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Donald Trump has expressed satisfaction regarding the resignation of his top counterterrorism official, marking a significant moment in his administration. Joe Kent, the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, made headlines with his decision to step down due to his opposition to the U.S. collaborating with Israel in joint strikes against Iran.
Trump responded to Kent’s departure by emphasizing its positive aspect, particularly pointing out Kent’s stance on Iran. “When I read his statement, I realized that it’s a good thing that he’s out because he said that Iran was not a threat. Iran was a threat – every country realized what a threat Iran was,” the President asserted.
The President further defended the U.S. military action, suggesting that a dire scenario was avoided. He stated that without the recent strikes on Iran, the world might have faced a “nuclear holocaust.”
In his concluding remarks, Trump underscored the importance of having team members who recognize the threat Iran poses. “When somebody is working with us that says they didn’t think Iran is a threat – we don’t want those people,” he added, reaffirming his stance on the necessity of the military intervention.
‘When somebody is working with us that says they didn’t think Iran is a threat – we don’t want those people,’ Trump added.
And Trump allies piled on, claiming that Kent was already in the firing line to lose his job before his resignation.Â
Kent said in a post to X on Tuesday that he could not ‘in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran’ through his role under Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.
‘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,’ he wrote.
It marks the first major and voluntary departure of a senior Trump administration official since he retook office last year. And it represents a significant condemnation of the ongoing war with Iran from a person with direct intelligence on the threat level posed by the regime.
President Donald Trump says he is glad his top counterterrorism official resigned amid claiming Iran did not pose a threat to the US
National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent announced today that that he was resigning over his objection to the US conflict with Iran
Kent, in his resignation letter, accused the President of going back on the non-interventionist principles he campaigned on in 2024.
Alongside Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin, Trump defended his decision to engage with Iran.
‘I read his statement. I always thought he was a nice guy, but I always thought he was weak on security,’ Trump said of Kent, adding that military scholars agree Iran needed to be ‘taken out… because they wanted a nuclear weapon.’Â
Kent, who deployed to combat 11 times and lost his wife Shannon in what he calls a war manufactured by Israel, is closely aligned with the populist ‘America First’ wing of the Trump administration.
‘Until June of 2025, you understood that the wars in the Middle East were a trap that robbed America of the precious lives of our patriots and depleted the wealth and prosperity of our nation,’ the former Army Special Forces soldier wrote in his resignation letter.
‘The time for bold action is now,’ he urged. ‘You can reverse course and chart a new path for our nation, or you can allow us to slip further toward decline and chaos. You hold the cards.’
Former Trump deputy Chief of Staff Taylor Budowich suggested that Kent was already on track to be fired and called him a ‘crazed egomaniac’ responsible for ‘national security leaks’ out of his agency.
‘He spent all of his time working to subvert the chain of command and undermine the President of the United States,’ Budowich wrote on X upon news of his departure. ‘This isn’t some principled resignation—he just wanted to make a splash before getting canned. What a loser.’
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Kent’s insistence that Iran posed no immediate threat to the US is the ‘same false claim that Democrats… have been repeating over and over.’
She said that Trump had ‘strong and compelling evidence that Iran was going to attack the United States first.’
Kent swears his oath of office to work under Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center
Kent is closely aligned with the ‘America First’ wing of the Trump administration, and the President says upon news of his resignation: ‘I always thought he was a nice guy’
Kent’s wife, Shannon, above with their two sons, was killed by a suicide vest bombing in 2019 while she was in Syria. She was one of 19 people who died in the attack
‘President Trump would never make the decision to deploy military assets against a foreign adversary in a vacuum,’ she posted in a lengthy X post responding to Kent’s resignation.
She listed other reasons, including calling Iran ‘evil,’ noting it is the leading state sponsor of terrorism and that the regime there ‘proudly killed Americans, waged war against our country, and openly threatened us all the way up to the launch of Operation Epic Fury.’
Trump said that there would have been nuclear wars if he had not ended the Iran Nuclear Deal and then decided to engage in strikes in the country on February 28.
‘If I didn’t terminate Obama’s horrible deal that he made – the Iran Nuclear Deal – you would have had a nuclear war, four years ago. You would have had [a] nuclear holocaust. And you would have had it again if we didn’t bomb the site,’ he said to press gathered in the Oval Office on Tuesday.
He said those who claim Iran didn’t pose a threat are ‘not smart’ and ‘not savvy.’
‘We don’t want those people,’ Trump concluded.