特朗普任命的乔·肯特因伊朗战争辞职的意义 | 美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）政治版

The significance of Trump appointee Joe Kent resigning over the Iran war | CNN Politics

[Politics]5 min read

The significance of Trump appointee Joe Kent resigning over the Iran war

Analysis by

[Aaron Blake]

Updated 3 hr ago

Updated Mar 17, 2026, 4:51 PM ET

PUBLISHED Mar 17, 2026, 4:39 PM ET

Donald Trump The Middle East Congressional news January 6th

[See all topics]

Facebook Tweet[Email]Link Threads

Link Copied!

Joe Kent testifies before the House Committee on Homeland Security on December 11, 2025.

Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

The conservative movement’s internal debate over the Iran war entered a new phase on Tuesday, with the first resignation of a prominent Trump appointee who criticized the war.

In his resignation letter, National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent said he could not “in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran.” Kent implied that the administration had lied about Iran posing an “imminent” threat, and he claimed Israel had lured the United States into a war that “serves no benefit to the American people nor justifies the cost of American lives.”

President Donald Trump responded by calling Kent “very weak on security” and said it was a “good thing that he’s out.”

Ad Feedback

So just how significant is this?

Kent is a highly imperfect messenger with a checkered past dating back to his failed campaigns for the US House. And that, combined with his extensive focus on Israel in his resignation letter, should trigger some alarms about precisely where his views are coming from.

At the same time, this is a retired Army Green Beret whom Trump saw fit to put in a high-profile intelligence job. And as the right wrestles with the United States’ first major new war in more than two decades, Kent may represent a portion of Trump’s coalition that is not totally on board with the war, especially the longer it drags on.

Is Kent a paragon of virtue whose letter is on-par with the great principled resignations of years past — people like Cyrus Vance, who in 1980 resigned as secretary of state in protest of Jimmy Carter’s ill-fated attempted rescue of American hostages in Iran?

No. But his move does signal some potential problems for Trump.

Kent is a complicated messenger

Kent is a former House candidate whose ties to White nationalists included giving an interview to a a Nazi sympathizer, CNN’s KFile previously reported. And while he tried to distance his campaigns from extremists, those associations may have hurt his efforts to win a swing seat in Washington state in both 2022 and 2024.

Kent has also promoted conspiracy theories, including that the intelligence community in which he would later serve was involved in planning or directing the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. He was confirmed to his role in July despite losing the vote of Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina.

Republican candidate Joe Kent, during a congressional election debate against Democratic Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Pérez, in Portland, Oregon, in October 2024.

Jenny Kane/AP/File

Kent’s resignation letter Tuesday also turned more than a few heads for how often it invoked Israel.

Kent said that Israel “pressured” the United States into the Iran war. That’s a claim that isn’t exactly ridiculous next to Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s early commentary. (After the US first struck, Rubio said Iran posed an imminent threat because Israel was going to strike it, and Tehran would have retaliated by striking US targets. The administration later backed away from that version of its justification.)

But Kent didn’t stop there. He also cited Israel’s “powerful American lobby” in his letter. He blamed “high-ranking Israeli officials” for “a misinformation campaign” about the threat posed by Iran. He blamed Israel for drawing the United States into the Iraq war. And he also called the Syrian civil war (in which his wife died in 2019) “a war manufactured by Israel.”

In other words, it sounded a lot like the kinds of things you might hear from former Fox News host Tucker Carlson these days.

But that’s also kind of the point. Kent’s perspective may be reflective of a broader sentiment within the Trump coalition. Anti-Israel views — and antisemitism — appear to be on the rise, particularly with the younger generation and the influencer class, which could dampen support on the right for the war.

GOP support for the war has its limits

The conventional wisdom right now is that, despite some outspoken conservatives expressing hesitation about the war, the right is in lockstep with Trump.

But that’s not the full picture. In fact, CNN’s poll early in the war showed 23% of Republicans disapproved of the decision to take military action. And much of the GOP support has been rather soft, in CNN’s and others’ polls (i.e., many Republicans said they supported the war, but not “strongly”). That suggests reservations could grow as costs of the war grow.

Even Trump’s own vice president, JD Vance, has conspicuously declined to fully endorse the war.

People walk at the site of a strike in Tehran, Iran, on March 15.

Majid Asgaripour/Wana News Agency/Reuters

Kent’s resignation letter follows in the footsteps of some prominent right-wing influencers who have been unapologetically opposed to the war (and often joined that with criticism of Israel) — people like not just Carlson but former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, former Fox host Megyn Kelly and others.

It’s a dynamic we haven’t really seen before — arguably not even with the Jeffrey Epstein files (where the criticism was more of Trump’s administration than him personally). And those influencers can give others the permission structure to take similar positions. Elite opinion can filter down to the base.

Kent highlights administration’s struggle to justify the war

Kent’s letter also points to a very real, ongoing problem for the administration: its justification for war. Whatever you think of Kent or his rationale, the administration has struggled mightily to explain why Iran posed an “imminent” threat.

After cycling through a few possible justifications, the administration eventually seemed to settle on the narrative that Trump felt Iran was going to strike the United States — despite there being no known intelligence that backed that up.

The right hasn’t concerned itself too much with those kinds of details. But the lack of a clear justification remains a gaping hole in the administration’s case for war that could seemingly become a problem for American voters, to the extent they start paying attention to it.

The question now is whether Kent’s move might presage others making similar decisions. Could Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who has spent years warning against war with Iran, follow suit? (Kent worked under Gabbard early in Trump’s second administration.)

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard attends a Cabinet meeting on December 2, 2025.

Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images

Gabbard weighed in Tuesday afternoon on X, saying it was Trump’s job to determine whether Iran posed an imminent threat — but she notably didn’t give her view on that question.

“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,” Gabbard wrote.

We shouldn’t expect large-scale resignations or desertions of Trump from his base. Kent just isn’t that powerful a figure in the MAGA movement.

But Trump is losing his base a little bit at a time. And Kent is a significant entry in that ongoing saga, no matter what you think of him or his reasons.

Donald Trump The Middle East Congressional news January 6th

[See all topics]

Facebook Tweet[Email]Link Threads

Link Copied!

Ad Feedback