Trump mulls failed candidate with white nationalist ties for key security role: report

President-elect Donald Trump is leaning toward another controversial pick for a crucial national security position in his administration, Politico reported Tuesday.

Specifically, two sources report that Trump wants to hire far-right former congressional candidate Joe Kent to head up the National Counterterrorism Center, the agency that advises law enforcement on terrorism and fights terror plots both domestic and international.

"Kent, an Army Special Forces veteran who briefly served at the CIA, has been working for the landing team in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Nat Sec Daily previously reported," said Politico. "After leaving government, he ran two unsuccessful bids for Congress in Washington state, despite receiving endorsements from Matt Gaetz, Michael Flynn, and Trump."

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Part of the reason for the failure of his campaign, which successfully unseated longtime GOP incumbent Jaime Herrera Beutler from a traditionally red district on the southern coast of Washington just north of Portland, Oregon, was his widely reported ties to extremist figures.

He gave an interview to Greyson Arnold, a Nazi sympathizer who has railed against “Jewish led colored hordes of the Earth," and he also sat for a podcast with Nick Fuentes, the leader of the white nationalist "Groyper" movement, where they speculated about the "ideal ratio" of non-white or non-Christian people.

After Kent's first loss to conservative Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez in 2022, he took over a month to concede the election.

This comes as national security experts have raised red flags about other figures Trump has tapped for critical national security roles, including longtime MAGA loyalist Kash Patel for director of the FBI, and conspiracy theorist former Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence.