Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has disputed former National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent’s take on Iran.

Kent resigned from his post on Tuesday via a letter in which he wrote that he could not “in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran” and in which he suggested that the Trump administration had lied by portraying Iran as an “imminent” threat:

After much reflection, I have decided to resign from my position as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, effective today.

I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this… pic.twitter.com/prtu86DpEr

— Joe Kent (@joekent16jan19) March 17, 2026

“I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran,” he 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.”

Gabbard, his former superior, fired back later Tuesday evening in a lengthy tweet of her own in which she insisted that Iran had indeed “posed an imminent threat,” ergo why the president attacked first.

“Donald Trump was overwhelmingly elected by the American people to be our President and Commander in Chief,” she wrote. “As our Commander in Chief, he is responsible for determining what is and is not an imminent threat, and whether or not to take action he deems necessary to protect the safety and security of our troops, the American people and our country.”

“The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is responsible for helping coordinate and integrate all intelligence to provide the President and Commander in Chief with the best information available to inform his decisions. After carefully reviewing all the information before him, President Trump concluded that the terrorist Islamist regime in Iran posed an imminent threat and he took action based on that conclusion,” she added.

Donald Trump was overwhelmingly elected by the American people to be our President and Commander in Chief. As our Commander in Chief, he is responsible for determining what is and is not an imminent threat, and whether or not to take action he deems necessary to protect the…

— DNI Tulsi Gabbard (@DNIGabbard) March 17, 2026

Some suspected Gabbard posted this screed to protect her own hide from President Donald Trump’s wrath.

After Kent’s resignation, Fox News reporter Aishah Hasnie said that a senior Trump administration told her that the White House had previously pushed Gabbard to fire Kent, only for her to ignore them.

However, citing intelligence officials, Mary Margaret Olohan of The Daily Wire later obtained her own confirmation that the White House had never asked Gabbard to fire Kent, and that Gabbard would have fired him immediately if asked.

NEW: Intelligence official tells @realDailyWire that it’s true that Joe Kent wasn’t part of the planning of the Iran war or briefings on the war.

It is not true that DNI’s Tulsi Gabbard was asked by the White House to fire Kent, source says— if she had been asked to do so, she…

— Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) March 17, 2026

Gabbard is also haunted by her past views on warring with Iran.

“Trump promised to get the U.S. out of ‘stupid wars,'” she tweeted in 2019, during Trump’s first administration. “But now he and [then-national security adviser] John Bolton are on the brink of launching us into a very stupid and costly war with Iran. Join me in sending a strong message to President Trump: The U.S. must NOT go to war with Iran.”

There’s also a Fox News interview Gabbard participated in six years ago, in January of 2020, in which she rebuked the president for eliminating the Iranian menace Qasem Soleimani.

“Speeding towards an all-out war with Iran would make the wars that we’ve seen in Iraq and Afghanistan look like a picnic,” she said at the time. “It will be far more costly in American lives and American taxpayer dollars, and all towards accomplishing what goal? What objective?”

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Vivek Saxena

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V. Saxena is a staff writer with a decade of experience as a professional writer, and a lifetime of experience as an avid news junkie. He holds a degree in computer technology from Purdue University. Saxena also contributes to BizPac Review.

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