Sen. Lindsey Graham lashed out at Donald Trump’s top counterterrorism official, Joe Kent, after he resigned in protest at the president’s war on Iran.
The South Carolina Republican, a massive war hawk who has made increasingly unhinged comments while backing the Middle East conflict, even invoked Kent’s first wife, Shannon, a Navy cryptologic technician killed in a suicide bombing in Syria in 2019.
“President Trump, God bless you and your team for not letting [Iran] get 10 nuclear bombs. If you believe Hitler would have killed all the Jews, you were right. If you believed he would not, you were wrong. If you believed the ayatollah would use a nuclear weapon if he had it, you’re right. To those who have their heads in the sand, don’t believe that. You’re wrong,” Graham told Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Tuesday.
“To my friend Joe Kent, who is a decorated war veteran who lost his wife in Syria, what are you doing? You’re giving aid and comfort to a lie. There was an imminent threat.”
Kent, who was confirmed in his post despite known ties to far-right extremists and his promotion of conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, resigned as director of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center on Tuesday.
In his resignation letter, Kent said Iran “posed no imminent threat to our nation,” and suggested the U.S. was drawn into the war because of “pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.”
Kent, a former Green Beret, spoke out against U.S. intervention overseas after his wife was killed by an Islamic State suicide bomber in 2019.
“That is why I have a skepticism of our federal government,” he said. “Republicans and Democrats consistently lied to the American people to keep us engaged in wars abroad.”
Kent was accused of invoking antisemitic tropes in his resignation letter by blaming Israeli officials and “influential members of the media” for persuading Trump to launch a war in Iran.
Graham also condemned the wording of Kent’s resignation letter during his appearance on Hannity.
“That’s the oldest storyline in the world—if it weren’t for the Jews, we’d all be safe. Well, that’s a bunch of BS. If it weren’t for Israel, we’d be less safe,” Graham said. “Israel has no choice to stop radical Islam from destroying it. I hope the American people understand we have no choice.”
Trump, who endorsed Kent for the role of head of the National Counterterrorism Center, quickly turned on the 45-year-old following his resignation and suggested he was “weak on security.”
“It’s a good thing that he’s out because he said Iran was not a threat,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
The Daily Beast has attempted to contact Kent for comment.
