The head of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Centre, Joe Kent resigned yesterday, saying he “cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran,” the first top Trump administration official to quit over the conflict.
Joe Kent, a decorated former Army Ranger and CIA paramilitary officer, was a top aide to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who oversaw all U.S. counter-terrorism efforts in the U.S. and overseas.
In a March 17 post on social media platform X, Kent said that “after much reflection, I have decided to resign from my position as Director of the National Counterterrorism Centre, effective today.”
“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 wrote in a letter to President Donald Trump, who nominated him for the top U.S. counterterrorism job on Feb. 3, 2025.
The White House and Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees NCTC, did not immediately respond to USA TODAY requests for comment.
■ A top Trump aide ‘resigning on principle’
Javed Ali, counterterrorism director on the National Security Council during Trump’s first term, said Kent’s resignation was virtually unprecedented for a president who has fired numerous top aides but hasn’t seen any publicly attack his policies when leaving the administration.
Joe Kent rallies for defendants being prosecuted in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, in Washington, DC, Sept. 18, 2021. Kent resigned as director of the U.S. Counterterrorism Centre on March 17, 2026, in protest against the U.S. war in Iran.
“With the Iran war now into the third week, this is a major development, because this is the first high profile sort of defection from the Trump administration’s national security team,” Ali told USA TODAY. “He’s resigning on principle, he hasn’t been forced out of his job.”
Ali, who has served in top counterterrorism roles in Republican and Democratic administrations, said that unlike Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, whom Trump fired earlier this month, “Joe Kent, by all accounts, was doing well as the NCTC director.”
“But because of his views on what the administration’s policies have been with the war in Iran, he chose to resign, which is very significant,” Ali said.
■ ‘We cannot make this mistake again’
In his letter, Kent said he “supported the values and the foreign policies” that Trump campaigned on in 2016, 2020 and 2024, and that he enacted in his first term – in which the president sought to avoid wars in the Middle East “that robbed America of the precious lives of our patriots and depleted the wealth and prosperity of our nation.”
Rescuers work in the rubble of residential buildings after air strikes in Tehran, Iran, in this screengrab obtained from a handout video released March 9, 2026.
But early in his second administration, Kent told Trump, the president has fallen into a trap in which “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.”
“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,” Kent continued.
“This was a lie and ls 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,” Kent said.
USA TODAY is reaching out to the Israeli government for comment. In past public statements, Trump had denied being goaded into war with Iran by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
■ A favorite of Gabbard – and Trump
Kent was a favourite of both Gabbard, who oversees all 18 U.S. intelligence agencies, and the president himself.
When nominating Kent 13 months ago, Trump said in a Truth Social post that as “a soldier, Green Beret, and CIA Officer, Joe has hunted down terrorists and criminals his entire adult life. … Joe will help us keep America safe by eradicating all terrorism, from the jihadists around the world to the cartels in our backyard.”
“Above all, Joe knows the terrible cost of terrorism,” Trump said, noting that Kent’s wife Shannon was “killed in the fight against ISIS.”
Shannon Kent, a Navy chief cryptologic technician, was killed on January 16, 2019, in a suicide bomb attack in Manbij, Syria.
Kent, in his letter to Trump, indirectly blamed his wife’s death on Israel, too.
“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,” Kent wrote, “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.”