Astead Herndon

I wanted to ask about Joe Kent, Trump's own national counterterrorism director, who recently resigned, saying that Iran posed, quote, no imminent threat to our nation.

I know that you have argued that a strike did not require an imminent threat and you have argued for that for a while.

But I wanted to ask you about his assessment.

Is he wrong that Iran did not pose an imminent threat to the country, as some administration officials have suggested?

I did want to end on a kind of question about the public.

At least 60 percent of American people oppose this war.

And the Trump administration, as you said, has really made no effort to kind of curry public favor, explain to the public why this is happening.

Did not obviously make that case to Congress.

You've criticized that failure yourself.

But one question I have is like, is that not enough for that for this war to kind of be unjustified in itself?

How much does public opinion matter?

play a role when you're in those discussions about what to do militarily as you've been?

I want to end on this question.

You know, the administration would say that Iran is weakened militarily fundamentally, that their leadership has been eliminated in a unique way, that they have sped up a succession crisis.

Is that to you achieving the objective of regime change?

It sounds like even though you've got, even though you kind of got what you wanted, theoretically, it may not end up, it doesn't necessarily leave us in a better place, even under your own framework.

Ambassador Bolton, we really appreciate your time.

Thank you so much for joining us.

That was former Ambassador John Bolton.

This episode was produced by Jesse Ash.