The man in charge of the National Counterterrorism Center has walked away from his job — and he’s not staying quiet about why. Joe Kent, 45, resigned over the US-Israeli military operation in Iran, posting an open letter to Trump on X urging the president to reverse course.
In the letter, Kent was blunt. Iran posed no imminent threat to the United States. He alleged that “high-ranking Israeli officials” and influential American journalists had constructed an echo chamber of misinformation, deceiving the president into believing otherwise. “This was a lie,” he wrote plainly.
Kent is no ordinary critic. A decorated special forces veteran, he deployed eleven times overseas with the US Army, including in Iraq, before becoming a paramilitary officer at the CIA. His wife, Navy Cryptologic Technician Shannon Kent, was killed in a suicide bombing in Syria in 2019. He left government service after her death. He referenced that loss directly in his letter, writing that he “cannot support sending the next generation off to fight and die in a war that serves no benefit to the American people nor justifies the cost of American lives.”
Kent had been a long-time Trump supporter, unsuccessfully running for Congress twice before being nominated early in the administration and narrowly confirmed. His confirmation hearing was contentious — Democrats raised concerns over his ties to extremist groups including members of the Proud Boys, and Kent refused to distance himself from claims that federal agents had provoked the January 6 Capitol riots or that Trump had won the 2020 election. At the National Counterterrorism Center, he reported to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and oversaw the analysis and detection of terrorist threats globally.
The White House pushed back hard. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called his suggestion that foreign influence shaped Trump’s decision “both insulting and laughable,” reaffirming that the president acted on strong, compelling evidence that Iran was planning to strike first. Trump, speaking from the Oval Office, called Kent a “nice guy” but said he was “weak on security,” adding that the letter made him realise Kent’s departure was for the best.
Tucker Carlson, a close personal friend of Kent’s, came to his defense in a brief interview with the New York Times. “Joe is the bravest man I know, and he can’t be dismissed as a nut,” Carlson said, noting that Kent was walking away from a position that gave him access to the highest levels of relevant intelligence — and that he understood the consequences fully before doing so. “The neocons will try to destroy him for that,” Carlson added.
With his resignation, Kent becomes the most high-profile figure from within the Trump administration to publicly criticise the US-Israeli operation in Iran. Other senior officials have also departed in recent months, including SEC enforcement director Margaret Ryan and Kennedy Center President Ric Grenell — though Trump’s second term has seen notably less internal turnover than his first.
