent, while Reuters/Ipsos polling later in the month recorded a further drop to 36 per cent, with just 35 per cent approving of the strikes and 61 per cent disapproving.
The consequences of the campaign are ballooning out and grazing the rest of the developed world.
The conflict has pushed energy prices to crippling highs, with oil hovering above $100 a barrel. The market disruption is feeding directly into inflation, which central banks in Europe and the UK are now warning has become more uncertain again.
The IMF has said sustained increases in energy prices can push global inflation higher while also cutting economic output.
Disruptions to shipping routes, particularly around the Strait of Hormuz, are also raising transport costs which have immediately had an impact on essential supply chains including food.
It’s all created a perfect storm for Mr Trump, who is now walking a very uncertain line battling both internal and external pressure leading into the midterms in November.
