Richard Grenell has offered some embarrassing advice to Donald Trump’s former top counterterrorism official who resigned over the president’s war in Iran.
Speaking on Greg Kelly’s Newsmax show, Grenell—the Trump ally who was recently removed as head of the failing MAGA-fied Kennedy Center—suggested Joe Kent should simply “shut up and salute” rather than resign from his role as director of the National Counterterrorism Center.
“The American people select somebody. They look at the two candidates, and they say, this is the better person to lead our country. And so all of the appointees need to realize it’s not about them. It’s not their policy,” Grenell said.
“They need to shut up and salute if you can’t work for the President of the United States and his policies or her policies in the future, then what you have to do is get out of the way, because I don’t have any patience for these people who don’t like the policy or don’t want to implement the policy, well then you shouldn’t get paid by the federal government.”
Kent, a conspiracy theorist with multiple ties to far-right extremists, had been chosen by Trump to lead the National Counterterrorism Center.
He announced he was stepping down because he could no longer “in good conscience” support Trump’s war in Iran, saying the country posed “no imminent threat” to the U.S. Kent also suggested Trump was drawn into the war because of “pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.”
Kent shared his resignation letter on X on Tuesday, where it has been reshared nearly 250,000 times and viewed by tens of millions of social media users.
The White House was reportedly blindsided by Kent’s decision to post the bombshell letter on social media. Kent had informed Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles of his decision to resign the day before.
The move forced Trump to scramble and suggest the man he had chosen to lead the National Counterterrorism Center was actually “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.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was pressed by reporters on Wednesday on why Trump appointed someone he now claims was unfit for the role.
“The president gave Joe Kent a chance. He thought he was a good guy with good military experience, and unfortunately, he proved he was not up for the job, and we don’t want somebody leading the Counter Terrorism Task Force who could not agree that the number one state sponsor of terror in this world did not pose a threat to the United States,” Leavitt said.
The Daily Beast has attempted to contact Kent for comment.
