Joe Kent Left The Trump Administration Over The Flagrant War Of Aggression Against Iran: Only People Without Conscience Would NOT Leave
By Chuck Baldwin
March 19, 2026
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“Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and, having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.”
Patrick Henry
We are now past the time of uncertainty, timidity, tolerance and inaction. The only ones who profess uncertainty and demonstrate timidity, tolerance and inaction are the ones who “having eyes, see not, and, having ears, hear not.”
In other words, they willfully do not see and do not hear.
Joe Kent was the director of the National Counterterrorism Center. The day before yesterday, he resigned. Here is the report:
A top aide to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard resigned Tuesday in protest of the Trump administration’s war in Iran, becoming the first major Trump administration official to resign over the conflict.
Joe Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, posted on social platform X that he was resigning effective immediately while urging President Trump to reverse course in the multiweek military operation.
“I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. 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.
Kent, a former Green Beret and two-time GOP congressional hopeful, was confirmed as the president’s principal counterterrorism adviser by the Senate last summer in a 52-44 vote. He previously worked as chief of staff to Gabbard.
He served in the Army for two decades and completed nearly a dozen combat deployments, receiving six Bronze Star medals. He later worked as a paramilitary officer for the CIA.
“I didn’t support Kent’s nomination. Yet I’m glad he is willing to acknowledge the truth — there was NO imminent threat to the United States, and this war was a terrible idea,” Sen. Mark Warner (Va.), the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in response to Kent’s resignation.
“Even Trump’s greatest MAGA advocates can see this war is stupid, costly, and deadly. When will Trump?” Warner added.
President Trump,
After much reflection, I have decided to resign from my position as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, effective today.
I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. 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.
I support the values and the foreign policies that you campaigned on in 2016, 2020, 2024, which you enacted in your first term. Until June of 2025, you understood that the wars in the Middle East were a trap that robbed America of the precious lives of our patriots and depleted the wealth and prosperity of our nation.
In your first administration, you understood better than any modern President how to decisively apply military power without getting us drawn into never-ending wars. You demonstrated this by killing Qasam Soleimani {I disagree with Kent about murdering Soleimani} and by defeating ISIS {the U.S. didn’t defeat ISIS; it supported and still supports ISIS; just look at who’s in charge of Syria; Iran defeated ISIS}.
Early in this administration, 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. This was a lie and is 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.
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, 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.
I pray that you will reflect upon what we are doing in Iran, and who we are doing it for. The time for bold action is now. You can reverse course and chart a new path for our nation, or you can allow us to slip further toward decline and chaos. You hold the cards.
It was an honor to serve in your administration and to serve our great nation.
Joseph Kent
Director, National Counterterrorism Center
Joe Kent said what almost everyone in America knows: The war in Iran is another stupid war for Israel AND the Epstein files. The only ones who don’t know it (who don’t WANT to know it) are the die-hard evangelical Christian Zionists and a few lamebrain MAGA toadies. Even Trump’s little sycophant House Speaker Mike Johnson knows it; he just isn’t man enough to admit it.
Listen to how the mindless Machiavellian monster of a president reacted to Kent’s resignation, according to The Hill report above:
I always thought he was a nice guy, but I always thought he was weak on security, very weak.
“Weak on security,” Mr. President? This is a man who is a 20-year Ranger/Green Beret veteran with 11 combat deployments under his belt and 6 Bronze Stars. And YOU dare say he is “weak on security”?
Mr. Trump, you are weak on brains! And character! And courage! And integrity! And everything else that makes a man a man!
Anybody who thinks Trump and Hegseth are winning this war in Iran is watching too much FOX News. FOX News is an unabashed propaganda mouthpiece for Trump—nothing more.
Few people in the world today are as geopolitically astute as former British diplomat Alastair Crooke. In a recent interview, he outlined how Iran is dismantling and destroying Trump’s and Netanyahu’s ability to fight.
As soon as the Supreme Leader was killed, within one hour, the instructions were open and they {the Iranians} started the first phase. The first phase was the attack on American bases in the Gulf. The second phase, the destruction of radars everywhere, major radars across the Persian Gulf area. And then, only then, it started the third phase, which was to destroy the intercept capacity, the tactical logistics issue, to draw out the limited intercept holdings of the West by using ancient missiles. They were using missiles that had been produced in 2012 and 2013 to begin with, simply to lower the stock of intercept missiles available either in the Gulf states with American forces there or within Israel. And it’s been successful in doing that.
There may be some, but it looks to me from all I see, that Israel is really getting extremely low, if they have any intercept capacity. It’s the same in the Gulf. The radar systems have been destroyed, so Israel doesn’t even get any warning now of an incoming missile from Iran.
So, we move to the fourth phase, which is when Iran turns its attention to Israel, and it starts using its big missiles. The big missiles, which as I say, haven’t been used so far.
Judge Andrew Napolitano: How plentiful are US THAAD missiles and Patriot missiles available to defend US assets in the Gulf and to defend Israel?
Larry Johnson: We’re depleted. We’re out. I mean, we no longer have a supply that could respond to a sustained attack. I’m not making up the numbers. The numbers are in the defense budget every year. I know there are some people out there who think, “Well, no, the United States is secretly building lots of these.” No, they’re not. So, the total number of THAADs as of January 1st was 900.
Now, understand that if they’re used in an attack, when there’s an attack of a ballistic missile, they’re going to fire two of those. Now, they’re expensive, $12 to $13 million apiece. So, but nonetheless, that means if all 900, if there had never been a single one fired since they’ve been produced as of January, that means they’d be capable of taking down 450 missiles, because you fire two at every incoming Iranian ballistic missile.
Well, Iran, since February 28, has fired 640 ballistic missiles. So, do the math. If they fired all those, they’ve depleted it.
The same on the Patriot side. And I do know that at one of our bases in the Persian Gulf the missile supply was absolutely depleted. We’re out.
And so, this is, for all practical purposes, the United States no longer has a sufficient supply of THAADs and Patriots to deal with an actual missile threat.
Napolitano: Does Trump understand that he no longer has control? And can we expect, you used this phrase once before, the long knives to come out?
Johnson: Well, the long knives are out. Trump does not understand. He doesn’t want to hear. He reportedly has pushed away J.D. Vance, as well as Tulsi Gabbard, who have tried to present the opposite case. He’s listening to people who are telling him that, “Oh, yeah, we’ve got this under control. Don’t worry. It’s just a matter of time. Iran is failing,” even though they’re not.
And then we see the long knives coming out. There’s this recent article in The Wall Street Journal, it may have been today, that described how Trump had been warned specifically about, “Oh, listen, the Iranians can close the Strait of Hormuz, and it’s going to create all these economic problems.” So, the fact that there are articles being published saying, “Trump was briefed; he knew.”
Napolitano: How could Trump get out of this?
Johnson: He would have to do what he’s incapable of doing: admit that he’s wrong, because he’s going to have to make concessions to Iran. Iran’s not going to surrender.
Iran is fighting to save their country. And whenever you encounter fighters who are waging a war to prevent extinction, you find it’s a very difficult, if not impossible, task.
I have heard former U.S. Army Colonel, Secretary of State Chief of Staff and Vietnam veteran Lawrence Wilkerson say repeatedly that if this illegal war of aggression in Iran goes on too long, the Zionist State of Israel will not survive as a nation-state.
And, as I said last Sunday, Iran has already permanently destroyed the prospects of a future Greater Israel. The Zionist (Jewish and Christian) dream of a restored Old Testament kingdom replicating the territorial boundaries controlled by Kings David and Solomon is finished, as in DEAD.
And if Colonel Wilkerson is right, the Zionist State of Israel itself could also die in this flagrant war of aggression against Iran.
Benjamin Netanyahu (is he still alive?) and Donald Trump are both fighting this war in part to keep the Epstein files covered up. It would be the irony of ironies if, in their grotesque attempt to use war as a ruse to protect their own presidencies, both Trump and Netanyahu find that they have not only committed political suicide but have also joined together to ultimately dissolve the Zionist experiment of 1948. At the very least, this war has revealed the utter callousness to human life and the unbounded depth of personal depravity within the hearts of these two “men.”
Now that Joe Kent has led the way in taking the honorable path of abandoning this Zionist puppet administration, perhaps other men and women within Trump’s administration will follow their conscience and leave as well.
History will show no mercy to the people who chose to sell their souls—and our country—to Donald Trump and the Israel lobby.
© Chuck Baldwin
