President Trump’s director of the Nationwide Counterterrorism Middle, Joe Kent, introduced his speedy resignation Tuesday, citing the choice to start a conflict in opposition to Iran when “Iran posed no imminent menace to our nation.”
Kent, nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate final 12 months, posted his resignation letter on X Tuesday morning, saying he “can’t help sending the subsequent technology off to combat and die in a conflict that serves no profit to the American folks nor justifies the price of American lives.”
“I can’t in good conscience help the continued conflict in Iran,” Kent wrote. “Iran posed no imminent menace to our nation, and it’s clear that we began this conflict attributable to strain from Israel and its highly effective American foyer.”
He’s the highest-ranking Trump administration official to announce his resignation over the Iran conflict.
The White Home took subject with Kent’s assertion that “Iran posed no imminent menace.” Mr. Trump was additionally requested about Kent’s resignation throughout a gathering with the Irish prime minister Tuesday.
“I learn his assertion,” the president advised reporters within the Oval Workplace. “I all the time thought he was a pleasant man. However I all the time thought he was weak on safety, very weak on safety.”
“Once I learn his assertion, I noticed that it is a good factor that he is out, as a result of he mentioned Iran was not a menace,” Mr. Trump continued. “Iran was a menace — each nation realized what a menace Iran was.”
White Home press secretary Karoline Leavitt mentioned in an announcement posted on X that there have been “many false claims” in Kent’s letter to the president, and she or he took subject together with his assertion that Iran didn’t pose an imminent menace to the U.S.
“This is identical false declare that Democrats and a few within the liberal media have been repeating again and again,” she mentioned. “As President Trump has clearly and explicitly said, he had sturdy and compelling proof that Iran was going to assault the US first.”
Kent mentioned that earlier than final June, which is when the U.S. and Israel struck Iran’s nuclear amenities, the president “understood that wars within the Center East had been a entice that robbed America of the valuable lives of our patriots and depleted the wealth and prosperity of our nation.” Kent is aware of the price of conflict personally — his spouse, Shannon, was killed by suicide bomber in Syria in 2019, forsaking two boys.
He went on to accuse Israeli officers and a few within the media of orchestrating a deception that led Mr. Trump into the conflict:
Early on this administration, high-ranking Israeli officers and influential members of the American media deployed a misinformation marketing campaign that wholly undermined your America First platform and sowed pro-war sentiments to encourage a conflict with Iran. This echo chamber was used to deceive you into believing that Iran posed an imminent menace to the US, and that ought to you strike now, there was a transparent path to a swift victory. This was a lie and is identical techniques the Israelis used to attract us into the disastrous Iraq conflict that price the nation the lives of hundreds of our greatest women and men.
“You’ll be able to reverse course and chart a brand new path for our nation, or you’ll be able to permit us to slide additional towards decline and chaos,” he advised the president. “You maintain the playing cards.”
With out mentioning Kent, Tulsi Gabbard, the director of nationwide intelligence who oversees the Nationwide Counterterrorism Middle, mentioned in an announcement that the president “is answerable for figuring out what’s and isn’t an imminent menace.” She didn’t voice her views on the conflict or say the intelligence led her to any explicit conclusions.
“Donald Trump was overwhelmingly elected by the American folks to be our President and Commander in Chief,” she wrote on X. “As our Commander in Chief, he’s answerable for figuring out what’s and isn’t an imminent menace, and whether or not or to not take motion he deems mandatory to guard the protection and safety of our troops, the American folks and our nation.”
“After rigorously reviewing all the knowledge earlier than him, President Trump concluded that the terrorist Islamist regime in Iran posed an imminent menace and he took motion primarily based on that conclusion,” she mentioned.
An administration official mentioned Kent was not concerned on briefings on Iran and that Gabbard has been in contact with the White Home since Kent’s resignation earlier Tuesday. The official denied a Fox Information report that Gabbard was requested by the White Home to fireplace him and mentioned that if she had been requested to take action, she would have.
As director of the Nationwide Counterterrorism Middle, Kent led U.S. counterterrorism and counternarcotics efforts and was the president’s principal counterterrorism adviser.
A Inexperienced Beret veteran, Kent was confirmed in July 2025, after Mr. Trump nominated him to the submit in February 2025.
