Vice President JD Vance met with top Tulsi Gabbard aide Joe Kent the day before the intelligence official dramatically resigned in protest of President Donald Trump’s war in Iran.
Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, became the first senior official to openly break with Trump on the war on Tuesday when he publicly announced his resignation from his post with a bombshell letter, writing, “I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran.”
Hours beforehand, however, Kent met with Vance and Gabbard, two fellow anti-interventionists navigating the war’s political minefield, The Washington Post reports, citing sources.
During the Monday meeting at the White House, Kent, 45, presented his resignation letter to Vance, 41, according to the Post.
Vance apparently thought it wise for Kent to first check in with Trump and the president’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles.
“The VP encouraged him to speak to White House chief of staff and POTUS before making any final decisions,” a White House official told the Post. “The VP encouraged him to be respectful to POTUS.”
It’s unclear whether Kent acted on the vice president’s advice. The Daily Beast has reached out to Vance’s office and Gabbard’s office for comment. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence and Kent did not respond to the Post’s requests for comment.
A spokesperson for Vance told the Washington Post that the vice president “believes that it’s imperative for the national security team to remain cohesive, trust one another, and avoid mouthing off to the media about internal deliberations.”
Trump did not have particularly kind parting words when asked about Kent’s resignation on Tuesday, saying, “I always thought he was a nice guy, but I always thought he was weak on security, very weak on security.”
The commander-in-chief added, “It’s a good thing he’s out, because he said that Iran was not a threat.”
Kent had claimed in his letter that “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.”
The Republican and Army combat veteran, who lost his wife, Shannon, in 2019 when she was killed in a suicide bombing while serving in Manbij, Syria, blasted Trump’s shift on foreign policy and said he had been targeted by a misinformation campaign to launch the war in Iran.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt rushed to dismiss Kent’s claims in a lengthy post on X, while Gabbard, 44, issued her own statement saying Trump had concluded that Iran posed an imminent threat after “carefully reviewing” intelligence her office had provided—stopping short of making that claim herself.
Vance and Gabbard—both of whom are Iraq War veterans—have been uncharacteristically silent since Trump made the decision to attack Iran more than two weeks ago.
The vice president, whose political reputation was built on his opposition to foreign intervention, has expressed private doubts about the president’s war, according to reports, even as he seeks to show public solidarity with Trump.
“The Iranian regime’s nuclear ambitions unquestionably endangered the U.S. and President Trump’s leadership is making our country stronger and safer,” a Vance spokesman told the Post on Tuesday.
