Name: Top Trump intel official Joe Kent resigns over Iran war
Uploaded: 2026-03-17T16:31:53.000Z
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We just learned, get this, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Joe Kent, has just announced he's resigning.

CNN National Security reporter Zachary Cohn is joining us right now.

Zachary, what more can you tell us about this dramatic development?

Yeah, well, this appears to be a significant resignation at the senior most levels of the Trump intelligence community.

He was the director of the National Counterterrorism Center.

He, he posting, appearing to post on X, a resignation letter that he submitted citing misgivings over the Trump administration's decision to launch its war with Iran.

Now Kent in this letter writes in part, quote, as a veteran who deployed to combat 11 times and as a gold star husband who lost my beloved wife Shannon in a war manufactured by Israel, I 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.

Now Kent, in his apparent post on X, does also seem to suggest that there was no imminent threat that has been used and cited by the Trump administration as justification for launching this war against Iran.

He says that essentially the administration manufactured this idea of an imminent threat and that is part of the reason why he is deciding to resign from his post.

Let me read a little bit from this letter that he wrote to President Trump.

He works for the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard.

He says, 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.

I support the values and the foreign policies that you campaigned on in 2016, 20, 20, 2024, which you enacted in your first term.

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.

And he added this, in your first administration, you understood better than any modern president how to decisively apply military power without getting us drawn into never ending wars.

You demonstrated this by killing Qasem Soleimani and by defeating isis.

He goes on and says more, Sabrina, but those are powerful words.

I think what's also important here is this is an appointee that was not someone that you could consider not aligned with the President.

I mean, this is someone that espoused the mag of base views and was appointed by, of course, Tulsi Gabbard.

And so the fact that he has issued a very public resignation and the fact that he's also said that Iran did not pose an imminent threat to the United States, a case that was made by Donald Trump multiple times and many other officials in this administration, including the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, saying that Iran posed an immediate threat to the United States.

And he's someone that clearly had access to intelligence matters saying that they did not.

I think you could potentially see other resignations from this administration, people deep within the MAGA base that do not support this war of choice.

It is something that the President chose to do.

And he has said, you know, kind of on his own conscience that he decided to initiate this war as well.

But in this letter, Joe Kent says he believes that this is started because of pressure from Israel and its American lobby.

I'm wondering, General, what you think about the last.

He says, you can reverse course and chart a new path for our nation, or you can allow us to slip further toward decline and chaos.

I'm wondering at this point, several weeks into this war, you have Iran saying that the Strait of Hormuz will never go back to the conditions where it was before.

That being President Trump, he needs to cut his losses and shut this down as quick as he possibly can.

That would be the best thing at this solution.

You know, I'm not sure if he's got the capability, the wherewithal to actually do that politically, but, I mean, this is not going well and it's going to get worse.

And bully for Mr. Joe Kent for having the political courage to stand up for what he believes.

You know, this is a guy that's a big time MAGA supporter, has always been very much like Marjorie Taylor Greene, who you had on your show yesterday.

I mean, these are significant resignations from the MAGA world, and people need to take note.

And I hope that this leads to the resignation of other members of the administration because he is absolutely spot on target.

This is not in the best interest of the United States to continue this war, and

President Trump needs to shut it down as quickly as he possibly can.

Let me read another sentence or two from his resignation letter.

As a veteran who deployed to combat 11 times, and

as a Gold Star husband who lost my beloved wife Shannon in a war manufactured by Israel, I 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.

Yeah, I mean, We've already seen 13American service members die in this war.

their conditions have ranged from very serious to some have been returned to duty.

But I think, you know, we've heard Pete Hagstadt say this time and again that more Americans could.

And I think this letter makes it very clear.

And this is someone that's obviously gone to war on behalf of our country and seen the cost that it takes, not just on the people who are putting their lives on the line, but

And so I think it is really important that not only is he putting this out today, but

this is someone that is a deep figure within the MAGA base and someone that is aligned with the President and is breaking very publicly with him.

And it's personal for him, as you noted, Wolf, that his wife was killed in Syria in 2019 by an ISIS bomber.

You know, I just want to go back to you, General.

Clearly you don't agree with this war, but

at the same time, Israel is saying that it has taken out more top Iranian officials, including one who has been overseeing a lot of what Iran has been doing and its counterattacks.

And I just wonder if you see any progress, any benefit so far from this war in terms of safety toward the United States because of some of the people who have been taken out.

First of all, I commend the military performance thus far in the war.

And look, no one's shedding any tears for Khomeini's demise and a new Ayatollah and the aggressive nature that they have had towards in the region and been a threat in the region.

I mean, I'm all for doing something about the Iranians, but we were not provoked.

We're in the middle of a long war, at least a long war for them.

I mean, I remember what Henry Kissinger said about Vietnam.

He said that, you know, the Americans will lose by not winning and the Vietnamese will win by not losing.

The Iranians just want to sustain themselves, stay in power as long as they possibly can, continue to harass the United States like attacking Baghdad and the embassy there and whatnot, and

stay alive long enough so that they can claim victory.

And that's what they will do if they do this long enough.

Let's go actually to the White House where We're going to find our Kevin Lip Tech who's been tracking any responses coming from the administration.

Yeah, nothing official yet from the president, although we are expecting to see him any moment now in the Oval Office with the Taoiseach of Ireland.

But you do hear, you know, officials who are within the Trump orbit beginning to sound off on this.

You know, one former White House official described Trump Joe Kent as an egomaniac, someone who is resigning this position in quite a high profile fashion.

And I think that is probably along the lines of what we will hear from the president if and when he decides to respond to this.

But I do think it will be difficult for him to entirely dismiss this resignation as someone, you know, with Trump derangement syndrome, as someone who is a Trump enemy, as he does so often, just because Trump Joe Kent has so often aligned himself with the president.

That's how he ran as a candidate for Congress two times in Washington State.

And it is why he was selected for this position in the first place.

You know, his confirmation was not an easy one by any means.

He was, you know, very narrowly confirmed by the Senate.

And all of these questions about conspiracies around the 2020 election, about potential ties to white nationalists, all arose in his confirmation hearings.

And for all of those reasons, I think it will be difficult for the president to sort of entirely distance himself from this individual who is now coming out very publicly decrying some of the perceived rationale for the war in Iran.

And I do think it will also put in a very difficult position.

Joe Kent's boss, the director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, who has espoused, you know, in previous lives the very same positions about questioning the adventurism of previous iterations of the Republican Party, questioning nation building pursuits.

She too was a veteran just like Joe Kent, and

so putting her, I think, in a difficult position.

But certainly we expect to hear from the president very soon and hopefully he will be asked about all of this.

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