Donald Trump used Joe Kent’s own words against him after the National Counterterrorism Center director quit over the Iran war.
Kent, 45, is the first senior member of the Trump administration to leave his post as a result of the war, angering Trump’s “America First” supporters.
In his resignation letter, Kent, an Army veteran and former CIA paramilitary officer, wrote that Iran “posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.”
Later Tuesday night, Trump posted on Truth Social a Jan. 2020 tweet from Kent in which he called for the destruction of Iran’s nuclear capabilities.
“We should not sit and wait for the next attack, wipe Iran’s ballistic capability out and get our troops out of Iraq - they are only targets now,” Kent wrote after Trump had ordered the killing of top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani. “No US WIA/KIA is a tribute to the professionalism of our military and intel professionals not Iranian restraint.”
Days earlier, Kent had authored a Fox News opinion piece along those lines as well.
Kent appears to give some indication of his change of views in his resignation letter. He tells Trump that he “supported the values and the foreign policies that you campaigned on in 2016, 2020 and 2024.” He also praises the president for his first term.
Kent writes that Trump knew that Middle East wars were “a trap”—up until his strikes on Iran last summer. Kent then claims Trump last month was deceived by “high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media” into thinking that war was necessary.
Whether or how Kent’s own views evolved between 2020 and now is unclear.
After Kent resigned, Trump, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, and many others rushed to discredit him, in some cases accusing him of antisemitism.
The president, when asked about Kent’s surprising departure, called him “a nice guy” but “weak on security.”
“It’s a good thing that he’s out because he said Iran was not a threat,” he told reporters in the Oval Office.
Trump whisperer Laura Loomer also trashed Kent, in part by calling attention to that same January 2020 tweet of his. She later took credit for giving Trump the idea of reposting it on Truth Social.
Kent also has popular supporters on the right who, like him, have claimed the war was waged for Israel.
Tucker Carlson, who would often invite Kent on his primetime Fox News show years ago, told The New York Times that he “is the bravest man I know, and he can’t be dismissed as a nut.”
“He’s leaving a job that gave him access to highest-level relevant intelligence,” Carlson added. “The neocons will now try to destroy him for that. He understands that and did it anyway.”
Kent, in a January 2024 appearance on Carlson’s own show, spoke out against some of the same figures who are now pushing Trump’s war, like Sen. Lindsey Graham.
Lamenting the killing of U.S. troops in Jordan that month by Iran-backed terrorists, Kent claimed they had been stationed in vulnerable positions “as bait” because “so many people in Washington, D.C. want to go to war with Iran.”
Kent is an Army combat veteran, serving for over 20 years with 11 combat deployments, according to a biography on his political action committee website. In 2019, his wife, Shannon, was killed in Syria while fighting the so-called Islamic State.
