Trump tears into ‘weak’ official who resigned over Iran war as his allies pile on ‘crazed egomaniac’ who was about to be FIRED

Donald Trump said he was pleased that his top counterterrorism official resigned over the war with Iran.

In an extraordinary and unprecedented move for this administration, National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent announced his resignation over objections to the United States launching a joint strike with Israel.

‘When I read his statement I realized it was a good thing that Iran came out because he said there was no threat. Iran was a threat; “Every country was aware of what a threat Iran was,” the President insisted.

He said that if the US did not take the step of hitting Iran at the end of last month, a ‘nuclear holocaust’ could occur.

“If someone is working with us who says they don’t think Iran is a threat, we don’t want those people,” Trump added.

Trump’s allies, on the other hand, came together before Kent’s resignation, claiming that he was already in the line of fire to lose his job.

In a post to

“Iran did not pose an imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby,” he wrote.

This marks the first major, voluntary departure of a senior Trump administration official since he took office last year. This represents a solemn condemnation of the ongoing war with Iran from someone with direct intelligence on the level of threat posed by the regime.

National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent announced his resignation on Tuesday, March 17, 2026, over his objection to the U.S. conflict with Iran.

In his resignation letter, Kent accused the President of returning to the non-interventionist principles on which he campaigned in 2024.

Trump, alongside Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin, defended his decision to engage with Iran.

‘I read your statement. “I always thought he was a good guy, but I always thought he was weak on security,” Trump said of Kent, adding that military experts agree that Iran “must be eliminated because they want nuclear weapons.”

Kent, who has been deployed to war 11 times and lost his wife Shannon in what he calls an Israeli-made war, is closely aligned with the populist ‘America First’ wing of the Trump administration.

“By June 2025, you have realized that the wars in the Middle East are a trap that robs America of the precious lives of our patriots and drains our nation of wealth and prosperity,” the former Army Special Forces soldier wrote in his resignation letter.

‘Now is the time for bold action,’ he insisted. ‘You can either reverse course and chart a new path for our nation, or you can allow us to slide further into decline and chaos. You have the cards.”

Trump’s former Deputy Chief of Staff Taylor Budowich suggested Kent was already on track to be fired, calling him a ‘crazy egomaniac’ responsible for ‘national security leaks’ from his agency.

‘He has spent all his time trying to break down the chain of command and weaken the President of the United States,’ Budowich wrote to X on news of his departure. ‘This is not a principled resignation; he just wanted to make a splash before he got fired. How pathetic.”

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Kent’s insistence that Iran does not pose an immediate threat to the United States was ‘the same false claim that Democrats have repeated over and over again.’

He said Trump had ‘strong and convincing evidence that Iran will attack the United States first’.

Kent sworn in to work under Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center

Kent is closely linked to the ‘America First’ wing of the Trump administration and the President says on news of his resignation: ‘I always thought he was a good man’

Kent’s wife, Shannon, pictured above with her two sons, was killed in a suicide vest bombing while in Syria in 2019. He was one of the 19 people killed in the attack

“President Trump would never make the decision to deploy military assets against a foreign enemy,” he said in a long X post in response to Kent’s resignation.

He listed other reasons, including calling Iran ‘evil’, stating that Iran is a leading state sponsor of terrorism and that the regime there ‘proudly murders Americans, wages war against our country, and openly threatens us, leading up to the launch of Operation Epic Rage’.

Trump said that nuclear wars could have occurred if he had not decided to terminate the Iran Nuclear Agreement and then attack the country on February 28.

‘If I hadn’t ended Obama’s terrible deal (Iran Nuclear Deal), you would have had a nuclear war four years ago. You would have a nuclear holocaust. “If we hadn’t bombed the site, you’d still have it,” he told the press gathered in the Oval Office on Tuesday.

He said those who claim Iran does not pose a threat are “not smart” and “not informed.”

“We don’t want these people,” Trump said.