Former Director of the National Counterterrorism Center Joe Kent responded Thursday to President Donald Trump’s remark about his late first wife.
Trump said Kent remarried “fairly quickly” after his first wife, Shannon, died in a suicide bombing during her deployment in Manbij, Syria, on Jan. 16, 2019. Kent said on “Piers Morgan Uncensored” that while Trump’s response is unpleasant, he is more concerned about the U.S. getting out of the Iran conflict before it “spirals out of control.”
“Of course it’s personal, it’s not pleasant to hear the president speak in that manner,” Kent said. “But look, again, the stakes are really high, Piers. My late wife was killed in one of these Middle Eastern wars that we shouldn’t have been in in the first place. Hundreds of my friends were killed in these wars as well. My entire generation, after 911, basically spent our entire adult lives in war. I did multiple combat deployments. The stakes couldn’t be higher. I frankly don’t care what the president says about me personally, again, I understand because I went out the way that I did because it was inevitable.”
“What I want all the focus to be on is how we got here and how we get out of this situation that we’re in. And how we must restrain the Israelis and how we must use diplomacy with the Iranians to get out of this situation before it spirals out of control,” Kent continued.
WATCH:
Shannon was deployed to Syria in November 2018 to locate and target top leaders of the Islamic State with the National Security Agency (NSA). Two months later, a suicide bomber killed her and 18 other people while they were at a restaurant. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant claimed responsibility for the fatal attack.
One year later, Kent met artist Heather Kaiser, who he later married in August 2023.
Kent wrote in his resignation letter from March 17 that Trump was influenced by a “misinformation campaign” waged by Israeli officials and their American lobby. He told Daily Caller News Foundation co-founder Tucker Carlson that Israel’s influence on the U.S. proved that Iran posed no imminent threat to Americans.
Kent also argued that Iran was never on the verge of obtaining a nuclear weapon, telling radio host Mark Levin on Monday that a “fatwa” has forbidden Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon since 2004.
Trump told reporters on March 17 that Kent’s resignation was good since he did not believe Iran was a threat. However, Kent only stated that Iran was not an imminent threat. Vice President J.D. Vance also said that officials in the administration were obligated to respect Trump’s decisions.
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