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In our latest Two Brothers Talking conversation, Don Lemon and I discussed what should be the lead story everywhere.
Tulsi Gabbard sat before Congress and, in a written statement submitted to the committee, claimed that Iran’s nuclear enrichment program was obliterated after the summer strikes and that there had been no effort since to rebuild that capability. Gabbard confirmed that testimony under firm questioning from Senator Jon Ossoff (D-GA).
That is the Director of National Intelligence directly contradicting the president’s stated justification for launching a war that has killed at least 13 American service members, wounded at least 200, driven up gas prices, and killed 175 people at an Iranian elementary school with outdated targeting data.
Joe Kent, the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center, resigned the day before Gabbard’s testimony and proclaimed Iran posed no imminent threat. He then told Tucker Carlson that Iran was not on the verge of getting a nuclear weapon three weeks ago when the war started, and they were not in June either. The previous Supreme Leader had a fatwa, a religious ban, against nuclear weapons. The intelligence community said there was no imminent threat. And Trump launched the war anyway.
This is like if we learned there were no weapons of mass destruction three weeks into the invasion of Iraq.
You can watch the full conversation above and read key takeaways below.
The DNI Just Called The President A Liar Without Saying It
This is the most significant intelligence revelation since the war began. Tulsi Gabbard walked into those hearings with a written statement that directly undermined the president’s justification for the war and then confirmed it under questioning from Senator Jon Ossoff. What she could not do was say the words out loud. What she did instead was make the conclusion unavoidable.
I raised the Iraq parallel that I think is the clearest way to understand the scale of what just happened. If we had been three weeks into the Iraq War and the top intelligence official had come before Congress and confirmed there were no weapons of mass destruction, it would have been an administration-halting scandal. Wall-to-wall coverage. Hour by hour. Instead, Gabbard’s testimony moved through the news cycle like just another story. Don said he could not understand why there was not a code red, why people were not calling for the president to answer for this.
I raised the specific mechanics of what Gabbard did because it is worth understanding precisely. She submitted a written statement to the committee saying Iran’s nuclear enrichment program was obliterated after the summer strikes, and there had been no effort to rebuild. She then read her opening statement aloud, omitting that line. Ossoff caught it and questioned her directly. Under that questioning, she confirmed it was the analysis of the intelligence community. Her only out was to say the determination of imminence was up to the president alone. Don noted what that actually means: she was telling Congress that the intelligence community told Trump there was no imminent threat, and he decided there was one anyway. That is calling the president a liar without using the word.
I added the fatwa point that compounds everything else. Under questioning, Gabbard also acknowledged that the previous Supreme Leader had a religious ban against nuclear weapons. So the administration’s own DNI confirmed both that Iran’s nuclear capability was obliterated after the summer strikes and that the leader they killed had a fatwa against building one. Every pillar of Trump’s stated justification for this war has now been undermined by his own intelligence apparatus.
MAGA Is Fracturing & The Iran War Is Why
The Joe Kent resignation is not just a news item. It is a signal that the anti-war coalition inside the MAGA ecosystem is real, growing, and now intersecting with the conspiracy theories that have been building since Charlie Kirk’s death. Don and I both noted that watching the conspiratorial machine turn on itself has been one of the stranger dynamics of this war.
Don flagged Joe Kent’s resignation and his Tucker Carlson interview as the moment the fracture became undeniable. Kent, the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center, went on record saying Iran was not pursuing nuclear weapons three weeks ago when the war started, and was not doing so in June either. Kent has his own serious problems; his ties to Nick Fuentes and white nationalist figures are documented and reprehensible. But on the imminent threat question, he is saying the same thing as Gabbard’s written statement. That alignment matters regardless of who is saying it.
Don raised the Charlie Kirk conspiracy theories circulating in right-wing media because they are now colliding directly with the anti-Iran war sentiment. Candace Owens has been building a whole argument that Kirk was taken out because of his opposition to Israel. Joe Kent insinuated something similar to Tucker Carlson. Don noted that it sounds like a Candace Owens conspiracy theory. I said I have seen no hard evidence and personally do not believe it. But the fact that it is gaining serious traction in right-wing information spaces, and that it is converging with Megyn Kelly’s break from the pro-war lane, shows just how deeply fractured the MAGA base has become over this war.
Don observed that the Megyn Kelly and Mark Levin beef, which reached a level of absurdity neither of us will repeat in full detail here, is itself a symptom of what is happening. Trump had to weigh in to defend Levin. The fact that the president of the United States is being pulled into disputes between right-wing media figures over the Iran War shows how far the consensus has collapsed. And this is happening in a midterm year.
Short-Term Pain, Long-Term Reckoning
Don had an insight during his show the morning of this Live that I think is worth sitting with. He said maybe the administration is right that this is short-term pain for long-term gain. Just not in the way they mean it.
Don posed the thought that the short-term gain could lead to the long-term gain of Trump’s movement collapsing. He also made the point that the Senate and congressional hearings, painful as they are to watch, are functioning as transparency. They are forcing the people placed in these positions to sit before the public and demonstrate, on camera, that they either do not know what they are doing or are unwilling to tell the truth about it. The American people can see it. It is not being buried. And in a midterm year, that visibility has consequences.
I agreed and extended the argument. Everything Trump has done, the war, the tariffs, the attacks on allies, the economic instability, is backfiring in ways that are slowly but surely collapsing the political foundation of this administration. The conditions being created right now are very similar to what produced Barack Obama’s rise. An unjust war in the Middle East. An economy with serious risk factors. A Republican base that’s fracturing over presidential overreach. The recipe is the same. The question is whether the Democratic Party is ready to produce a candidate who can take advantage of it.
Don made the point I keep coming back to. It is not up to Trump to decide when this war ends. Iran has a vote. If Trump announces a pullback, Israel and Iran will keep going. The war does not stop because he declares it over. He has stumbled into a quagmire, as Don put it, and no amount of Hegseth press briefings or media pressure campaigns changes that underlying reality. The Strait of Hormuz is still closed. The body count is still rising. And his own intelligence director just confirmed the war was built on a lie.
Bottom Line
The Director of National Intelligence testified that Iran’s nuclear capabilities were obliterated after the summer strikes and there was no effort to rebuild them. The director of the National Counterterrorism Center resigned and said there was no imminent threat. The previous Supreme Leader had a fatwa against nuclear weapons. Every stated justification for this war has now been contradicted by Trump’s own people.
Don said it best. If this were a Democratic administration, Sean Hannity’s head would be popping off. Instead, it is moving through the news cycle. We cannot let it.
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