The Trump administration was rocked on Tuesday morning by the sudden resignation of National Counterrorism Center Director Joe Kent, who wrote that he “Could not, in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran,” because, “It is clear we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.”
Joe Kent may as well be a propagandist for the Mullah Regime. That someone with counterterrorism responsibilities could do this in the middle of major combat operations and during the DHS shutdown bespeaks “classic narcissistic injury masquerading as virtue,” as LHGrey™ said, blackmail or – who knows – MKULTRA?
On Wednesday evening, it was announced that Joe Kent is being investigated by the FBI over allegations that he leaked classified information and that this investigation preceded his resignation.
Tommy’s Podcast was joined on Tuesday afternoon by three retired Air Force commanders and an ex-Green Beret to discuss the shock announcement. Despite their disagreement with the opinions Kent expressed in his resignation letter, the panel members conveyed only reverence for Kent, who’s been well-respected in the veterans community for many years.
VIDEO: Excerpt from Tommy’s Podcast Episode #1,997
As we previously heard from former intelligence contractor, Tore Maras, the Iran operation was originally scheduled for after the Midterm elections but it was unexpectedly moved up. EM Burlingame says here that by initiating the Iran operation now, the administration was clearly operating under duress, which is to say under the kind of mortal threat that would cause them to act against their own best interests during an election year.
He says:
“The only reason this [the current bombing campaign] is happening is because there’s a credible threat to the United States, mounted, most likely, by members of our own f@cking intelligence community, you know – and the five assets and the Devil’s Legions. And it’s either, ‘You’re going to f@cking attack Iran for us and get this all started or we’re going to f@cking nuke Philadelphia!’”
This is akin to what my friend, the ex-Marine SPECOPS Captain told me two weeks ago, that 5-50 million Americans might be dead right now and the whole Northern Hemisphere might be uninhabitable, because the Iranians were getting ready to arm an ICBM with a nuclear weapon – except that Burlingame thinks the perpetator might be closer to home.
Welcome to 5th Generation Warfare, where the NCTC may as well be the IRGC.
DNI Tulsi Gabbard asserted on Wednesday during her 2026 Annual Threat Assessment Briefing that Russia, China, North Korea, Iran and Pakistan are building nuclear missiles capable of striking US territory.
Podcast host, Tommy Kerrigan noted that on March 2nd, Secretary of State Marco Rubio had said that the US had launched preemptive strikes on Iran because an imminent Israeli attack would trigger Iranian retaliation against America.
Also, retired CIA officer, John Kiriakou told podcaster, Julian Dorey three months ago that the reason for Trump’s bombing campaign in Iran last summer was because the Israelis had threatened to nuke those enrichment facilities, themselves. So there’s a pervasive narrative thread about Israeli nuclear blackmail in this story, despite Trump administration denials.
Tommy’s Podcast was recorded on Tuesday afternoon, prior to President Trump re-posting an old tweet from Joe Kent in 2020 following the assassination of Qasem Soleimani, saying that the US should not sit and wait for the next attack; that Iran’s ballistic capability should be wiped out and that the lack of any US soldiers wounded or killed during the Soleimani operation was not due to any constraint on the part of the Iranians but rather a tribute to the professionalism of the US military.
IMAGE: TRUTHSocial post by President Trump on March 17, 2026 at 9:13PM
In addition, a clip from Joe Kent’s August 2024 appearance on The Shawn Ryan Show began to circulate on Tuesday night, in which he said, “Our troops in Iraq and Syria have been attacked 150-plus times by Iranian proxies.” So, Joe Kent’s position on the Iranian threat appears to have shifted dramatically since his appointment.
Another Air Force colonel, Rob Maness was less deferential to Kent than his colleagues on Tommy’s Podcast, despite his having personally raised money for him for his two political campaigns, telling Breanna Morello from InfoWars on Wednesday:
“What he is saying in the letter is the exact opposite of what he has said for years. And look, I’m not gonna character-assassinate him. The man’s a Gold Star husband. He’s got 11 combat tours, himself. He served this country but I am gonna question his judgment.
“And I am as shocked as you are, when I saw this letter drop. There’s a way to do this stuff, especially when you’re in a circumstance where the United States is conducting an industrial-scale war against the country that you’re mentioning in your resignation letter, and this was not it. So I supported Joe in his nomination for the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, but I am questioning all of that, at this point.
“Look, we’ve had four Islamic terrorist attacks, and one of them directly linked to Hezbollah, the one against the kids’ school in Michigan, the attempt where the terrorist was fortunately killed by private security guards before he could blow his vehicle up and kill a bunch of kids with his AR.
“So this is a problem that goes far beyond just Joe Kent. He’s given our enemies a tool and a set of tools to use against us in the propaganda part of the war, and he’s now enabled the left and the media in the left to question the judgment of initiating the combat operation altogether because of what he said in that letter. Very, very poor judgment.
“I’m shocked, surprised, saddened, but most of all, I’m very concerned about the lack of leadership at the National Counterterrorism Center and his view on whether Iran is an imminent threat is direct bearing on these attacks that we’ve now seen. What is going on there, and are they doing their job to protect the American people? That should be the number one concern of the director of that facility.”
The Gateway Pundit reported on Tuesday that Joe Kent was a leaker who had been cut from President’s intelligence briefings for months.
Former White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications, Taylor Budowich definitely didn’t hold back, when he tweeted that:
“Joe Kent is a crazed egomaniac who was often at the center of national security leaks, while rarely (never?) producing any actual work. He spent all of his time working to subvert the chain of command and undermine the President of the United States. This isn’t some principled resignation – he just wanted to make a splash before getting canned. What a loser.”
