President Donald Trump brushed off the recent departure of Joe Kent from his role as the United States Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, even going as far as to label the exit “a good thing.”
During a Tuesday meeting with the visiting Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin, the President mentioned he had reviewed the resignation remarks from Kent. While he viewed him as a decent individual, he ultimately considered him “weak on security.”
“I didn’t know him well, but I thought he seemed like a pretty nice guy,” Trump remarked to the press corps in the Oval Office. “It’s a good thing he’s out, because he said that Iran was not a threat.”
The President doubled down on his stance that Iran remains a primary danger, noting that “every country realized” the severity of the situation. According to him, “The question is whether or not they wanted to do something about it.”
Trump also took another swipe at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization for its lack of military backing regarding the conflict in Iran, charging the alliance with failing to return the favor for the extensive support provided by the United States.
Venting his frustration, Trump admitted he had often questioned if the alliance would actually show up when the U.S. required assistance: “NATO is making a very foolish mistake…This is a good test.”
For his part, Kent—a highly decorated Gold Star veteran with 11 combat deployments—wrote in his resignation letter that the public had been misled into thinking Iran represented an “imminent threat” to the country.
The outgoing director claimed that Israel had pushed the U.S. toward military action in Iran, drawing a parallel to how the ally allegedly pulled the nation “into the disastrous Iraq war” that resulted in thousands of American casualties.
Kent cautioned the President against committing ground troops to the region, voicing his firm stance against “sending the next generation to fight and die in a war that serves no benefit to the American people.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt hit back, dismissing Kent’s assertions as “false claims.” She argued that his assessment regarding the lack of an “imminent threat” was merely the “same false claim” echoed by political opponents.
Taking to X, Leavitt maintained that President Trump authorized the military response because of Iran’s role in bankrolling terrorism, noting they “killed Americans, and openly threatened us all the way up to the launch of Operation Epic Fury.”