Counterterrorism Director Joe Kent Resigns Over the Iran War

Joe Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, resigned on Tuesday over the war with Iran, writing that he “cannot in good conscience” support it. In a statement posted on social media he said “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation,” according to both NPR and KTTC, which carried an Associated Press report.

Kent, a former Army Green Beret, wrote in his letter that Israel pushed the United States into the conflict through a pressure campaign, NPR reported. He also said that until June 2025 Mr. Trump had understood that Middle East wars were a trap that cost American lives, and urged the president to reflect on what the United States is doing in Iran and for whom, according to NPR. J Street’s Ilan Goldenberg told NPR that Kent’s claims about an Israeli conspiracy “plays on the worst antisemitic tropes.”

President Trump dismissed him. He said he always thought Kent was a nice guy but “was weak on security, very weak on security,” NPR reported. The AP quoted him saying that if someone in his administration did not believe Iran was a threat, “we don’t want those people,” and “Iran was a tremendous threat.”

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, whose office oversaw Kent’s work, wrote that “President Trump concluded that the terrorist Islamist regime in Iran posed an imminent threat,” the AP reported. According to the AP, she did not state her own view of the strikes.

Congress was split along familiar lines but not entirely. Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he disagreed with many of Kent’s positions but that Kent was right on this point: “There was no credible evidence of an imminent threat from Iran,” the AP reported. NPR reported that Warner did not support Kent’s nomination. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, said, “We all understood that there was clearly an imminent threat,” and the AP noted he has suggested the White House believed Israel was determined to strike on its own, leaving Mr. Trump a “very difficult decision.” Johnson said he was convinced that had Trump waited, “we would have mass casualties of Americans,” the AP reported.

Kent served 11 combat deployments and later joined the CIA, and ran two unsuccessful congressional campaigns in Washington state as a Republican, the AP and NPR reported. His wife, Navy cryptologist Shannon Kent, was killed by a suicide bomber in Syria in 2019. Mr. Trump nominated him in February 2025 and the Senate confirmed him in July 2025 by a 52-44 vote with no Democratic support, NPR reported. Democrats had objected to his past associations with far-right figures, a point both outlets noted.

The AP reported that Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and FBI Director Kash Patel are scheduled to testify before lawmakers this week.