US President Donald Trump has reacted to the resignation of Joe Kent, whom he nominated as director of the National Counterterrorism Center in February last year

Donald Trump has reacted to the resignation of his top counterterrorism official.

The US president said Joe Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, was a "nice guy" but "weak on security". Kent announced on Tuesday that he would resign immediately over the war in Iran, saying Tehran "posed no imminent threat" to America and that "pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby" led Washington to start the conflict.

Trump was asked about Kent's resignation by reporters at the White House several hours later, as he hosted Ireland's Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, on St Patrick's Day.

"When I read the statement I realised that it's a good thing that he's out, because he said Iran was not a threat," Trump said. "Iran was a threat, every country realised what a threat Iran was, the question is whether or not they wanted to do something about it."

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He added that when someone "working with us" says they did not think Iran was a threat, "we don't want those people". "They're not smart people, they're not savvy people, Iran was a tremendous threat," he said.

In a statement posted on social media, Kent wrote: "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."

He also referenced Trump’s previous pledges to end US engagement abroad, stating: "You understood that wars in the Middle East were a trap that robbed America of the previous lives of our patriots and depleted the wealth and prosperity of our nation."

Kent, a former political candidate with connections to right-wing extremists, was a strong supporter of Trump. He wrote an opinion piece for NBC News in 2020, praising Trump's "empathy and thoughtfulness on one of the worst days of my life", as he recounted how his wife Shannon was killed by a suicide bomber during a mission to fight ISIS in January 2019.

Kent was nominated by Trump to the post of director of the National Counterterrorism Center in February 2025 and confirmed by the Senate in July amid strong opposition from Democrats. As head of the agency, he oversaw its work analysing and detecting terrorist threats.

Following his resignation, Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Kent's concerns about the US-Israeli war on Iran were justified.

"I strongly disagree with many of the positions he has espoused over the years, particularly those that risk politicizing our intelligence community," Warner said. "But on this point, he is right: There was no credible evidence of an imminent threat from Iran that would justify rushing the United States into another war of choice in the Middle East."

Kent is the most high-profile member of the Trump administration to resign since the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran on February 28.