Trump Comments On Kent Resignation

President Donald Trump didn’t hold back Tuesday after the sudden resignation of National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent, bluntly declaring it “a good thing” that Kent is out—and ripping him as “very weak on security.”

The moment unfolded during a high-profile Oval Office meeting with Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin, when Trump was asked directly about Kent’s departure. His answer was immediate and pointed.

“I always thought he was a nice guy, but I always thought he was weak on security, very weak on security,” Trump said. “When I read his statement, I realized that it’s a good thing that he’s out.”

At the center of the firestorm is Kent’s resignation letter, where he claimed that “Iran posed no imminent threat”—a statement that instantly triggered backlash across Trump’s inner circle and top Republican leadership.

Trump flatly rejected that claim, arguing the danger from Iran was obvious and widely recognized.

“Iran was a threat. Every country realized what a threat Iran was,” Trump said, adding that the real debate wasn’t about the threat itself—but whether leaders had the will to act on it.

He went even further, invoking years of warnings from military experts who argued that decisive action against Iran should have come long ago, particularly over its nuclear ambitions.

The White House quickly moved to dismantle Kent’s narrative.

Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt blasted the resignation letter as riddled with “many false claims,” zeroing in on the Iran assessment as the most glaring example. She insisted Trump had “strong and compelling evidence” that Iran was preparing to strike first—intelligence gathered from multiple sources.

“This is the same false claim that Democrats and some in the liberal media have been repeating,” Leavitt wrote, doubling down on the administration’s position that Iran posed a real and immediate danger.