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Senior Trump official resigns over Iran: 'I cannot in good conscience support the war'

U.S. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump walk on the day they participate in a dignified transfer of the remains of six U.S. Army service members of the 103rd Sustainment Command, who were killed in Kuwait, Major Jeffrey O'Brien, Capitain Cody Khork, Chief Warrant Officer 3 Robert Marzan, Sergeant 1st Class Nicole Amor, Sergeant 1st Class Noah Tietjens and Sergeant Declan Coady, amid the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran, at Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Delaware, U.S., March 7, 2026. REUTERS/Nathan Howard
Alexander Willis
March 17, 2026

Joe Kent, who was tapped by President Donald Trump to lead the National Counterterrorism Center, resigned on Tuesday out of protest over the U.S. war against Iran, marking the president’s first major rebuke on the conflict from a member of his administration.

“After much reflection, I have decided to resign from my position as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, effective today,” Kent wrote Tuesday in a statement shared on social media.

“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.”

Axios reporter Barak Ravid described Kent’s resignation as being the first instance of a senior Trump administration official to step down over the U.S. war against Iran, a conflict authorized by Trump, in part, over claims that an Iranian attack on the United States was “imminent.”

Trump has dug his heels in on his administration’s war against Iran, deploying thousands of U.S. Marines to the region and striking Iran’s oil export hub “just for fun."

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