Karoline Leavitt issued a point-by-point rebuttal to Joe Kent’s resignation letter.
The White House issued a statement reacting to Joe Kent’s resignation from the post of the director of the National Counterterrorism Center over Iran war and called it laughable and Kent said Iran posed no imminent threat to the US. Kent, a top aide to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who herself is anti-war, said he was resigning effective immediately and asked President Donald Trump to reverse course. “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 war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby,” Kent wrote.Kent shared a letter addressed to Trump stating that while he supports “the values and the foreign policies that you campaigned on in 2016, 2020” and 2024, he disagreed with the president’s decision to launch the Iran operation.“I pray that you will reflect upon what we are doing in Iran, and who we are doing it for. The time for bold action is now. You can reverse course and chart a new path for our nation, or you can allow us to slip further toward decline and chaos. You hold the cards,” he wrote.White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said there are many false claims in the letter and one of them is that Iran did not pose any imminent threat.
Full statement of Karoline Leavitt on Joe Kent’s resignation
There are many false claims in this letter but let me address one specifically: that “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation.” This is the same false claim that Democrats and some in the liberal media have been repeating over and over. As President Trump has clearly and explicitly stated, he had strong and compelling evidence that Iran was going to attack the United States first. This evidence was compiled from many sources and factors. President Trump would never make the decision to deploy military assets against a foreign adversary in a vacuum.Iran is the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. The Iranian regime is evil. It proudly killed Americans, waged war against our country, and openly threatened us all the way up to the launch of Operation Epic Fury.Iran was aggressively expanding their short-range ballistic missiles to combine with their naval assets to give themselves immunity – meaning they would have a degree of a capabilities that would give them immunity to hold us and the rest of the world hostage.The regime aimed to use those ballistic missiles as a shield to continue achieving their ultimate goal – nuclear weapons.The President, through his top negotiators, gave the regime every single possible opportunity to abandon this unacceptable course by permanently giving up their nuclear ambitions in exchange for sanctions relief, free nuclear fuel, and potential economic partnerships with our country.But they would not say yes to peace because obtaining nuclear weapons was their fundamental goal.President Trump ultimately made the determination that a joint attack with Israel would greatly reduce the risk to American lives that would come from a first strike by the terrorist Iranian regime and address this imminent threat to America’s national security interests.All of this led to President Trump arriving at the determination that this military operation was necessary for U.S. national security, which is why he launched the massively successful Operation Epic Fury.The Commander-in-Chief determines what does and does not constitute a threat, because he is the one constitutionally empowered to do so – and because the American people went to the ballot box and entrusted him and him alone to make such final judgments. And finally, the absurd allegation that President Trump made this decision based on the influence of others, even foreign countries, is both insulting and laughable. President Trump has been remarkably consistent and has said for DECADES that Iran can NEVER possess a nuclear weapon. As someone who actually witnesses President Trump’s decision-making process on a daily basis, I can attest to the fact that he is always looking to do what’s in the best interest of the United States of America — period.
