Trump bids goodbye to intel official who resigned over Iran: 'Good thing that he's out'
President Donald Trump said Tuesday it's a "good thing" that National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent resigned in protest of the Iran war because Kent thought "Iran was not a threat.
"I read his statement," Trump said during a meeting at the White House with Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin on St. Patrick's Day. "I always thought he was a nice guy, but I always thought he was weak on security, very weak on security."
Kent served under Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who has rejected "regime-change wars" for years.
"I didn't know him well, but I thought he seemed like a pretty nice guy, but when I read his statement, I realized that it's a good thing that he's out," Trump said. "Because he said that Iran was not a threat.
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"Iran was a threat. Every country realized what a threat Iran was. The question is whether or not they wanted to do something about it."
Trump added there is no room for Iran to have nuclear weapon ambitions.
"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," Trump continued. "You would have had nuclear holocaust, and you would have had it again if we didn't bomb the site."
Nor is there room in his administration for a doubter, Trump added.
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"So when somebody is working with us that says they didn't think Iran was a threat: We don't want those people," he said.
"They're not smart people, or they're not savvy people.
"Iran was a tremendous threat, and virtually every NATO nation" agreed, Trump concluded.
Kent announced his resignation in an X post earlier Tuesday.
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"After much reflection, I have decided to resign from my position as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, effective today," Kent wrote. "I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran.
"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."
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt shot back at Kent before Trump's Oval Office remarks.
"There are many false claims in this letter but let me address one specifically: that 'Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation,'" Leavitt wrote on X. "This is the same false claim that Democrats and some in the liberal media have been repeating over and over.
"President Trump would never make the decision to deploy military assets against a foreign adversary in a vacuum. Iran is the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. The Iranian regime is evil.
"It proudly killed Americans, waged war against our country, and openly threatened us all the way up to the launch of Operation Epic Fury.
"Iran was aggressively expanding their short-range ballistic missiles to combine with their naval assets to give themselves immunity – meaning they would have a degree of a capabilities that would give them immunity to hold us and the rest of the world hostage. The regime aimed to use those ballistic missiles as a shield to continue achieving their ultimate goal – nuclear weapons."
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Former White House deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich believes Kent's resignation was a preemptive action "before getting canned."
"Joe Kent is a crazed egomaniac who was often at the center of national security leaks, while rarely (never?) producing any actual work," Budowich wrote on X. "He spent all of his time working to subvert the chain of command and undermine the President of the United States.
"This isn’t some principled resignation — he just wanted to make a splash before getting canned. What a loser."
Sources told Fox News that Gabbard did not fire Kent despite a White House suggestion, White House correspondent Aisha Hasnie reported.
A senior administration official described Kent as "a known leaker" who "was cut out of POTUS intelligence briefings months ago," and that he "has not been part of any Iran planning discussions or briefings at all."
In February, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence name-checked Kent in highlights the National Counterterrorism Center's "consequential" role in the transfer of 7,500 ISIS detainees from Syria to Iraq.