NHL Highlights | Sabres vs. Maple Leafs – November 4, 2023

Joe Kent, the former senior intelligence official who resigned from the Trump administration in protest of the Iran war, made a stunning claim Monday that “something” happened to President Donald Trump that “changed” him from that point forward.

“Something in the late spring, early summer time frame happened – I don’t know what happened,” Kent said during an appearance on the “Julian Dorey Podcast” published on Monday.

“I can’t tell you why his mentality changed, but it went from, ‘we’re gonna create the most space we can for [Iran] negotiations and we’re not interested in the war,’ to, ‘okay, we’re gonna support the Israelis, do Midnight Hammer and we’re gonna continue to entertain this.’”

A key pledge of Trump during his 2024 campaign was that he would not send Americans “to fight and die in stupid foreign wars that never end,” reiterating that promise during his victory speech: “I’m not going to start a war,” he said.

And yet, in late February, Trump launched Operation Epic Fury with a large-scale attack on Iran that months later now risks sparking a broader war.

Kent, who's long championed Trump's anti-interventionist rhetoric, said he was confused by the president's apparent shift, and while he could narrow down roughly when it happened, he still couldn't say what caused it.

“I don’t know what happened. And so for me, when something like that happens, from an intelligence background, you do have to step back and look at what else could be influencing the president,” Kent said.

“Did he just change his mind? For him to go through with [launching the Iran war], ultimately, I do think there’s potentially other factors there: so what could those other factors be? Why would a president make decisions that he doesn’t agree with?”

Other conservative figures have speculated as to why Trump launched a war against Iran despite his frequent anti-war rhetoric, including prominent conservative figure Tucker Carlson, who in April floated a disturbing theory that a “blackmail” operation perpetrated by the Israeli government could potentially have forced the president’s hand.

A political correspondent flagged Trump's "Hunger Games-style" competition as auditions began for kids who will compete.

During an episode of The Daily Beast Podcast, Farrah Tomazin wrapped a conversation about Trump's D.C. beautification projects and spectacles, like the Great American State Fair, by pointing to the next big events he has planned in the nation's capital.

Even though July 4 has passed, "more America 250 spectacles are going on very soon," like an Indy car race and an event Trump is calling the "Patriot Games." It involves bringing together kids from around the country to compete against each other.

"Keep your eye out for this," Tomazin said about the Patriot Games. "It's essentially a Hunger Games-style event."

She was evoking the famous Hunger Games franchise from books and movies, where kids from a dystopian world fight to the death.

"This will not include death and destruction or the like," Tomazin said about the Patriot Games. "But it's basically getting kids from different schools to compete in the nation's capital for a made-for-TV ESPN spectacle."

According to Tomazin, "auditions" to recruit kids to compete in the Patriot Games are "going on at the moment," and the Trump-backed Freedom 250, which organized the Great American State Fair, has "called for auditions where you have to provide an audition tape."

She also compared it to America's Got Talent, the reality competition show, as kids "have to provide them with an audition tape to talk about yourself and how much you love the country, and then you'll get to go to the nation's capital and compete in some sort of Patriot Games."