PDB Afternoon Bulletin | March 19th, 2026: The Fight With Iran Just Got More Dangerous & FBI Probe Into Former Trump Official

It's Thursday, the 19th of March. Welcome to the PDB afternoon bulletin. I'm Mike Baker,

your eyes and ears on the world stage. Alright, let's get briefed.

First up, the war with Iran is entering a new phase, with strikes on critical energy

targets pushing oil prices higher and threatening global supply. Later in the show,

former senior Trump intelligence official Joe Kent is now under FBI investigation for alleged

leaks just days after stepping down in protest over the Iran War. But first, today's afternoon

spotlight. The conflict in Iran has now expanded. Energy infrastructure, once considered essentially

off limits by all sides, is now apparently fair game. And the repercussions for the global energy

markets and the global economy could be severe. A day after Israel targeted the South

Paras gas field in Iran, hence one of the largest natural gas fields in the world in a critical

piece of energy infrastructure that's shared between Iran and Qatar, Iran has launched retaliatory

strikes on energy infrastructure and neighboring Gulf states. Tehran has now begun targeting

energy facilities that it says are tied to US interests. One of the first Iranian strikes

was on Qatar's liquefied natural gas infrastructure. Specifically, they hit Qatar's

Roslophone industrial city. Now, it's the world's largest liquefied natural gas facility

and the center of Qatar's LNG operations. It accounts for roughly a fifth of the global

supply of LNG. At the same time, Iranian officials are issuing very explicit warnings.

If their energy sector continues to be targeted, they will escalate until the energy infrastructure

of the US and its allies is in their words, quote, completely destroyed.

Now, the White House appears to be trying to walk a very fine line here. On Wednesday evening,

President Trump tried to distance the US from the South Paras strike. Trump said on social media

posts, quote, of the US, knew nothing about this particular attack. And the country of Qatar

was in no way shape or form involved with it. Nor did it have any idea that it was going to happen.

Trump also tried to put a cap on further escalation, saying there should be no additional

tax on that field, unless Iran strikes Qatar again. Meanwhile, all of this is playing out

at the same time, of course, as the ongoing disruption around the East Strait of Khormuz.

And all of that turmoil is having a significant impact on pricing as you might suspect.

Brent Crude, the international benchmark, briefly surged above $119 a barrel

before settling back around $110 a barrel. Now, that's still up more than 3% on the day.

US benchmark Crude also moved higher, climbing to about $96 a barrel.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Besant says that the US is looking at several options to try to

keep prices under control, at least in the short term. One of those options is to effectively

release Iranian oil that's already sitting on tankers at sea. That's about 140 million barrels.

By temporarily easing or waving sanctions, so those shipments can actually be delivered and

sold on the open market. So, yes, one option being considered is easing sanctions on Iranian oil.

There is irony in there somewhere, if you look for it. Right now, much of that oil is essentially

stranded, floating storage, basically, because sanctions make it difficult to ensure,

finance, or legally purchase those cargoes. What the administration is considering is flipping

that switch, allowing buyers and shippers and insurers to move that oil without penalty.

And because that oil is already sitting on the water, well, it can reach the market much faster

than new production. That's the thinking anyway. At the same time, the US could tap its own

strategic petroleum reserve, again, releasing emergency stockpiles of Crude to keep prices from surging.

It's a familiar move, but it is, of course, a short-term temporary fix.

And on the domestic side, the White House has issued a 60-day waiver of what's called the Jones

Act. That's a century-old law that requires goods shipped between US ports to travel on American

built-in operated vessels. Therefore, loosening restrictions so oil, natural gas, and other resources

could move more freely. The problem is that all these options are designed to manage symptoms of

the problem. Not the cause. If the Iranian regime decides to continue hitting energy infrastructure

around the Gulf and continues to effectively blockage shipments through the strait of Hormuz,

now releasing emergency oil reserves or easing sanctions or other temporary measures,

essentially just putting a bandaid on a sucking chest wound. The Trump administration is going to have

to figure out a way to calm the markets, to guarantee that refineries and other infrastructure

are safe from further targeting, and the tankers can once again move freely through the strait.

Alright, coming up next, a former top-conner terrorism official Joe Kent, who just resigned over

the Iran War, is now reportedly under investigation by the FBI over alleged leaks. I'll be right back.

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Welcome back to the PDB afternoon bulletin. After stepping down in protest from the Trump

administration over the war with Iran, former national counterterrorism center director Joe Kent

finds himself under FBI investigation for allegedly leaking classified information in a probe

that apparently was long underway before he resigned. The Washington-based outlet Semaphore,

citing four individuals with direct knowledge of the investigation, first reported this story.

Kent is notably the first senior official to leave the Trump administration over the U.S.

Israel War with Iran. The former NCTC director is a longtime ally of President Trump. Well,

that's not going to last much longer. And a retired green beret who had built a reputation inside

the national security world serving 11 combat deployments over a 20-year army special forces

career before spending a year or so with the CIA as a paramilitary contractor. He then began

commentating for various news outlets before making two unsuccessful runs for Congress. He then

went to work for Tulsi Gabbard before being appointed to the National Counterterrorism Center in 2025.

In the lead up to his resignation, he publicly broke with the administration's justification for

the war, arguing that Iran did not pose what he described as a quote imminent threat to the U.S.

such as the White House had reported. And that's where the situation obviously begins to shift,

as Kent's standing inside the administration had already begun to erode. A senior administration

official who spoke anonymously with Fox News described him as a quote known leaker, saying Kent had been

cut out of key intelligence briefings months before his departure, raising questions about how much

trust remained well before he ultimately stepped down. Now the FBI has yet to comment on the specifics

of the leaks. Kent had been serving under director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who pushed

back on his claims, emphasizing that the president, not individual intelligence officials,

is responsible for determining what constitutes an imminent threat. When pressed on the issue during

a congressional hearing, Gabbard declined to say whether she personally believed Iran's nuclear

program met that threshold. Kent, however, took a very different view in his resignation letter.

In his letter NBC News reports that Kent criticized the decision to go to war, arguing that the U.S.

was being pulled into a conflict that did not serve American interests. He said that while he

supported Trump's values in his first term, he believed the president had been wrongly swayed by

Israel. He wanted to claim the attack on Iran was, quote, due to pressure from Israel's powerful

American lobby, and said he could not support, quote, sending the next generation off to fight and

die in a war that serves no benefit to the American people, end quote. Now that naturally drew a

swift response from the White House. Press Secretary Caroline Levitt said President Trump had, quote,

strong and compelling evidence that Iran was going to attack the U.S. first, defending the

administration's decision that the threat assessment came from the highest levels of American

intelligence, not Jerusalem. And that, my friends, is the PDB afternoon bulletin for Thursday,

the 19th of March. Now if you have any questions or comments and I hope you do, please reach out to me

at PDB at thefirsttv.com. And to listen to the show add free, well that is very simple to do,

just become a premium member of the president's daily brief by visiting PDB premium.com.

I'm Mike Baker, and I'll be back tomorrow. Until then, stay informed, stay safe, stay cool.

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