The Brief | Israel Just Killed Iran's Number Two and Three. And Is Washington Cracked?
Inside Tehran's collapsing command structure, a gold-star counterterrorism chief who married into The Grayzone, a congressional subpoena for Pam Bondi, and the Senate's SAVE Act theater
It’s Wednesday!
I’m here with your mid-week edition. If you’re reading this before coffee, put it down. You need both hands for this one. Operation Epic Fury is now in week three, Iran’s shadow government just got eliminated, and is the America First coalition cracking in real time?
ICYMI, we talked about it on the podcast!
In today’s Brief:
Iran’s de facto ruler Ali Larijani was killed overnight in a U.S.-Israeli airstrike, leaving Tehran without a functional command structure.
Joe Kent, Trump’s top counterterrorism official, resigned in protest of the Iran war — and the story gets stranger when you learn who his wife works for.
A bipartisan House committee subpoenaed Attorney General Pam Bondi to testify under oath about the DOJ’s handling of the Epstein files.
The Senate kicked off a marathon floor debate on the SAVE America Act — Trump’s top legislative priority — even though everyone knows it’s not going to pass.
The Brief runs Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. If someone forwarded this to you, you can fix that problem at the bottom of this email. Let’s get into it.
Iran Loses Its Second Leader in Three Weeks
Here is where we are: Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed by a joint U.S.-Israeli operation on February 28. His son Mojtaba was elevated to replace him by the Assembly of Experts on March 7 — but he’s been mostly absent, a ghost in the government, showing no signs of meaningful moderation or willingness to deal. In the vacuum, Ali Larijani, the 67-year-old Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, had been running day-to-day operations as Iran’s de facto ruler.
Overnight on Monday, Israel killed him too.
Here’s what makes this particularly striking. Last Friday — March 13 — Larijani strolled confidently through a rally of regime loyalists in central Tehran, dark sunglasses, black coat, projecting total command. It was his first public appearance since the war began, in a conflict where he was a known target with a $10 million bounty on his head. He posted on X afterward: “Brave people. Brave officials. Brave leaders. This combination cannot be defeated.”
Four days later, he was dead. Israeli intelligence tracked him to a hideout on the outskirts of Tehran and took him out with a missile strike. The same night, according to a bombshell WSJ exclusive, Israel got a tip from ordinary Iranian citizens that Basij militia commander Gholam Reza Soleimani — the second target killed that night — was hiding in a tent in a wooded area in Tehran with his deputies. Israel struck. Soleimani died too.
That detail — regular Iranians helping Israel find and kill the man who ran the regime’s street enforcers — is not a minor footnote. It is the story within the story.
The WSJ reviewed Israeli battle-damage reports showing the scale of what’s been unfolding for three weeks: Israel has dropped 10,000 munitions on thousands of targets, more than 2,200 of them specifically targeting the IRGC, Basij, and Iran’s internal security apparatus. The campaign began by forcing security forces out of their headquarters, to sports stadiums, then to hideouts under highway bridges, then to tents in the woods — the steady compression of a regime’s ability to enforce its own authority. Thousands of regime personnel have been killed or wounded.
Israel’s Mossad has also been calling Iranian commanders directly. The WSJ reviewed the contents of one such call, with a Mossad agent speaking in Farsi to a senior police commander:
“We know everything about you. You are on our blacklist... I called to warn you in advance that you should stand with your people’s side. And if you will not do that, your destiny will be as your leader.”
The commander’s response: “Brother, I swear on the Quran, I’m not your enemy. I’m a dead man already. Just please come help us.”
The tally continues to grow. The Israeli Ministry of Defense confirmed that on Tuesday — the day after Larijani — Iran’s Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib was also killed. Defense Minister Israel Katz was blunt about the message: the eliminated leaders “have joined Khamenei, the head of the annihilation program, along with all those eliminated from the axis of evil in the depths of hell.” According to The Jerusalem Post, Israel’s position is simple: Iran’s surviving leadership either makes dramatic concessions or stays in the crosshairs.
And when asked Tuesday whether Iran intends to negotiate, Trump said something remarkable: “We have no idea who is in charge of Iran now.”
Neither does anyone else. Celebrations broke out across Iran when Larijani’s death was confirmed. The strategic picture is grimmer than that suggests: oil prices have spiked to roughly $106 a barrel — up ~50% from a month ago — as Iran’s Strait of Hormuz closure chokes global shipping. The administration has deployed additional Marines to the region. Trump says it wraps in “a matter of weeks.” But who signs the deal? Who sits across the table? Right now, there is no clear answer — and per the WSJ’s reporting, the U.S. and Israel may be counting on the Iranian people to provide one.
The Kent Resignation: Principled, Convenient, or Something Weirder?
Let’s not pretend Joe Kent’s resignation is simple, because it isn’t.
Kent — Army Special Forces veteran, Gold Star husband, former CIA paramilitary officer — served as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center under DNI Tulsi Gabbard. He posted his resignation letter on X on Tuesday and the core argument is stark: Iran posed no imminent threat to the United States, and Trump was deceived into launching this war by “high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media” who ran a “misinformation campaign.” He called it the same playbook used to draw the U.S. into Iraq. He invoked the death of his first wife, Shannon, killed in an ISIS suicide bombing in Syria, calling her death part of “a war manufactured by Israel.”
Per Axios, Kent privately resigned to Vice President Vance on Monday — with Gabbard also in the room — before going public. Vance reportedly encouraged him to speak to the White House chief of staff first. He didn’t.
The White House response was swift and contemptuous. Trump called Kent “a nice guy” but “always weak on security, very weak on security,” and said his departure was “a good thing.” Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt published a lengthy rebuttal, calling Kent’s claim that Iran posed no imminent threat “the same false claim that Democrats and some in the liberal media have been repeating over and over.”
Fox News reporter Jacqui Heinrich reported that a senior administration official said Kent was “a known leaker,” had been cut out of presidential intelligence briefings months ago, and was never part of any Iran planning discussions.
DNI Gabbard made clear in her own statement that she supports the president’s decision, emphasizing Trump’s authority as commander-in-chief to determine what constitutes an imminent threat.
Former White House deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich called Kent “a crazed egomaniac who was often at the center of national security leaks.” He suggested the resignation was preemptive, that Kent jumped before he was pushed. Tucker Carlson called Kent “the bravest man I know.” The NY Post reports the White House is now bracing for an expected Carlson interview of Kent.
Kent is now hitting the media circuit — fast. His interview with Tucker Carlson on TCN airs tonight at 6:00 PM EST. And Candace Owens announced on her podcast that she plans to interview him this Thursday (March 19) at the “Catholic Prayer for America” Gala hosted by Catholics for Catholics in Washington, D.C. That’s two major anti-interventionist platforms in under 48 hours.
The unverified theory that’s circulating — and it’s all about timing. This is unconfirmed online speculation, flagged here because we have to talk about it. On Sunday, Tucker Carlson posted on X, claiming the CIA had accessed his text messages and was preparing a criminal referral to the DOJ, alleging this stemmed from his communications with “people in Iran” before the war, potentially a FARA violation. Carlson framed it as an effort to “frame” him. One to two days later, Kent — a “known leaker” who had already been cut out of presidential intelligence briefings for months — resigns publicly, immediately praises Carlson, and begins booking appearances on his network.
The theory making the rounds: Kent may have been the source who leaked details of the CIA’s alleged surveillance of Carlson to Carlson himself. The resignation, in this reading, wasn’t primarily about conscience; it was preemptive damage control before potential legal or professional fallout arrived. The rapid pivot to TCN and Candace Owens amplifies the suspicion that this is a coordinated effort by the anti-interventionist MAGA flank to build a media counternarrative against the Iran war, with Kent as the credentialed insider who can claim whistleblower status.
To be clear, none of this is confirmed. The White House has already dismissed Carlson’s CIA surveillance claims as “bullsh*t.” No public evidence directly ties Kent to leaks to Carlson. But the proximity of these events — Carlson claims CIA targeting, Kent resigns and immediately joins Carlson’s roster — is the kind of thing that doesn’t just dissolve on its own. The Carlson interview tonight may answer some of it. Or create more questions.
The substantive question underneath all of it remains: Was there truly no imminent threat? Will Chamberlain made a pointed counterargument, ISIS didn’t pose an imminent threat to the U.S. either, and Kent’s own letter praises Trump’s decision to defeat them. The “imminent threat” standard, if applied rigorously, would paralyze deterrence. The question isn’t just whether Kent is principled; it’s whether his standard, applied consistently, makes any strategic sense.
Epstein Files Fight Escalates: Bondi Gets the Subpoena
The Epstein saga is grinding forward, and it is not going away.
A bipartisan House Oversight Committee — led by Chairman James Comer (R-KY), with five Republicans joining 19 Democrats — formally subpoenaed Attorney General Pam Bondi to appear for a closed-door sworn deposition on April 14. The committee wants her testimony on the DOJ’s handling of Epstein-related document releases, including decisions on what to redact, what to withhold under legal privilege claims, and how the department reached its July 6 conclusion that Epstein was not part of a sinister trafficking network.
The committee is also seeking interviews with Goldman Sachs’ departing general counsel Kathryn Ruemmler, Bill Gates, former Clinton aide Doug Band, Apollo Global’s Leon Black, and others with documented ties to Epstein.
The DOJ pushed back, calling the subpoena “completely unnecessary,” noting that lawmakers can already review unredacted files at a DOJ facility and that Bondi has been available for briefings. Bondi and Deputy AG Todd Blanche were due to give the committee a private briefing on Wednesday.
The political awkwardness here is real. The committee vote forcing Bondi’s appearance was bipartisan. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has already agreed to voluntarily testify about a photo showing him at Epstein’s private island. White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles acknowledged last year that Bondi had “completely whiffed” in her pre-appointment public remarks about having Epstein’s “client list” sitting on her desk. Over 3 million pages of documents have been released, and voters, particularly on the right, are not satisfied with what they’re seeing, or not seeing.
The SAVE Act: Senate Theater Comes to Washington
On Tuesday, the Senate voted 51-48 to open debate on the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act, Trump’s self-described “No. 1 legislative priority.” The bill requires proof of citizenship to register to vote and photo ID to cast a ballot, and it would empower DHS to flag suspected noncitizens to states for voter roll purges.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) voted with all Democrats against proceeding. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) — who has called the bill “federal overreach” — didn’t vote.
Trump this week threatened on Truth Social that he will never endorse anyone who votes against the bill, calling it “one of the most IMPORTANT & CONSEQUENTIAL pieces of legislation in the history of Congress.” He has tied his endorsement in the Texas Senate Republican primary directly to a senator’s position on the SAVE Act.
The math doesn’t care about the threats. Republicans need 60 votes to end debate, and they have 53. Majority Leader John Thune has publicly stated he doesn’t have the votes for a “talking filibuster,” either, which would require near-unanimous Republican conference support to force Democrats to continuously speak on the floor until they collapse. Even Trump’s amendments — add a mail-in ballot ban, add a transgender athlete ban — require 60 votes to attach. So the amendments won’t pass either.
What is happening, then? Republicans get to put Democrats on record opposing voter ID. Democrats get to run ads saying Republicans tried to take away your right to vote. Trump gets to tell his base he went to the mat. A Harvard-Harris survey in February found 71% of voters support the SAVE America Act overall, and 85% support the citizenship requirement.
Schumer’s line: “A naked attempt to rig our elections.” Thune’s line: “You need an ID to get a library card.” Both sides are talking past the actual voters.
Overnight update: Internal Republican divisions surfaced at a Tuesday lunch where senators objected to the bill’s mail-in ballot restrictions. The White House is reportedly working to address GOP conference concerns. Debate continues today.
Quick Rundown
Iran fires back — at everyone. Following the Larijani and Khatib killings, Iran launched retaliatory missile and drone barrages Tuesday night targeting Israel, Kuwait, UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. Gulf state air defense systems were engaged overnight. Two people died from shrapnel near Tel Aviv, and six were killed in Beirut during Israeli counterstrikes on Hezbollah.
The DHS shutdown is now in its second month — and airports are noticing. The White House released a formal written offer Tuesday listing five policy concessions on immigration enforcement — body cameras, sensitive-location restrictions, detention oversight. Schumer immediately rejected it, saying they haven’t budged on the two issues that matter: warrants before home entries and unmasked agents.
AIPAC dropped $22 million in Illinois — and got a split decision. Illinois held Democratic primaries Tuesday. AIPAC-aligned Juliana Stratton won the Senate race to replace retiring Sen. Dick Durbin. But in key House races, AIPAC picks went 2-for-4, with Daniel Biss defeating their candidate in the 9th District and La Shawn Ford beating their pick in the 7th.
Section 702 spy powers expire in 33 days — and Tucker’s CIA claim just made this weirder. Speaker Johnson wants a clean 18-month reauthorization of FISA’s Section 702 surveillance authority on the floor next week, ahead of the April 20 deadline. Hard-liners want privacy guardrails added. There’s a classified briefing today at 3:30 PM. Given that Tucker Carlson just alleged the CIA accessed his texts and was preparing a DOJ referral — and that Joe Kent is now on Tucker’s network — the fight over what the government can legally surveil, and who it’s surveilling, just got considerably more charged.
Let’s Talk About It
The Joe Kent story is going to dominate the week, and there’s more to come — the Tucker Carlson interview is expected any day. Two questions on my mind that I want your take on:
First: Does the Grayzone connection to Kent’s wife change how you read his resignation letter? Is that relevant context, or is it a distraction from the substance of his argument? Also, what do you think of this “timing” speculation?
Second: The WSJ reported that ordinary Iranians are tipping off Israel, helping pinpoint hiding militia commanders, reporting checkpoint locations, feeding intelligence to the people systematically dismantling their regime's enforcement apparatus. Is this the beginning of a citizen uprising? As the leadership retreats further into hiding and its ability to suppress dissent erodes, will Iranians grow more emboldened and keep helping? Or does the regime still have enough grip on the streets to hold it together? Is Iran on borrowed time?
Drop a comment below.
Until Friday!
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