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Joe Kent
Joe Kent
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Joe Kent
Official portrait, 2025
8th Director of the
National Counterterrorism Center
In office
July 31, 2025 – March 17, 2026
President
Preceded by
Succeeded by
Joe Weirsky (acting)
Chief of Staff to the Director of National Intelligence
In office
circa. February 2025 – July 19, 2025
President
Director
Succeeded by
Matt Baker
Personal details
Born
Joseph Clay Kent
April 11, 1980 (age 46)
Sweet Home, Oregon, U.S.
Republican (2021–present)
Other political
affiliations
Libertarian (2012–2019)
Democratic (2019–2021)
Spouses
Shannon M. Smith
(m. 2014; died 2019)Heather Kaiser (m. 2023)
Children
2
Education
Military service
Allegiance
United States
Branch/service
Years of service
1998–2018
Rank
Unit
Battles/wars
Joseph Clay Kent (born April 11, 1980) is an American politician, former United States Army warrant officer, and former Central Intelligence Agency paramilitary officer who served as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center from 2025 to 2026. A member of the Republican Party, Kent was its nominee in the United States House of Representatives election for Washington's third congressional district in 2022 and 2024.
Kent enlisted in the 75th Ranger Regiment and applied for the Special Forces before the September 11 attacks. He served eleven combat tours, primarily in Iraq, and retired in 2018, becoming a paramilitary officer with the CIA. In January 2019, Kent's wife, Shannon, was killed in a suicide bombing in Manbij, Syria. He became involved in political advocacy after Shannon's death.
In 2022, Kent ran for Congress in Washington's third congressional district. Running as a supporter of Donald Trump, he eliminated incumbent Republican Jaime Herrera Beutler in the nonpartisan primary but lost to Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez in the general election. Kent ran again in 2024, losing to Gluesenkamp Perez in a rematch.
In February 2025, Trump nominated Kent for director of the National Counterterrorism Center. That month, he began serving as the chief of staff to Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence. Kent was confirmed by the Senate in July. In March 2026, Kent resigned as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, citing disagreement over U.S. involvement in the Iran war and the influence of Israel and the Israeli lobby in domestic politics.
Early life and education
Joseph Clay Kent[1] was born on April 11, 1980,[2] in a cabin in Sweet Home, Oregon.[3] Kent was the first child of Roman Catholic parents who later graduated from law school. He was raised in Portland, Oregon.[3] Kent expressed an early interest in the military, constructing weapons out of Lego bricks.[4] He was inspired to join the United States Army after watching television coverage of the Battle of Mogadishu.[5] Kent graduated from Norwich University with a degree in strategic studies and defense analysis.[6]
Career
Military and intelligence service (1998–2019)
Shannon Smith, Kent's first wife, was killed in the 2019 Manbij bombing.
At 17, Kent enlisted in the Army[5] on a Ranger contract,[3] allowing him to enter the 75th Ranger Regiment.[7] He applied for the Special Forces before the September 11 attacks,[5] and took a qualification course days before the attacks.[3] By September 2003, following his training,[3] Kent was deployed to Iraq, where he fought in the First Battle of Fallujah,[5] and searched for Iraqi officials.[3] He served eleven combat tours including deployments in Yemen and north Africa before retiring. Kent held the final rank of chief warrant officer. He later became a paramilitary officer with the Central Intelligence Agency.[8]
In December 2014, Kent married Shannon Smith, a cryptologist whom he had met at Fort Belvoir, where he had been assigned to an Army Special Operations Command.[9] They had two children, born in 2015 and 2017.[4] In January 2019, Shannon was killed in a suicide bombing in Manbij. After the bombing, Kent left government work,[10] and began to write columns for CNN, Breitbart News, and Fox News speaking out against the war on terror.[3] He consulted with the White House and volunteered for Veterans for Trump and Concerned Veterans for America.[5]
U.S. congressional campaigns in Washington (2021–2022; 2023–2024)
Further information: 2022 and 2024 United States House of Representatives elections in Washington
Kent in 2020
On February 18, 2021,[11] Kent announced his intention to run in the United States House of Representatives election for Washington's third congressional district as a Republican, citing Jaime Herrera Beutler's decision to vote to impeach Donald Trump in his second impeachment following the January 6 Capitol attack.[12] Kent aligned himself with Trump in his campaign announcement.[13] By July, he had raised US$366,000, the most of any candidate in the election at that point,[14] and garnered financial support from Steve Wynn and Peter Thiel.[8] In September, Trump endorsed Kent.[15] His prominence was bolstered by Tucker Carlson, who had frequently had Kent as guest on the Fox News program Tucker Carlson Tonight (2016–2023).[16]
In March 2022, he entered into a dispute with white supremacist commentator Nick Fuentes, who claimed during a livestream that Kent privately told him, "I love what you're doing." News agencies could not verify the claim; Kent denied that the statement had ever been made. After Kent disavowed Fuentes and stated he had not sought his endorsement over his views on race and religion, Fuentes chastised Kent for not being sufficiently conservative.[17] Kent was later interviewed by American Virtue, an organization associated with Fuentes, and stated American culture was "anti-white" and "anti-straight-white-male".[18] The Associated Press reported in July the Kent campaign had paid a member of the Proud Boys, a far-right militia, as a consultant, that Kent was a political ally of Joey Gibson, a right-wing political activist, and that Kent had photographed himself with Greyson Arnold, a self-described Christian nationalist. The campaign told the Associated Press Kent was unaware who Arnold was.[19] In September, CNN reported Kent had given an interview to Arnold.[20] In his campaign, he made repeated references to Sam Francis, a paleoconservative writer who identified as a white nationalist late in life.[21]
Kent defeated Herrera Beutler in the state's open primary in August, though he received fewer votes than Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, a Democrat.[22] Gluesenkamp Perez shifted her campaign towards issues with broad Democratic appeal, including abortion, as well as schools and jobs.[23] Kent's views led to Gluesenkamp Perez garnering some Republican support.[24] She defeated Kent[25] in one of the largest upsets that year.[26] He initially refused to concede,[27] but eventually did so in December.[28] On January 11, 2023, Kent announced a second campaign for Washington's third congressional district.[29] Kent married Heather Kaiser[30] that year.[6] By October 2024, polling between Gluesenkamp Perez and Kent indicated that the election was likely to be close. That month, they debated at KATU's studio in Portland, Oregon.[31] Gluesenkamp Perez won the 2024 election in November.[32]
Acting chief of staff to the director of national intelligence (February–July 2025)
By February 2025, Kent had been serving as the acting chief of staff to Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence;[33] his role was disclosed by The Washington Post in March.[34] Responding to a request from the Trump administration, Kent requested the National Intelligence Council conduct an intelligence assessment on connections between the government of Venezuela and the organized crime syndicate Tren de Aragua. After the report failed to yield associations between the government and the gang, he pressured Michael Collins, the acting chairman, to reassess its analysis after The New York Times reported on the internal report. The assessment conflicted with Trump's invocation of the Alien Enemies Act, which requires a connection to a foreign state.[33] Kent was a member of the Signal group chat involved in one of the United States government group chat leaks.[35]
Director of the National Counterterrorism Center (2025–2026)
Kent is sworn in as director of the National Counterterrorism Center in July 2025.
On February 3, 2025, Donald Trump named Kent as his nominee for director of the National Counterterrorism Center.[36] He appeared before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on April 9, in which he defended his involvement in the Signal group chat and asserted the government was involved in the January 6 Capitol attack.[37] On July 30, Kent was confirmed by the Senate in a 52–44 vote along party lines.[38] In October, The New York Times reported Kent had obtained access to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's files on the assassination of Charlie Kirk, alarming the bureau's director, Kash Patel.[39] According to The Wall Street Journal, Kent had been sidelined from the team responsible for producing and delivering the President's Daily Brief in the final months of his tenure.[40]
Kent's resignation letter
On March 16, 2026, Kent told Trump, vice president JD Vance, and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles that he intended to resign as director of the National Counterterrorism Center over Trump's decision to initiate the Iran war.[40] The following day, he published a resignation letter, writing on X that the U.S. entered the war amid "pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby". Kent denied that Iran was an "imminent threat" to the United States.[41][42] According to Semafor, Kent had been facing an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for allegedly leaking classified information. The inquiry began several months prior to his resignation.[43] In an interview with Tucker Carlson the following day, Kent said that he and other senior officials were "not allowed" to share concerns about the necessity of airstrikes with Trump. He alleged that the decision-making process had been limited to a select few advisors and continued to emphasize the involvement of Israeli officials.[44] Kent appeared on the podcasts of several political commentators associated with the MAGA movement, including Megyn Kelly, Saagar Enjeti, and Shawn Ryan, in an effort to encourage opposition to the war.[45]
Political positions
Domestic issues
Kent has been described as far-right.[a] He voted for George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004 before shifting his political beliefs towards libertarianism, supporting Ron Paul.[8] According to voting records, he was registered with the Libertarian Party in the 2012 presidential election until 2019, when he became a Democrat; Kent voted for Bernie Sanders in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries in order to support Republicans in that year's presidential election.[49] A spokesman for Kent described his political philosophy as "inclusive populism", rejecting discrimination.[19]
Kent has embraced false claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential election.[50] A month following the January 6 Capitol attack, he stated Donald Trump had "no control" over the mob and attributed the severity of the attack to security planning.[12] Kent attended the Justice for J6 rally and compared the treatment of rioters to that of Iraqi citizens in the Iraq War.[51] He later called for releasing security footage of the attack,[52] and claimed the mob was brought to violence by provocateurs associated with the deep state.[53] After the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago, Kent told Steve Bannon on War Room the raid constituted "war".[54] He called for defunding the Federal Bureau of Investigation in response.[55]
In January 2022 Kent led a rally against a false claim that the Washington State Board of Health was set to forcefully quarantine citizens who did not get the COVID-19 vaccine.[56] In March, he appeared at an event organized by the Washington State Three Percenters, a far-right militia.[57] Kent once advocated for a federal ban on abortion, but later narrowed his position towards states' rights.[53] By the following month, he had called for an investigation into Anthony Fauci over the origin of SARS-CoV-2 and for an immigration moratorium.[49] In September, Kent stated Fauci should be charged with murder and described COVID-19 vaccines as "experimental gene therapy";[55] he is unvaccinated against COVID-19.[3] At a rally with Matt Gaetz in September 2021, Kent advocated for school vouchers and per-child tax deductions for parents.[58] Kent opposed several proposals to replace the Interstate Bridge, including tolling and light rail, in his 2024 campaign.[59]
Military affairs
Kent is a non-interventionist, citing his military experience and the death of his wife.[60] He began to question the management of the U.S. military during the Iraq War, when officials sought to eliminate members of Saddam Hussein's government. According to Mother Jones, Kent read David Hackworth's memoir About Face (1990), a book critical of the "clerks at the top" directing the U.S.'s involvement in the Vietnam War.[3] He defended Trump's pardons of two Army officers convicted of Uniform Code of Military Justice offenses, Mathew L. Golsteyn and Clint Lorance, and his intervention in the case of Eddie Gallagher, a Navy SEAL involved in a high-profile war crimes case; in an interview with The New York Times in November 2019, Kent compared Gallagher's case with that of Chelsea Manning.[61]
Foreign policy
At a conference held at Washington Marriott Marquis in April 2022, Kent argued the "political establishment" seeks to initiate a conflict against Russia, including by providing military assistance to Ukraine—a level of support he outright opposed.[62][49] He stated Russian president Vladimir Putin's demands for Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts were "very reasonable".[62] His comments on Tucker Carlson Tonight denouncing support for Ukraine as deterring a peace deal were repeated by TASS, a Russian state-owned news agency.[63] In September 2023, Kent described the Biden administration's strategy as immoral, arguing that the U.S. is fueling a prolonged war that is "unsustainable" for Ukraine. Kent has specifically stated that the policy uses the Ukrainian civilian population as "cannon fodder", describing drafted Ukrainian soldiers—whom he characterized as formerly everyday workers and students—as being sent to die in a "muddy ditch" in a war he believed they cannot win. He has argued that by providing continuous aid, the U.S. prevents a necessary, albeit likely painful, peace deal from being brokered.[64]
In 2021, following the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, Kent emerged as a vocal critic of what he described as Washington’s failed "nation-building" strategies.[41] In March 2026, Kent characterized U.S.-Israeli strikes against Iran as a "manufactured" war, arguing they did not serve American interests and risked repeating the "disastrous" mistakes of the Iraq War.[65]
Electoral history
2022
Party
Candidate
Votes
%
67,937
31.0
Joe Kent
49,887
25.4
48,828
22.3
Heidi St. John
35,054
16.0
7,012
3.2
Davy Ray
4,853
2.2
Chris Byrd
3,785
1.7
Leslie French
1,091
0.5
Oliver Black
451
0.2
Total votes
218,898
100.0
Party
Candidate
Votes
%
160,323
50.41
Joe Kent
157,690
49.59
Total votes
318,013
100.0
2024
Party
Candidate
Votes
%
97,274
45.9
Joe Kent
83,389
39.3
Leslie Lewallen
25,868
12.2
John Saulie-Rohman
5,406
2.6
Total votes
211,937
100.0
Party
Candidate
Votes
%
215,177
51.9
Joe Kent
199,054
48.1
Total votes
414,231
100.0
Notes
References
Joseph Clay Kent in the U.S., Index to Public Records, 1994-2019.
Joseph C Kent in the U.S., Public Records Index, 1950-1993, Volume 2.
"GOP's Joe Kent concedes Washington state Congressional race". Associated Press.
Rosenfeld, Arno (March 17, 2026). "Joe Kent, Trump official with white supremacist ties, resigns over Iran war and blames Israel". The Forward. Retrieved March 23, 2026.
Karni 2024a: But the bridge in one of the country's most competitive districts has become a political piñata in the race, which is all but certain to pit Ms. Perez against the far-right Republican Joe Kent, whom she beat in 2022 by less than 1 percentage point.
Knowles, Sotomayor & Itkowitz 2022: One stark outcome came in Washington state, where far-right Republican candidate Joe Kent lost to Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez after Republicans ousted Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R) — who voted to impeach Trump — in the all-party primary.
Mutnick & Shepard 2024: In Washington state, Joe Kent, a far-right Republican with ties to white nationalists, appears poised to face Gluesenkamp Perez in the general election again.
"Washington Third Congressional District Primary Election Results". The New York Times.
"Washington Third Congressional District Election Results". The New York Times (2022).
"Washington 3rd Congressional District Primary Election Results". The New York Times.
"Washington Third Congressional District Election Results". The New York Times (2024).
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Documents
"Joseph C Kent in the U.S., Public Records Index, 1950-1993, Volume 2" (Document). Public Records Index.
"Joseph Clay Kent in the U.S., Index to Public Records, 1994-2019" (Document). Index to Public Records.
2026 (March 18) - Wall Street Journal : "OPINION : Tulsi Gabbard’s Resistance Shop; The Director of National Intelligence hires another Iran policy opponent."
2026 (March 18) - Wall Street Journal : "OPINION : Tulsi Gabbard’s Resistance Shop; The Director of National Intelligence hires another Iran policy opponent."
March 18, 2026 at 5:29 pm ET
Call it the revolving door. As one top aide who despises President Trump’s foreign policy leaves Tulsi Gabbard’s office, another joins.
On Monday Joe Kent tendered his resignation as counterterrorism chief under Ms. Gabbard. The same day, news broke that Ms. Gabbard hired Dan Caldwell as an adviser to senior intelligence officials.
Mr. Kent excoriated Mr. Trump’s Iran policy Tuesday, blaming it and most everything else abroad on the Jewish lobby. He’ll now go on Tucker Carlson’s podcast to lobby against Mr. Trump’s policy from the outside since he failed to stop it from the inside.
Mr. Caldwell did his exit interview with Mr. Carlson in April, after he was pushed out of the Pentagon in a leak investigation. He has spent the months since opposing Mr. Trump’s Iran policy, including a second time on Mr. Carlson’s show amid the 12-day war in June.
“The costs of a conventional strike,” he warned in June, “are potentially catastrophic in lives, dollars, and instability.” Iran’s retaliation “could lead to hundreds, if not thousands, of casualties.” This was also Mr. Carlson’s line in June, and it was wrong.
After Mr. Trump ordered Operation Midnight Hammer, ending Iranian nuclear enrichment for the first time in 20 years, Mr. Caldwell wrote an op-ed against it. He has Barack Obama’s view. “While I believe that it is not in America’s interest for Iran to get a nuclear bomb, it is also fundamentally not in our interest for us to become embroiled in yet another major conflict,” Mr. Caldwell said.
The real danger is taking action. “While a nuclear-armed Iran is not ideal,” he wrote in July, “it does not pose an existential threat.”
Mr. Trump has argued otherwise for decades. Even in October 2024, when Joe Biden told Israel not to strike nuclear sites in retaliation for Iran’s missile barrage, Mr. Trump responded: “Isn’t that what you’re supposed to hit? It’s the biggest risk we have, nuclear weapons.”
Ms. Gabbard was cagey in a Wednesday hearing on the threat from Iran, preferring to hide behind Mr. Trump’s assessment, which most assume she doesn’t share. Ms. Gabbard has a history of ferocious opposition to Mr. Trump on Iran, and her hires suggest she hasn’t changed. She made Will Ruger, Mr. Caldwell’s ideological comrade, a deputy director. She tried and failed to hire their colleague Daniel Davis. And then there’s the departed Mr. Kent.
All are opponents of the President’s policy gathered around Ms. Gabbard’s intelligence shop. To add Mr. Caldwell in wartime is certainly brazen. Similar types can be found in the leaky Pentagon, where Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Middle East Mike DiMino has long played down the Iranian threat and opposed striking its nuclear program.
The Administration’s middle ranks include many ideological antagonists ushered in by former personnel director Sergio Gor. It isn’t clear what influence they or Ms. Gabbard have with the President, and on Iran it appears not too much. But it isn’t healthy at a time of war to have what essentially is a resistance movement inside the Administration.
Review & Outlook: Despite assertions from the media and political class, Israel didn’t manipulate the U.S. into a war with Iran. And officials including Marco Rubio and Pete Hegseth have tried to explain the Trump administration's intent and timing. Photo: Konstantin Toropin/AP/U.S. Dept. of Defense/Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
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