Iran War Triggers Homeland Security Threats With Leadership In Flux
Left, Right & Center
KCRW
3.9 • 5K Ratings
🗓️ 20 March 2026
⏱️ 52 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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With our nation at war and under threat, the last thing you’d want is uncertainty and a staffing shakeup at the agency responsible for protecting our country. But here we are. We talk about why Joe Kent, the U.S. head of counterterrorism, resigned, and whether we may be better off with a replacement given his history of promoting conspiracy theories.
Also, President Trump vowed to take Cuba. We try to understand the foreign policy that’s taking shape where he seems to favor cutting the head of a country but leaving the body. In other words, don’t get too caught up in the details of what’s next because it’s not my administration’s problem.
Plus we take your questions, including what’s the difference between professional politicians and professional candidates. Mo Elleithee joins us on the left, and Sarah Isgur is with us on the right.
Producer: Leo Duran
Host: David Greene
Guests:
- Mo Elleithee, executive director at Georgetown University's Institute of Politics and Public Service - @MoElleithee
- Sarah Isgur, senior editor at The Dispatch - @whignewtons
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It is time for left, right and center, everybody. |
| 0:03.7 | Hope you're doing well. |
| 0:04.5 | I'm David Green. |
| 0:05.4 | You know, I am not going to exaggerate here. |
| 0:08.8 | I'm not going to editorialize. |
| 0:10.1 | These are just some facts. |
| 0:11.8 | We are at war with Iran. |
| 0:14.0 | We have seen not just threats of terrorism, but actual violence on the U.S. homeland |
| 0:18.8 | may be in response to that conflict. |
| 0:30.5 | There's been an attack on a synagogue in Michigan, a shooting at a university ROTC in Virginia, a shooting at a bar in Texas, just hours after the strikes began. |
| 0:41.9 | And there's news now from the Washington Post that unidentified drones were recently spotted over Fort McNair in Washington, D.C., where Cabinet Secretary's Marco Rubio and Pete Higsett live. |
| 0:46.4 | Again, we don't know for sure this is tied to the war, but it's pretty scary stuff. |
| 0:55.1 | Meanwhile, many people whose job it is to protect our country have been moved out of their positions, including the Top Job, the Secretary of Homeland Security. That position is currently vacant and in flux. And now the director of the National |
| 1:00.4 | Counterterrorism Center, Joe Kent, is gone. In a letter that he posted on X, he said, quote, |
| 1:05.8 | I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, |
| 1:12.9 | and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American |
| 1:17.4 | lobby, end quote. Reporters asked President Trump for his reaction to his counterterrorism director |
| 1:23.5 | leaving. I always thought he was a nice guy, but I always thought he was weak on security, very weak on security. |
| 1:31.0 | I didn't know him well, but I thought he seemed like a pretty nice guy. |
| 1:35.2 | He was weak on security, and yet President Trump himself nominated Joe Kent to this security |
| 1:40.3 | position in February of last year, and nearly all Republican senators voted to confirm him. |
| 1:45.0 | We're going to hear from different perspectives today on the state of our national security in this |
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