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Trump tears into 'weak' official who resigned over Iran war as his allies pile on 'crazed egomaniac' who was about to be FIRED0%
By Katelyn Caralle0%
3/17/2026, 9:10:20 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 24 faulty reasoning types, including Framing Effect, Ad Hominem, and Horn Effect, with Self-Serving Bias as the most egregious example at 40.3% saturation with 331 hits. Analysis detected 2,230 faulty-reasoning hits from 822 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 0% and a BS Rank of 0% (0 of 21,887 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 100.00% of the article peer group.
Donald Trump said he's glad 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 he was stepping down over his objections to the US launching joint strikes with Israel.
'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 – every country realized what a threat Iran was,' the President insisted.
He said there would have been a 'nuclear holocaust' if the US did not take the step at the end of last month to strike Iran.
'When somebody is working with us that says they didn't think Iran is a threat – we don't want those people,' Trump added.
And Trump allies piled on, claiming that Kent was already in the firing line to lose his job before his resignation.
Kent said in a post to X on Tuesday that he could not 'in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran' through his role under Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.
'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,' he wrote.
It marks the first major and voluntary departure of a senior Trump administration official since he retook office last year.
And it represents a significant condemnation of the ongoing war with Iran from a person with direct intelligence on the threat level posed by the regime.
President Donald Trump says he's glad his top counterterrorism official resigned amid claiming Iran did not pose a threat to the US
National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent announced Tuesday, March 17, 2026 that he was resigning over his objection to the US conflict with Iran
Kent in his resignation letter, accused the President of going back on the non-interventionist principles he campaigned on in 2024.
Alongside Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin, Trump defended his decision to engage with Iran.
'I read his statement.
I always thought he was a nice guy, but I always thought he was weak on security,' Trump said of Kent, adding that military scholars agree Iran needed to be 'taken out… because they wanted a nuclear weapon.'
'The time for bold action is now,' he urged.
'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.'
Former Trump deputy Chief of Staff Taylor Budowich suggested that Kent was already on track to be fired and called him a 'crazed egomaniac' responsible for 'national security leaks' out of his agency.
'He spent all of his time working to subvert the chain of command and undermine the President of the United States,' Budowich wrote on X upon news of his departure.
'This isn't some principled resignation—he just wanted to make a splash before getting canned.
What a loser.'
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Kent's insistence that Iran posed no immediate threat to the US is the 'same false claim that Democrats… have been repeating over and over.'
She said that Trump had 'strong and compelling evidence that Iran was going to attack the United States first.'
Kent swears his oath of office to work under Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center
Kent is closely aligned with the 'America First' wing of the Trump administration, and the President says upon news of his resignation: 'I always thought he was a nice guy'
Kent's wife Shannon, pictured above with their two sons, was killed by a suicide vest bombing in 2019 while she was in Syria.
She was one of 19 deaths in the attack
'President Trump would never make the decision to deploy military assets against a foreign adversary in a vacuum,' she posted in a lengthy X post responding to Kent's resignation.
She listed other reasons, including calling Iran 'evil,' noting it is the leading state sponsor of terrorism and that the regime there 'proudly killed Americans, waged war against our country, and openly threatened us all the way up to the launch of Operation Epic Fury.'
Trump said that there would have been nuclear wars if he did not end the Iran Nuclear Deal and then decide to engage in strikes in the country on February 28.
'If I didn't terminate Obama's horrible deal that he made – the Iran Nuclear Deal – you would have had a nuclear war, four years ago.
You would have had nuclear holocaust.
And you would have had it again if we didn't bomb the site,' he said to press gathered in the Oval Office on Tuesday.
He said those who claim Iran didn't pose a threat are 'not smart' and 'not savvy.'
'We don't want those people,' Trump concluded.
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