Bring Our Troops Home Podcast

Joe Kent served 11 combat deployments. He earned six Bronze Stars. He was the director of the National Counterterrorism Center — appointed by Trump, confirmed by the Senate. His job was to know whether Iran posed an imminent threat.

He resigned rather than lie about it.

In his resignation letter, Kent said Iran posed no imminent threat — and that the president was deceived by an echo chamber running the same playbook used to drag us into Iraq. Within hours, the system destroyed him. The president called him weak on security. The press ran FBI leak stories. His colleagues went quiet.

Meanwhile, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — the one man with the subpoena power and the gavel to hold a public hearing — refused. And in a classified briefing, Jim Risch told his colleagues exactly why: "I do not believe the administration's decision makers should be subject to public questioning by senators."

Dan McKnight has a long personal history with Jim Risch — from a satellite phone call on a mountain in Afghanistan in 2006 to a box of Afghanistan Papers delivered to his Boise office with no response. In this episode, Dan tells that story in full — and makes the case that Risch is not a bad man. He is a captured man. There is a difference.T

his episode covers:• Why "imminent threat" is a legal standard — not a talking point — and what it actually requires

• The two Tulsi Gabbard testimony moments that contradict the White House's justification for the war
• How the "two weeks to ten nuclear weapons" claim traveled from Netanyahu to Witkoff to Trump — with no intelligence analyst anywhere in the chain
• What Senator Tim Kaine revealed Risch said behind closed doors about public oversight• The Norman Brownstein video — and what it means when a lobbyist calls the SFRC "the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations for the State of Israel"
• A direct appeal to veterans: Joe Kent kept his promise. Jim Risch broke his. Which choice are you going to make?

Read the open letter published in The American Conservative — signed by Dan McKnight, Col. Douglas Macgregor, Lt. Col. Daniel Davis, and Capt. Matthew Hoh: https://www.theamericanconservative.com/veterans-have-earned-the-right-to-ask-its-time-we-did/

Add your name to the petition: https://BringOurTroopsHome.us then click "Stand With Joe Kent"

For Defend the Guard resources in your state, visit www.DefendTheGuard.us and click your state on the map.

Join the movement

Bring Our Troops Home is the only national organization actively working to restore constitutional war powers by passing Defend the Guard legislation in the states.

If you believe Congress — not the president — should decide when America goes to war, join us.

Sign the petition, support the movement, and help us pass Defend the Guard in every state.

🌐 Websites

Bring Our Troops Home - https://BringOurTroopsHome.us

Defend the Guard - https://DefendTheGuard.us

Follow Bring Our Troops Home

𝕏 /Twitter https://x.com/TroopsHomeUS

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/TroopsHomeUS

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/troopshomeus/

We're not at war with Iran. At least that's what Speaker Mike Johnson says — it's just a "limited engagement."

But President Trump is demanding unconditional surrender.

You can't have it both ways.

When Tucker Carlson explained the historical meaning of "unconditional surrender," the entire right-wing media attacked him. Trump himself said Tucker "lost his way" and is "not smart enough to understand."

But who actually understands what the term means? Dan breaks down the history — from Ulysses S. Grant to the fall of Berlin — and shows why Tucker's analysis was accurate and Trump's definition was... something else entirely.

Plus: If Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and Syria taught us anything, it's that regime change fantasies become disasters. So who exactly is supposed to surrender?

And introducing NEOCON IDOL — this week's loser: Lindsey Graham, who's NOT with you... he's with Israel, until his dying day.

Join the movement

Bring Our Troops Home is the only national organization actively working to restore constitutional war powers by passing Defend the Guard legislation in the states.

If you believe Congress — not the president — should decide when America goes to war, join us.

Sign the petition, support the movement, and help us pass Defend the Guard in every state.

🌐 Websites

Bring Our Troops Home - https://BringOurTroopsHome.us

Defend the Guard - https://DefendTheGuard.us

Follow Bring Our Troops Home

𝕏 /Twitter

https://x.com/TroopsHomeUS

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/TroopsHomeUS Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/troopshomeus/

At the New Hampshire Liberty Forum, former United States Senator Scott Brown cited the War Powers Resolution and called it the Constitution.

So Dan McKnight challenged him.

“Show me where that’s in the Constitution.”

What followed was a moment that stopped the room — and a private 30-minute conversation that may have opened the door to something much bigger than one exchange on stage.

For the first time in the history of the Defend the Guard movement, a United States Senate race may hinge on a single question:

Who actually decides when America goes to war?

In this episode, Dan breaks down the exchange with Scott Brown, the conversation that followed, and the one statement that could dismantle the biggest lie used to stop Defend the Guard legislation in statehouses across the country — the claim that Washington can financially punish states for defending the Constitution.

Scott Brown’s background is uniquely relevant to this question. While serving in the United States Senate from 2010 to 2013, he sat on the Senate Armed Services Committee and simultaneously served as a JAG officer working with the National Guard Bureau inside the Pentagon.

Very few people in American politics have seen the National Guard system from both sides at the same time.

If someone with that experience publicly states what many insiders already know — that the funding threat used to intimidate state legislators is not grounded in legal or political reality — it could fundamentally change the political landscape for Defend the Guard across the country.

That is the golden ticket.

And the New Hampshire Senate race may determine whether that ticket gets used.

In this episode

• The Liberty Forum exchange with Scott Brown
• War Powers Resolution vs. the Constitution
• The private 30-minute conversation that followed
• The growing coalition of veterans and constitutional conservatives
• The funding threat used to stop Defend the Guard legislation
• How National Guard funding actually works
• Why the New Hampshire Senate race matters for this movement
• How one statement could change everything

Join the movement

Bring Our Troops Home is the only national organization actively working to restore constitutional war powers by passing Defend the Guard legislation in the states.

If you believe Congress — not the president — should decide when America goes to war, join us.

Sign the petition, support the movement, and help us pass Defend the Guard in every state.

🌐 Websites

Bring Our Troops Home https://BringOurTroopsHome.us

Defend the Guard https://DefendTheGuard.us

Follow Bring Our Troops Home

𝕏 /Twitter

https://x.com/TroopsHomeUS

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/TroopsHomeUS Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/troopshomeus/

Last night one of Congress’ most reliable neocon voices, Dan Crenshaw, lost his Republican primary by double digits. Sometimes politics delivers a little accountability.

But today’s episode isn’t really about Crenshaw.

Today we take a closer look at radio host Mark Levin — the self-proclaimed “Great One” — and a viral post he made claiming the Founders did not give Congress the power to control war.

That claim isn’t just wrong.
It completely reverses what the Constitution actually says.

In this episode we walk through Levin’s argument line by line and compare it with the historical record:

• The Constitutional Convention debates
• The Federalist Papers
• James Madison’s Helvidius essays
• Early presidential practice in the Quasi-War and the War of 1812
• Supreme Court rulings on war powers

The evidence is overwhelming.

The Founders intentionally placed the power to take the nation from peace to war in the hands of Congress — not the President.

The President commands the military.
But Congress decides whether America goes to war.

That structure wasn’t accidental. The Founders understood that executives are the branch most prone to war. So they built a constitutional system designed to slow the rush to conflict and protect the liberty of the American people.

If Americans want to restore constitutional government, we have to start by reclaiming that power.

Learn more about our work:

Bring Our Troops Home
https://BringOurTroopsHome.us

Defend the Guard
https://DefendTheGuard.us

Follow Bring Our Troops Home on X
@troopshomeUS

Sources referenced in this episode

• Constitutional Convention Records — August 17, 1787 (Farrand’s Records, Vol. 2)
• Federalist No. 69 — Alexander Hamilton
• James Madison — Helvidius Essays (1793)
• Madison War Message to Congress — June 1, 1812
• Hamilton to McHenry — May 17, 1798
• McHenry to Adams — May 18, 1798
• Bas v. Tingy (1800)
• Talbot v. Seeman (1801)
• Little v. Barreme (1804)
• Tenth Amendment Center — Michael Boldin, “James Madison vs the Modern Myth of Unilateral Executive War Power”
• Tom Woods vs Mark Levin War Powers Exchange (2011)

Massie and Khanna are right.

As two U.S. carrier strike groups sit within range of Iran, Congress has not taken a single vote authorizing war. Not one.

In this episode of the Bring Our Troops Home Podcast, we break down the bipartisan Iran War Powers Resolution introduced by Congressman Thomas Massie and Congressman Ro Khanna — and why this moment is bigger than politics. This is about Article I of the Constitution.

If the United States is going to move from peace to war, that decision does not belong to one person. It belongs to Congress. It belongs to the American people.

We examine the current military buildup in the region, the diplomacy still underway, and the dangerous rhetoric from Washington voices who treat regime change like branding strategy.

This is not anti-war. It is pro-Constitution.

If a war is worth fighting, it is worth voting on.

We also explain why Defend the Guard remains the most powerful constitutional tool available to the states if Congress refuses to act — and why this window matters right now, before escalation becomes automatic.

War is the most serious decision a nation can make. The question is simple:

Does Congress still intend to exercise its authority?

Support our mission:

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🌐 DefendTheGuard.us

Follow us everywhere:
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If you’re able, become a monthly supporter. Your support helps us pass Defend the Guard in states across the country and restore constitutional war powers where they belong.

This is how we make sure that if America ever goes to war again, it is because the American people chose it — not because Washington drifted into it.

On February 17th, the New Hampshire Senate Finance Committee held a hearing on HB 104 — the Defend the Guard Act.

The bill had already passed the New Hampshire House by a 23-vote margin. Public testimony was overwhelmingly in support: 51 in favor, 2 opposed.

And then, after the hearing concluded, the committee entered executive session.

Ninety-six seconds later, the bill was dead.

No debate.
No discussion.
No visible review of written submissions — despite assurances at the beginning of the hearing that those submissions would be considered.

In this episode, I play the hearing in full and provide real-time commentary.

We break down:

• Claims about federal supremacy and the Governor’s role
• Misstatements about the 2001 AUMF and Congress’s war powers
• The misuse of 10 U.S.C. §12301(f) (the Montgomery Amendment)
• Funding scare tactics and how the POM process actually works
• The difference between Title 32 readiness funding and Title 10 foreign combat deployments
• What it means for states to assert their constitutional authority before Guard troops are federalized

This isn’t about refusing lawful orders.

It’s about insisting that the highest law in the land — the Constitution — be followed before citizen-soldiers are sent into foreign wars.

For the first time in a New Hampshire Senate committee, we now have a recorded roll call vote. Eight senators are officially on record opposing Defend the Guard.

Now the real work begins.

If you believe Congress — not the President — has the authority to declare war, and that National Guard troops should not be deployed into foreign combat without that declaration, join us.

Support the movement at:
bringourtroopshome.us
defendtheguard.us

Follow us on social media @TroopsHomeUS and @DefendTheGuard.

Live Free or Die isn’t just a motto.

It’s a responsibility.

As state legislatures enter peak session, something rare happens in American politics.

Votes are cast in public.
Records are created.
And elected officials preparing for primary elections can no longer hide from their own actions.

In this episode of the Bring Our Troops Home podcast, we examine why legislative session combined with primary season is the moment when citizens have the most leverage — and why that leverage terrifies the people who have built careers around endless war.

We begin in Arizona, where Defend the Guard is moving through the state legislature and where a small amount of organized citizen pressure can have an outsized impact on U.S. foreign policy.

From there, we look at the re-emergence of Jeb Bush and his role at United Against Nuclear Iran, and how old neocon networks attempt to reassert influence when state-level resistance begins to form.

We close with Lindsey Graham’s very public fundraising panic, his long record of cheerleading undeclared wars, and the real human cost of treating the National Guard as an unlimited resource for conflicts Congress never voted on.

Arizona is the case study.
Federalism is the mechanism.
Consent is the missing ingredient.

If America is going to fight a war, the people deserve debate, a vote, and accountability before the first deployment — not panic after the system starts to crack.

Support our work:
https://BringOurTroopsHome.us

Support Defend the Guard:
https://DefendTheGuard.us

Follow Bring Our Troops Home on X, YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts for new episodes, clips, and updates.

On Christmas night, while families across the country were gathered together, the President announced U.S. military strikes in Nigeria.

Another war.
Another country Americans never debated.
Another decision made without a vote of Congress.

In this episode of the Bring Our Troops Home podcast, we respond directly to that announcement.

We acknowledge the very real persecution of Christians in northern Nigeria and the human instinct to feel sympathy and moral urgency. But we also draw a hard line between compassion and constitutional authority.

Moral outrage does not declare war.
Social media posts do not create consent.

This episode examines how undeclared wars begin, why “limited strikes” rarely stay limited, how the National Guard becomes a human tripwire, and how the same logic used to justify intervention today can be stretched tomorrow — whether for terrorism, resources, or even something as absurd as cocoa.

Nigeria is the case study.
Process is the issue.
The Constitution is the standard.

If America is going to fight a war, the people deserve debate, a vote, and accountability before the first strike — not an announcement after the fact.

Support our work:
https://BringOurTroopsHome.us

Support Defend the Guard:
https://DefendTheGuard.us

Follow Bring Our Troops Home on X, YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts for new episodes, clips, and updates.

The Truth About Dick Cheney — The Cost and the Choice

This episode closes the circle.

For six episodes, we’ve traced how Dick Cheney built a doctrine, assembled a machine, and helped normalize undeclared war. In this final chapter, we stop talking about power in the abstract and confront what it actually did to real people.

This is the human toll of Cheney’s worldview.

Not in statistics.
Not in talking points.
In lives.

National Guard units pulled away from their communities.
Service members sent into wars Congress never voted on.
Veterans who came home carrying wounds they were never given the truth about.
Families left with folded flags and unanswered questions.

This episode connects the dots between unchecked executive war powers and the damage done at home. How the National Guard was quietly transformed from a force meant to defend the states into a permanent overseas deployment pool. How Congress stepped aside. How war became routine. And how the cost was shifted onto citizens who never had a say.

But this is not just a postmortem.

This episode is also about the choice still in front of us.

Defend the Guard is not a slogan or a protest. It is a constitutional pressure point. A state-level law that forces Congress to do its job before the National Guard can be sent into foreign combat zones. No blank checks. No executive shortcuts. No pretending the Constitution doesn’t apply when it’s inconvenient.

This is the practical path forward. The last off-ramp before the next generation is asked to fight another war no one voted for.

If you’ve stayed with this series, this episode explains why it mattered. Not to relitigate the past, but to reclaim the future.

This podcast is produced by Bring Our Troops Home, a veteran-led organization committed to ending endless war and restoring Congress’s constitutional authority over war. Our work focuses on passing Defend the Guard across the country, state by state, before the next crisis is used to justify another generation of conflict.

Learn more or support the mission:
BringOurTroopsHome.us
DefendTheGuard.us

Follow for updates and new episodes:
X, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram: @TroopsHomeUS

If this episode hits you, share it. The truth only matters if people hear it. And the Constitution only works if we’re willing to enforce it.

Welcome to the final chapter of The Truth About Dick Cheney.

The Global and Domestic Blowback of Cheney’s Doctrine
The Truth About Dick Cheney

The Iraq War didn’t just destroy a country overseas.
It destroyed the rules that restrained American power.

Episode 6 of The Truth About Dick Cheney examines what happened after the invasion — once the guardrails were removed and the machinery was allowed to run.

This episode traces the global and domestic blowback of the doctrine Dick Cheney helped hardwire into American government: the belief that the presidency could act first, explain later, and treat Congress as optional in moments of crisis.

What followed wasn’t chaos by accident. It was consequence.

We walk through how the collapse of Iraq created the conditions for ISIS and other transnational terror networks to emerge and adapt. How instability became transferable, migrating from one fragile state to the next. How war stopped being something the nation declared and debated and became something it quietly managed.

The episode also explores how emergency powers normalized overseas eventually came home: torture defended as policy, surveillance expanded until it became permanent, and a Congress that surrendered its authority and never fully reclaimed it.

This is not a hindsight lecture.
It’s not about how the war was sold.
It’s about what actually happened once the doctrine moved from theory into practice.

In this episode, you’ll hear how:
• Undeclared wars became permanent features of American life
• Executive power expanded while accountability disappeared
• Surveillance reshaped the relationship between the state and its citizens
• War faded into the background without ever truly ending

We also trace the moment the official story began to collapse — not in Washington, but among the people who lived it. Veterans and National Guard members returning from repeated deployments, comparing notes, and realizing the justification no longer matched reality.

By the end of the episode, one truth is unavoidable:
this system didn’t survive because it worked.
It survived because no one was forced to stop it.

Episode 6 sets the stage for the final chapter.

In Episode 7 — The Cost and the Choice, we focus on the human toll: National Guard units used as an overseas labor pool, families broken by repeated deployments, injuries that never healed, suicide numbers that don’t fit into talking points, and the quiet betrayal felt by those who eventually realized the war they fought was sold on lies.

And then we confront the choice that remains:
accept permanent war as the cost of doing business, or reclaim the republic that was designed to restrain it.

Bring Our Troops Home is a veteran-led organization working to restore constitutional limits on war.

If this episode matters to you:
• Follow the show
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• Leave a rating or review

And visit DefendTheGuard.us to sign the petition.
Defend the Guard requires Congress to vote before National Guard troops are sent into combat and gives states a way to act when Washington refuses.

Endless war only continues if no one stops it.

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