By Ryan Mancini, reposted from The Hill, March 17, 2026
Conservative commentator Tucker Carlson on Tuesday said that “neocons will now try to destroy” Joe Kent, who resigned earlier in the day from his role as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center in protest of the Trump administration’s conflict with Iran.
Carlson praised Kent’s decision to resign, he told The New York Times in a brief interview. The outlet described the two men as close friends.
“Joe is the bravest man I know, and he can’t be dismissed as a nut,” Carlson said. “He’s leaving a job that gave him access to highest-level relevant intelligence. The neocons will now try to destroy him for that. He understands that and did it anyway.”
Kent wrote in his resignation letter to President Trump that although he supports “the values and the foreign policies that you campaigned on in 2016, 2020” and 2024, he disagreed with the president’s decision to launch the U.S. military offensive in Iran.
He argued in his letter that Israel drew the U.S. into the conflict with Iran, which was suggested in Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s explanation of how the conflict began before he later walked back that initial statement.
I pray that you will reflect upon what we are doing in Iran, and who we are doing it for,” Kent wrote to Trump. “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.”
[Read more about Joe Kent here.]
The White House accused Kent of “many false claims,” and fiercely denied his suggestion that Iran posed no imminent threat to the U.S. Trump later told reporters “it’s a good thing that he’s out, because he said Iran is not a threat. … Every country realized what a threat Iran was.”
Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) called it “good riddance” that Kent resigned.
“Iran has murdered more than a thousand Americans,” he posted on the social platform X. Their EFP land mines were the deadliest in Iraq. Anti-Semitism is an evil I detest, and we surely don’t want it in our government.”
Kent is a former Green Beret and two-time GOP congressional hopeful who previously worked as chief of staff to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. He served in the Army for 20 years and completed almost a dozen combat deployments, receiving six bronze stars.
Kent referred to his military career and his late wife Shannon M. Kent in his letter. She was a military cryptologist killed in Syria, the Times reported.
“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,” he wrote.
Kent’s departure comes after the Office of the Director of National Intelligence recently hired Dan Caldwell, who was accused of leaking classified information before he was ousted from the Pentagon last April, an administration official told The Hill.
UPDATE: Tucker Carlson will interview Kent tonight (March 18) at 6PM EST on Tucker Carlson News
Ryan Mancini is a staff writer for The Hill.
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