Prediction markets are betting that President Donald Trump’s spy chief will be the next high-level departure from the administration after one of her subordinates publicly opposed the Iran war.
Bettors on Polymarket and Kalshi think Tulsi Gabbard, 44, is on the rocks after Joe Kent resigned as director of the National Counterterrorism Center—and denounced Trump’s war against Iran in the process.
In a letter addressed to Trump and posted to X on Tuesday, Kent, 45, said he “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,” he wrote.
On Kalshi, the odds that Kent’s boss, Gabbard, would leave the Trump administration this year shot up from 39 percent an hour before his resignation letter became public to 62 percent early Tuesday afternoon.
On Polymarket, the odds that the Director of National Intelligence would be out by March 31 also saw a spike from 3.8 percent on Tuesday morning to 38 percent in the afternoon after Kent announced his resignation.
The odds of Gabbard’s departure in both prediction markets have since declined slowly but steadily.
In a statement after Kent’s departure, Gabbard said her office provides Trump with “the best information available to inform his decisions.”
“After carefully reviewing all the information before him, President Trump concluded that the terrorist Islamist regime in Iran posed an imminent threat and he took action based on that conclusion,” she said.
The White House did not immediately return a request for comment.
Trump, 79, nominated Kent to the counterterrorism center in February last year. He was confirmed by the Senate in July, overcoming staunch opposition from groups that flagged his links to far-right groups and his promotion of debunked conspiracy theories, including that the 2020 election was “rigged & stolen” and the FBI planned the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot.
Kent is a former Army Green Beret who lost his wife, Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer Shannon Kent, to a suicide bombing in Syria in 2019.
“I pray that you will reflect upon what we are doing in Iran, and who we are doing it for,” he wrote to Trump. “The time for bold action is now. You can reverse course and chart a new path for our nation, or you can allow us to slip further toward decline and chaos. You hold the cards.”
Trump later told reporters in the Oval Office that he was glad to see Kent go.
“I always thought he was a nice guy but I always thought he was weak on security. Very weak on security,” he said. “It’s a good thing that he’s out because he said that Iran was not a threat. Iran was a threat—every country realized what a threat Iran was.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt also penned a lengthy statement countering Kent’s claims that Iran did not pose a threat to the U.S.
“As someone who actually witnesses President Trump’s decision-making process on a daily basis, I can attest to the fact that he is always looking to do what’s in the best interest of the United States of America — period,” she wrote on X.
The list of top officials viewed by Kalshi gamblers as most likely to leave the administration this year is topped by Kristi Noem, whom Trump fired as Homeland Security secretary at the start of the month following the chaotic immigration blitz in Minnesota.
Noem was trailed by Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, who is facing a probe over allegations of an affair with a subordinate and drinking on the job, and Amy Gleason, acting administrator of the now-dismantled DOGE.
Democratic lawmakers have introduced a bill that seeks to ban prediction market bets on sensitive government actions, such as military operations, after online gamblers made a killing from eyebrow-raising bets on the U.S. strikes on Iran.
