Joe Kent, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, testifies during the House Homeland Security Committee hearing titled “Global Threats to the Homeland,” in the Cannon Building, Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2025.
Tom Williams | Cq-roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images
National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent announced Tuesday that he would resign in response to the Trump administration’s war on Iran.
“I cannot, in good conscience, support the ongoing war,” Kent said in a letter to the president. Donald Trumpit was posted on Kent personal X account.
Kent, promoter of the extreme right conspiracy theories whom the Senate narrowly confirmed as director last July, accused the president of being misled by Israel into supporting the war.
“Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war under pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby,” Kent wrote in his letter.
Trump disputed Kent’s claims later Tuesday.
“I always thought he was a nice guy, but I always thought he was weak on security,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office during a bilateral meeting with Irish Taoiseach Michael Martin.
After reading Kent’s statement, “I realized it was a good thing he was out,” Trump said, because “every country realized what a threat Iran was.”
The comments came shortly after White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in an article that Kent was repeating “the same false claim that Democrats and some members of the liberal media have repeated over and over again.”
Trump “had strong, compelling evidence that Iran was going to attack the United States first,” and he “would never make a decision to deploy military means against a foreign adversary in a vacuum,” Leavitt said.
She also called Kent’s claims about Israel’s influence on Trump “both insulting and laughable.”
The National Counterterrorism Center did not immediately respond to CNBC’s requests for comment.
The NCTC Director directs U.S. counterterrorism and counternarcotics efforts and directly advises the President. An hour after Kent announced his resignation, he was still listed as the center’s manager. director on its official government website.
The NCTC is housed within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, headed by Tulsi Gabbarda former opponent of war with Iran who has remained silent on the Trump administration’s latest military actions. Gabbard was planned to testify Tuesday before the House Intelligence Committee, but the hearing was postponed until Thursday.
ODNI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Read more about CNBC’s politics coverageKent, 45, is a U.S. Army veteran and former CIA paramilitary officer who was deployed to the Middle East 11 times in 20 years, according to his official biography. His first wife, an American naval officer Shannon Kentwas killed by a suicide bomber in 2019 while deployed to Syria.
Joe Kent ran for Congress in Washington as a Republican in 2022 and 2024, losing both races to the Democratic representative. Marie Gluesenkamp Pérez. He later served as Gabbard’s acting chief of staff.
Trump nominated Kent to head the NCTC in February 2025, saying he “will help us keep America safe by rooting out all terrorism, from jihadists around the world to cartels in our backyard.”
Kent echoed Trump’s false claim that the 2020 presidential election was “faked” and suggested that the FBI was involved in planning and leading the January 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol.
During his Senate nomination hearing in April 2025, Kent said the U.S. intelligence community investigate the role of the FBI in the riot.
The announcement of Kent’s resignation Tuesday morning sparked controversial reactions. Opponents of the warincluding Democrats and some who identified with Trump’s MAGA movement, congratulated Kent.
“Joe Kent’s record is deeply troubling and, in my opinion, he should never have been confirmed as head of the National Counterterrorism Center,” said the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Mark WarnerD-Va., said in a statement. “But on this point he is right: There was no credible evidence of an imminent threat from Iran that would justify committing the United States to another war of choice in the Middle East.”
But Trump’s allies rejected Kent’s assertion that Iran posed no imminent threat to the United States.
“I attended all the briefings. We all understood that there was clearly an imminent threat that Iran was very close to enriching its nuclear capability,” the House Speaker said. Mike JohnsonR-La., told reporters on Capitol Hill.
“I don’t know where Joe Kent gets his information from, but he clearly wasn’t at those briefings,” Johnson said.
Others attacked Kent in personal terms.
“Joe Kent is a crazy egomaniac who has often been at the center of national security leaks, while rarely (never?) producing actual work,” said Taylor Budowich, Trump’s former White House deputy chief of staff and political consultant. said in a post.
“It’s not a resignation in principle – he just wanted to make a splash before he was fired. What a loser,” Budowich said.
—Emily Wilkins contributed to this report.
