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The luck of the Irish sparkled over the White House on Tuesday amid President Donald Trump’s meeting with the Taoiseach of Ireland, Micheál Martin, during the two leaders’ second Oval Office meeting since last spring.
President Trump answered questions from reporters during the bilateral press conference, with a primary focus on Operation Epic Fury unfolding in the Middle East.
Specifically, the president was asked about this week’s surprising resignation of Joe Kent, the now-former Director of the National Counterterrorism Center. Kent resigned, he said, over concerns about the conflict with Iran.
“Well, I read his statement. I always thought he was a nice guy, but I always thought he was weak on security,” President Trump told reporters. “…When I read his statement, I realized that it’s a good thing that he’s out, because he said that Iran was not a threat. Iran was a threat to every country!”
The president also argued that if, during his first term in office, he hadn’t terminated the “Iran Nuclear Deal” facilitated by former President Barack Obama, “you would have had nuclear holocaust, and you would have had it again if we didn’t bomb the site.”
Kent’s decision to step down from his position caused a stir early Tuesday morning, after he posted his resignation letter to social media. He argued that 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 is a veteran of the U.S. Special Forces and a former member of the Central Intelligence Agency. His late wife, U.S. Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer Shannon Kent, was tragically killed in a suicide bombing in Syria in 2019, according to The National Counterterrorism Center.
In his letter to the president, Kent alleged that “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 war with Iran.”
Kent further alleged that he lost his wife, Shannon, “in a war manufactured by Israel,” and expressed his strong opposition to “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’s words and accusations were very pointed, stoking debate online and drawing additional criticism from White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.
“There are many false claims in this letter but let me address one specifically: that ‘Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation,’” Leavitt fired off in a statement posted to X.
She continued, “This is the same false claim that Democrats and some in the liberal media have been repeating over and over. As President Trump has clearly and explicitly stated, he had strong and compelling evidence that Iran was going to attack the United States first. This evidence was compiled from many sources and factors. President Trump would never make the decision to deploy military assets against a foreign adversary in a vacuum.”
Leavitt also noted that Iran was the “world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism,” and that the terrorist regime has killed many Americans over the years.
President Trump, in his comments to reporters, emphasized his displeasure that Kent did not perceive Iran as problematic.
“When somebody is working with us that says they didn’t think Iran was a threat, we don’t want those people,” President Trump stated. “…And there are some people, I guess, that would say that. But they’re not smart people, or they’re not savvy people. Iran was a tremendous threat.”
