Tucker Carlson Defends Joe Kent's Resignation Over Israel's Role in Pushing America Into War
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Tucker Carlson Defends Joe Kent's Resignation Over Israel's Role in Pushing America Into War
Tucker Carlson examines the resignation of Joe Kent, former director of the National Counterterrorism Center, who left his position after claiming Israel pressured the United States into military action against Iran. Carlson argues that Kent, a veteran of 11 combat deployments in the war on terror, has earned the right to speak honestly about American foreign policy. Rather than engage with Kent's substantive claims about how the U.S. entered this conflict, critics have resorted to personal attacks and demands for silence. Carlson frames Kent's resignation as a pivotal moment that demands truthful conversation about who drives American foreign policy decisions and whether those decisions serve the interests of American citizens.
March 20, 2026
The Question That Demands an Answer
How did Donald Trump, after 10 years of saying one thing, do in the pivotal act of his presidency exactly the opposite? That's not just an academic question. It's not the beginning of a conspiracy theory about some shadowy lobby. It's the most important question we face because this is not the first time the United States has entered into this kind of war against the wishes of its own population and in clear contravention of its own interests.
This isn't good for us. No one has made the case that it's good for us. And increasingly as the days pass, it becomes obvious to everyone why it's not good for us. If you don't believe that, then check the prices of food and fuel and everything you buy because everything you buy is dependent on the price of energy and the production of fertilizer, both of which are affected almost immediately by the closure of the Straits of Hormuz.
The Resistance to Truth
So, we did this. Again, it's not exactly clear how or why we did this, but we need to find out and there is great resistance to finding out. You've noticed that in the last 36 hours since Joe Kent resigned as director of the National Counterterrorism Center, one of our top intel officials, the attacks on him have prevented an honest conversation about what he's actually saying.
And what he's saying is, and he says it clearly, Israel got us into this war. Its lobby in the United States pressured the president and its prime minister in Israel told the president: we're going without you, join us because if you don't, your troops in the region, your interests in the region, your citizens in the region will all be at risk. You have no choice. They led the way. That's Joe Kent's position.
Rather than push back against that and say no, actually he's wrong, they're telling you to shut up. And why are they doing that? Well, there's only one reason people ever become hysterical and slanderous, start screaming at you rather than answering you. It's because they're lying.
The Cost of Lies
And the truth is, this is not the first time you've watched people in charge lie. This has been going on a long time. And lies give way to a whole bunch of bad things. More lies. Once you tell a lie, you bolster it with further lying. Hysteria, the fear of being caught lying, the rage and slander. If the person catches me lying, he wins in the zero sum game of lying. I die. You go on the attack to cover your lies. And bad judgment. You can't make wise decisions on the basis of lies because they're not true. They're not based in reality. That didn't actually happen or in this case it did happen, but you're pretending it didn't.
So a country based on lies, like a family based on lies, like an individual life based on lies, cannot succeed. In fact it's hellish as all of us have experienced in our lying. And so the only way out of this is to stop lying, is to tell the truth now, probably 63 years after we should have started telling the truth.
But it's never too late to tell the truth now about everything because it's never as painful as you think it will be. It's actually an act of liberation. In fact, it's the only real act of liberation. Telling the truth sets you free because the truth itself sets you free. That is always and everywhere a fact. And the longer you delay doing that, the more horrible the consequences of your lies.
Who Is Joe Kent?
Joe Kent's resume hardly needs explanation because everyone is aware this is a man who deployed on 11 combat missions to the global war on terror. This is sort of the perfect representation of the GWAT generation. This is one of those guys we often celebrate but too rarely hear from, who we sent out to fight the so-called war on terror that began on 9/11. And it's an entire generation of men who look and sound for the most part very much like Joe Kent.
So the implication that he doesn't care about security or he's soft on Iran is absurd. Joe Kent spent well the majority of his 20s and 30s fighting Iranian proxies and watching his friends get killed by them. So this is someone who actually earned the right to speak about Iran and the war on terror. And of course he was the director of the National Counterterrorism Center. So he's thought a lot about terrorism in this country and the blowback from events like this.
A Man of Dignity
But the other thing to notice about Joe Kent, and it may be his defining factor, is that he doesn't slander anyone. His resignation letter was not an attack on Donald Trump. It wasn't a promise to write a tell-all memoir about what he saw on the inside or to aggrandize himself or to get a job on a TV show or sell something.
What are his plans? None. He did this purely because he believes this is the only way to save the United States from certain disaster. Tell the truth. Air the secrets. Be honest for once in decades about what is actually happening. Things that everybody who lives here suspects are happening. In some cases, we're probably wrong. We've come to the wrong conclusions. That's okay. Tell us what actually happened. Tell us why you did this.
Reorienting Around American Interests
And let's reorient this country where it should be, which is around its own citizens. Make the decisions that you make based on one criterion: Is this good for my people or not? In the way that a father would lead his family or an officer would lead his troops. It's not complicated. Everybody wants that. That's not a partisan question. That's a human question. And that's the question Joe Kent is posing. Why can't we do this? Why can't we say this?
Not attacking anybody. Joe Kent himself does not attack anybody. But this is a last-ditch attempt not simply to save the country from disaster in Iran, but to save the country period.
A Referendum on America
As you listen to him speak, ask yourself: is this a man who's working for Hezbollah or is an egomaniac or a leaker? Or is this a man who says very little when he has nothing to say? Who speaks straightforwardly and with honesty, self-evident honesty? Is this a man of dignity and decency? Is this a man that America once had a lot of? Is this a man who was once in effect the American archetype, the guy you looked up to, the guy you wanted your son to be?
Whether you agree with him or not, maybe you're reaching completely different conclusions. But as you listen to him speak, ask yourself: is this the kind of person who makes me proud to be a fellow American? Because it's really a referendum on us. If we can't see that Joe Kent, whatever you think of his opinions, is the kind of man this country should be producing and should be elevating and should be proud of, if we can't see that, then we've failed the test and we've lost.
