A top counterterrorism official announced on Tuesday that he was quitting in protest over Donald Trump’s war in Iran.
Joe Kent, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, shared his resignation letter on X and said his last day would be on Tuesday.
“I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran,” he wrote. “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.”
Kent was a top administration official serving under Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, a longtime anti-interventionist who once ran as a Democrat against Trump going to war with Iran before she joined his administration.
In his letter to the president, the Republican and Army combat veteran took issue with Trump’s shift on foreign policy.
“I support the values and the foreign policies that you campaigned on in 2016, 2020, 2024, which you enacted in your first term,” Kent wrote. “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.”
After the strikes began on February 28, Kent wrote that the center was operating at full capacity to track potential threats to the U.S. and identify emerging threats. He also urged Americans to stay vigilant. But the top intelligence official has since been silent publicly until he posted his resignation letter.
In the letter, Kent also issued a stark warning to the president that he had been targeted by a misinformation campaign to launch the war in Iran.
“Early in this administration, high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media deployed a misinformation campaign that wholly undermined your America First platform and sowed pro-war sentiments to encourage a war with Iran,” he wrote. “This echo chamber was used to deceive you into believing that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States, and that should you strike now, there was a clear path to a swift victory. This was a lie.”
Kent argued it was the “same tactic the Israelis used to draw us into the disastrous Iraq war that cost our nation the lives of thousands of our best men and women.”
“We cannot make this mistake again,” he wrote.
When Trump announced he was nominating Kent, he praised the GOP politician and former CIA officer who served in Iraq for hunting down terrorists his entire adult life.
When Kent joined the National Counterterrorism Center last summer, Gabbard said in a statement that he “consistently put country before self, enduring great personal sacrifice in that service.”
Kent lost his wife Shannon in 2019 when she was killed in a suicide bombing in Manbij, Syria, while serving.
“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,” Kent wrote in his resignation letter. “I pray that you will reflect upon what we are doing in Iran, and who we are doing it for.”
He closed his letter by stating it was an honor to serve in the administration and the country. The Daily Beast reached out to Gabbard’s office and the White House for comment.
Some in MAGA world and other Republicans were quick to blast the outgoing Trump official and note his accusations against Israel.
“Good riddance,” wrote Rep. Don Bacon on X. “Iran has murdered more than a thousand Americans. Their EFP land mines were the deadliest in Iraq. Anti-Semitism is an evil I detest, and we surely don’t want it in our government.”
Former Trump official and close ally Taylor Budowich wrote: “This isn’t some principled resignation—he just wanted to make a splash before getting canned. What a loser."
