Joe Kent, the former counterterrorism director who resigned in March over the Iran War, told Cenk Uygur on ‘The Young Turks’ that the gathering of “America First” former MAGA Republicans at Tucker Carlson’s house this weekend was about creating a new anti-war political movement that could be a third party, and trying to convince Tucker to run for president in 2028. Kent, Thomas Massie, and Marjorie Taylor Greene were pictured in Carlson’s Maine log mansion this weekend, and say they want their new movement to focus on foreign policy, the only area where a president has unilateral authority to act. “All the other issues that the uniparty likes us to fight about, the president actually doesn’t have a lot of unilateral authority over,” he said.

We said no more foreign wars and we meant it and supported Donald Trump because he made that promise.
But he’s betrayed us all.
Our commitment is America First for all Americans, right, left, and center.
The movement has begun. pic.twitter.com/mZXadw0kBr

– Former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@FmrRepMTG) August 1, 2026

“No matter who we vote for, we get another war in the Middle East. No matter who we vote for, AIPAC and these major donors-most of whom most Americans don’t even know-dictate the policy that sends our best young men and women off to fight and die on foreign battlefields,” he said. “Anywhere else they want to work, especially in the domestic space, they have to get the consensus of the House, the Senate, the states, et cetera. But when they go over to foreign policy, they’re essentially the king of the world. That’s why foreign lobbies and the military-industrial complex spend so much money lobbying the president on foreign policy,” Kent said. “So I think starting with the presidential run in 2028 and a broad coalition-and I think that broad coalition already exists-would be a good starting point,” he said. “There was a lot of crossover between Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump.” “So, basically, between myself, Marjorie and Thomas just kind of invited ourselves over to Tucker’s house. He’s a gracious enough host that he fed us dinner and facilitated the conversation,” Kent said. “We all made our pitch to Tucker as to why he should run, and hopefully he wakes up one day and says he’s going to run. I would fully support that.” “But right now, it was mostly about how we need to work to build a broader coalition and then look at whether it is feasible to actually do a third political party,” he said. “And once we get that movement established, would we be picked apart by procedure and not even be able to get someone on the ballot? Does it make more sense, then, to run as an insurgent candidate in one of the major political parties?” Cenk asked: “Were there any conversations about one of the toughest issues: How do you appeal to the left? Obviously, we’ve got some significant disagreements-LGBTQ rights, abortion, all the social issues that we’ve all been fighting over for many decades, probably our whole lives.” “I think it is having a very, very simple platform and acknowledging upfront that we are going to disagree on a lot of domestic policy and a lot of social issues,” Kent said. “At the end of the day, the president can talk a lot about all those things, but he really doesn’t have a lot of power.” “We do agree that we don’t want Israel dictating our foreign policy. We don’t want any more foreign wars. We don’t want to have to run a massive empire all over the rest of the world. So we build a broad coalition that says we agree on these things.” “Those other issues would be handled in the House, handled in the Senate and handled at the state level.” “What happens to JD Vance in this equation?” Cenk asked. “Look, I like JD. He’s in a tough spot,” Kent said. “His name’s on the ticket, and he has had to go along with a lot of what’s taken place in this administration.” “I think this is just some of the trap of the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. If you lock us into this two-party system, you basically have to pick your side, and then you have to go down with the ship. That’s the position JD is in right now, because President Trump put the ship on a heading toward the iceberg, for lack of a better metaphor.” “It’s going to be very hard for JD Vance, or anybody else who stayed in the administration, to come back out in 2028 and say, trust me this time,” he said. “It is money, at the end of the day, that destroyed the MAGA movement, so I also think we need to start with getting money out of politics.”
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