Trump’s top counterterrorism aide resigns, citing Iran war

Joe Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, announced Tuesday he was resigning over the war in Iran — a stunning defection that shows how President Donald Trump’s decision to strike Tehran has divided some of the most loyal corners of his administration.

“I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran,” Joe Kent, the head of the national counterterrorism center, said in a resignation letter posted to X on Tuesday morning. “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.”

Kent did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Spokespeople for the White House and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which houses the NCTC, also did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Kent’s statement.

Trump nominated Kent for his post in February 2025. He was confirmed by the Senate last July.

Kent closely aligned himself with Trump as part of an unsuccessful run for Congress in 2022, when he claimed the 2020 election was stolen and called Jan. 6 rioters “political prisoners.” He ran again in 2024 and lost to Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.), who won a second term.

In his letter, Kent said Iran “posed no imminent threat” to the United States. He claimed American media, high-ranking Israeli officials and influential Israeli lobbyists “deployed a misinformation campaign” and “sowed pro-war sentiments to encourage a war with Iran.”

“This echo chamber was used to deceive you into believing that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States, and that should you strike now, there was a clear path to a swift victory,” Kent wrote. "This was a lie and is the same tactic the Israelis used to draw us into the disastrous Iraq war that cost our nation the lives of thousands of our best men and women."

There is no credible evidence to support claims that Israel convinced U.S. intelligence officials that Iraq was pursuing a weapons of mass destruction program before the American invasion in 2003.

Trump said Tuesday that Kent "was weak on security," adding that he was glad the counterterrorism director had chosen to step down.

"When somebody is working with us that says they didn't think Iran was a threat, we don't want those people," the president told reporters in the Oval Office.

Kent’s resignation comes as the war in Iran enters its third week, and 24 hours before the heads of the U.S. spy community, including Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, are set to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt rebuffed Kent's statement in a social media post, writing that it contained "many false claims," including Kent's view that Iran did not pose an imminent threat to the U.S.

"The Commander-in-Chief determines what does and does not constitute a threat, because he is the one constitutionally empowered to do so - and because the American people went to the ballot box and entrusted him and him alone to make such final judgments," she wrote, adding that Kent's suggestion that foreign countries influenced Trump's decision was "insulting and laughable."

Secretary of State Marco Rubio this month told reporters the U.S. decided to strike Iran because Israel had made a decision to attack first — and Iran would retaliate against American troops if the Trump administration didn't launch its own preemptive strikes.

But some lawmakers quickly accused Kent of going a step further and espousing anti-Semitic views.

“Good riddance,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), a moderate and hawkish member of the GOP, shot back at Kent in his own social media post. “Iran has murdered more than a thousand Americans. Their EFP land mines were the deadliest in Iraq. Anti-Semitism is an evil I detest, and we surely don’t want it in our government.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson rebuffed Kent's assertion that Iran didn't pose an imminent threat as "clearly wrong" at the Republican leadership's weekly press conference.

"I'm on the Gang of Eight. I got all the briefings," Johnson told reporters. "We all understood there was clearly an imminent threat that Iran was very close to the enrichment of nuclear capability, and they were building missiles at a pace that no one in the region could keep up with."

"I don't know where Joe Kent is getting his information, but he wasn't in those briefings, clearly, because the Secretary of State, the Secretary of War and everyone ... understood that this was a serious moment for us," he said. "Had the president waited, I am personally convinced that we would have mass casualties of Americans."

Democrats have already questioned the Trump administration about what intelligence underlay its decision to strike Iran, and pressured it to provide greater clarity about its strategy and objectives for the war.

Kent’s statement also raises questions about Gabbard's place in the administration as the nation's spy chief. Kent served as her chief of staff while awaiting confirmation to lead the NCTC last year.

As a Democratic member of Congress, Gabbard was an outspoken critic of U.S. wars in the Middle East. She has been kept out of military planning in Iran since the Trump administration struck three Iranian nuclear sites last summer, and has largely been silent about the ongoing war.

The inflection point of June 2025 that Kent alluded to in his letter appears to refer to last year's strikes on Iranian nuclear sites.

Hill Republicans who were already skeptical of Kent and his isolationist views are more than happy to see him go, arguing he's had an increasingly diminished role in the Trump administration.

“Both Kent and Gabbard have had less and less influence,” said one GOP lawmaker, granted anonymity to speak candidly. “They’ve been sidelined.”

Kent’s replacement will have to be nominated by the White House and confirmed by the Senate.

Meredith Lee Hill, Connor O'Brien and Jacob Wendler contributed reporting.