President Donald Trump escalated a public feud with his former counterterrorism chief on Monday, utilizing personal grievances and mocking the official’s remarriage following the death of his first wife in combat.
The verbal assault targets Joe Kent, the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), who resigned in protest last week. Kent, a former Army and CIA officer, broke with the administration over the escalating war with Iran, which began on Feb. 28 and has already resulted in thousands of casualties, including at least 13 U.S. service members.
Speaking to reporters on March 23, President Trump dismissed Kent’s policy concerns, suggesting the veteran was only hired out of “pity” following two failed congressional bids in Washington’s 3rd district.
“His wife was killed—he remarried fairly quickly,” Trump said, referring to the 2019 death of Senior Chief Petty Officer Shannon Kent in a Syrian suicide bombing. “I felt badly for him… I said, ‘You know, it’s a shame he ran for Congress twice, call him up, give him a job in the White House.’ This is the thanks I get.”
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(999x450:1001x452):format(webp)/joe-kent-wives-031826-bdc34604f24545daa163689f6188af74.jpg)
Trump mentioned Kent’s late wife five times during the three-minute exchange, repeatedly highlighting Kent’s decision to marry Heather Kaiser Kent in 2023—more than four years after his first wife’s death.
The personal vitriol follows a scathing resignation letter from Kent, who argued that Iran “posed no imminent threat to our nation.” Kent, once a staunch Trump ally, accused the administration of succumbing to pressure from Israel to launch the current conflict.
“As a Gold Star husband who lost my beloved wife Shannon in a war manufactured by Israel, I cannot support sending the next generation off to fight and die in a war that serves no benefit to the American people,” Kent wrote.
Kent’s tenure was marked by controversy, including documented ties to white nationalist figures during his 2022 and 2024 campaigns against Democratic Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez. However, his appointment to the NCTC in early 2025 was initially seen as a reward for his loyalty to the “America First” platform.
The President’s critique of Kent’s marital timeline comes despite his own complex history. Trump has been married three times and was convicted in May 2024 on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal hush money payments to an adult film actress.
As the war in the Middle East intensifies, the fallout between the President and his former intelligence lead signals a widening fracture within the administration’s national security apparatus regarding the justification for the Iran offensive.
