Joe Kent says he wants Trump to hear MAGA opposition to Iran war

After 13 U.S. troops were killed during the opening weeks of the Iran war, Joe Kent had seen enough. It was time, he said, to stand on principle and resign his position as director of the National Counterterrorism Center, knowing it was likely that some of President Donald Trump’s other advisers would turn on him. Kent, a retired Special Operations soldier whose military career included 11 combat deployments, had decided days earlier that if hostilities with Iran erupted into a ‘full war like we’re doing now,’ then there was no way he could stay. Doing so, he reasoned, would have contradicted a promise that he made to himself years earlier while serving during the Iraq War, a costly, devastating conflict that he came to view as having been built on lies and foisted on the American people by the administration of President George W. Bush. ‘I said, ‘If I ever have a seat at the table, I’m not going to put up with this. I’ll do whatever I can to prevent it,” Kent said in an hour-long interview with The Washington Post. Kent’s stunning resignation last week has thrust him to the center of a bitter debate about whether and how the Trump administration should prosecute its war with Iran, a powerful longtime U.S. adversary responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans. Now, he said, he is making his case to fellow conservatives through a series of interviews with podcasters popular among Trump’s political base, including Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Saagar Enjeti and Shawn Ryan. It’s a concerted effort, Kent said, to rally members of the president’s Make America Great Again movement and ensure he hears dissenting voices on an issue that has divided Republicans. While some Trump supporters are inclined to use military might to influence global affairs, others — like Kent — say they chose to support him in part because he voiced scorn for America’s earlier wars. Administration officials have gone on the attack against Kent. Davis Ingle, a White House spokesman, said in a statement that Kent’s ‘self-aggrandizing’ resignation letter and recent interviews have been ‘riddled with lies,’ the ‘most egregious’ of which was him claiming that ‘the largest state sponsor of terrorism somehow did not pose a threat to the United States and that Israel forced the President into launching Operation Epic Fury.’ The president, Ingle said, took ‘decisive action based on strong evidence’ that Iran ‘posed an imminent threat and was preparing to strike Americans first.’ Trump, he said, ‘does not make these incredibly important national security decisions based on fluid opinion polls or podcast hosts, but on the best interest of the American people.’ A White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the administration, said recent polls, including one by The Post, have shown Trump’s decision to launch the war against Iran has support from a majority of Americans, with Republicans strongly supporting it. The official acknowledged that ‘some online commentators with large followings’ disagree with Trump, and said the media has highlighted that ‘to try and sow division’ while the president’s political base ‘is not wavering one bit.’ Kent’s high-profile exit and messaging campaign comes as Trump sends mixed signals about his next moves in Iran — having left the door open to ordering the deployment of U.S. combat troops onto Iranian soil, a move that could drastically increase the number of American military fatalities. U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss military planning, have said the Pentagon is developing options for the White House that include thousands of Army paratroopers