Welcome to Wednesday’s edition of Washington Secrets. We take a look at the smartest way to ensure a warm phone call with Donald Trump, examine the campaign to discredit Joe Kent as his resignation from the administration threatens to rip the MAGA movement wide open, and we have the latest skirmish in the race for the 2028 Republican nomination …
You never know whether you are going to catch Donald Trump in a good mood or at a moment when he is nursing any one of a number of grievances.
Unless you are Sir Keir Starmer, who has proved to be one of the canniest operators when it comes to managing a most unpredictable president.
Secrets can reveal that the British Prime Minister had the sense to telephone Trump on Sunday afternoon when he knew the president would be at his West Palm Beach golf club.
Tensions have been running high between the two men, with Trump increasingly frustrated at the U.K.’s reluctance to offer more military support to his war in Iran or send ships to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
But a source familiar with their call over the weekend said it went swimmingly.
“It was upbeat,” the source said. “Or let me rephrase that: It was positive.”
It was the second Sunday in a row that the two leaders had spoken, at a time when there is a good chance Trump is at his golf club.
A growing body of evidence, from reporters telephoning Trump to anecdotes dating to the first term, suggests one of the best times to call is when the president has just played golf. He is relaxed and ready to chat.
One journalist told Semafor that Trump is more likely to give you a good quote after playing golf.
“If you are going to call him then after a round of golf and after he’s had a chance to have lunch is as good a time as any,” said Carl Domino, a former Florida lawmaker and member of Trump International Golf Club West Palm Beach.
“What’s the worst that could happen? He hangs up?” Domino said.
Things haven’t been entirely positive for Starmer since their conversation. Trump dished out more criticism of the British leader in the Oval Office on Tuesday in front of the Irish Taoiseach Micheal Martin, comparing him unfavorably with Winston Churchill and complaining that Starmer only offered to send naval vessels once Iran’s defenses were all but demolished.
“I think he’s a nice man, but I’m disappointed,” he said.
The positive phone call and public dressing down probably suit Starmer just fine. He has to walk a tightrope: keeping the White House close without angering a British public that wants no part in the Iran war, and which already thinks the prime minister is on borrowed time.
“No one at Number 10 is panicking,” a British source said. “This is playing out just fine.”
It is understood that Starmer’s message to Trump in the phone call was that he is willing to back American diplomacy by working with his European counterparts and building support for defending the Strait of Hormuz. It is hardly his fault, runs the rest of the argument, that France, Germany and the rest won’t play ball.
According to the British readout of the call (the White House no longer publishes its own readouts other than what Trump posts on his Truth Social account), Trump and Starmer agreed to stay in touch.
“The leaders discussed the ongoing situation in the Middle East and the importance of reopening the Strait of Hormuz to end the disruption to global shipping, which is driving up costs worldwide,” per the readout.
Starmer had proven one of the smarter readers of Trump (until a recent cooling). Last year, his government secured the first trade deal with Washington, lubricated in part by an invitation for a state visit to the U.K.
And it is no surprise that Trump is running his Iran operation from the golf club. He went to war from a makeshift situation room at his Mar-a-Lago club, and Secrets revealed last month how Sen. Lindsey Graham had used a round of golf to make his closing arguments to Trump that this was the time to strike Iran.
Joe Kent lines up media hits as White House runs interference
Was this the most consequential resignation of the administration so far? Well, if White House pushback is your guide, then the answer is an overwhelming yes.
Joe Kent stepped down as director of the National Counterterrorism Center and released his resignation letter on Tuesday, saying that Iran posed “no imminent threat” to the U.S. and claiming the administration “started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.”
Uh oh. The trouble for Trump is that these are the exact arguments that are coursing through his America First, anti-interventionist base. Cue the takedowns.
Laura Loomer, who has positioned herself as something of a loyalty czar, posted: “So disrespectful to President Trump. But, don’t say I didn’t warn you about Joe Kent and his wife who works for Trump hater and radical Left Jew hater Max Blumenthal.”
Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s message enforcer, posted a 450-word screed on X, defending the decision to attack Iran. “This evidence was compiled from many sources and factors,” she wrote. “President Trump would never make the decision to deploy military assets against a foreign adversary in a vacuum.”
And Kent was a leaker who was about to be fired, according to Taylor Budowich, Trump’s former deputy chief of staff.
Officials are intent on stopping the spread of dissent.
They will have their work cut out for them. Kent sits down with Tucker Carlson on Wednesday afternoon, and Israel-friendly radio host Mark Levin sent out an invitation for an hourlong interview. “Sure,” responded Kent on X. “Let’s go.”
One awkward detail in all of this is that Kent, along with his boss Tulsi Gabbard, met with JD Vance, the vice president, on Monday, when the resignation letter was discussed. Vance and Gabbard are known as the most intervention-skeptical members of the Cabinet.
2028-ology in the Oval Office
Speaking of whom, there was great material for ranking the Vance-Rubio rivalry in the Oval Office yesterday when Trump was asked a question about how to handle attacks on U.S. consulates in the Middle East.
“Do you want to answer that …” said Trump, looking at the sofa where the secretary of state suddenly perked up, interjecting, “Yes,” before the president finished his question with a pointed … “JD?”
No one doubts Rubio’s commitment to the war in Iran. So was Trump giving Vance a bit of a loyalty test in the crowded confines of the Oval Office, where there is no escaping the cameras?
Vance had the grace to thank the secretary of state for his hard work.
“It goes to show there are a lot of terrorists in that region of the world, and we’ve got to eliminate when we find them,” he said, in a perhaps more measured answer than other Cabinet members would have given.
Lunchtime reading
Excerpt: “Send Me: The True Story of a Mother at War” — Kent cited the story of his first wife, Shannon, in his resignation letter. She was killed in a 2019 Islamic State group suicide attack in Syria, where she was serving as a U.S. Navy cryptology technician. Kent later teamed up with a journalist to tell her story, and this is an excerpt describing the attack.
Trump’s next decision: Whether to retrieve Iran’s nuclear fuel, whatever the risk — “It would, by any measure, be one of the boldest and riskiest military operations in modern American history, far more complex and dangerous than the effort to kill Osama bin Laden in 2011, or seize Nicolás Maduro from his bed in early January.”
You are reading Washington Secrets, a guide to power and politics in D.C. and beyond. It is written by Rob Crilly, who you can reach at secrets @ washington examiner DOTCOM with your comments, story tips, and suggestions. If a friend sent you this and you’d like to sign up, click here.