The Whitewashing of Joe Kent

In the past, Joe Kent’s ties to racist and antisemitic figures such as Greyson Arnold, who described Hitler as “a complicated historical figure which many people misunderstand” and referred to Nazis as a “pure race,” and the pipsqueak antisemite Nick Fuentes, made him a figure to be shunned. But now that Kent has blamed Israel for having supposedly tricked President Trump into joining Israel in a war against Iran, his unsavory past has been ignored, and so has the charge that in his present job he was a constant leaker of secrets. He has instead become, for many, a truth-telling hero. More on Kent’s transformation can be found here: “Extremist Yesterday, Authority Today: Media Whitewashes Joe Kent,” by Rachel O’Donoghue, Honest Reporting, March 17, 2026:

Within hours of publishing his resignation letter on X, Joe Kent, the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, had reached millions.

The media, predictably, was enthralled.

“‘Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation’: Trump-appointed intelligence official resigns over Iran war,” CNN blared.

Axios followed suit, presenting Kent’s claims with little skepticism: “‘No imminent threat’: U.S. Counterterrorism Center head resigns over Iran war.”

The Hill amplified another conspiratorial voice, headlining Tucker Carlson’s warning that “neocons” would now try to destroy Kent.

The New York Times published multiple pieces within hours, including one that packaged his resignation letter as a standalone piece.

Readers were invited to see Kent’s words as a serious, insider indictment of both the war against Iran and President Donald Trump’s administration itself.

After all, this was a man personally appointed by the president, working under Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.

The Daily Mail went further still, elevating Kent’s rhetoric about the “Israel lobby” in a headline that nodded to one of the oldest conspiratorial tropes in circulation.

The Associated Press soberly reported that Kent had resigned because “Iran posed no immediate threat.”

Across outlets, the framing was clear: Kent was to be taken seriously.

His claims – that the war was driven by Israel and its American “lobby,” that Trump had been “deceived,” and that Iran posed no imminent threat – were not meaningfully interrogated, but simply transmitted.

Even his more outlandish assertions were handled with care.

Kent claimed that his wife, Shannon, had died in a “war manufactured by Israel.”

In reality, Shannon Kent was killed in Syria in 2019 by an ISIS suicide bomber, a fact Kent himself stated plainly in a 2020 NBC op-ed. That article did not mention Israel once.

Apparently, it is only in retrospect that Kent has decided ISIS – an Islamist terrorist group that broadcast from the Syrian desert the executions of Western hostages – was somehow a product of Israel.

Yet even here, major outlets softened the reality.

NPR avoided stating how she was killed, noting only that she “died serving in Syria in 2019.”

The BBC similarly declined to mention ISIS, reporting merely that she “was killed in a bombing in Syria.”…

Joe Kent hasn’t changed. What he was criticized so ferociously for in the past — his ties to antisemites and racists — the media has now muted, and instead has treated him as an intrepid truth-teller, a whistleblower willing to risk his career and fall on his sword, by exposing how the Jewish state tricked Donald Trump into joining it in a war on Iran. According to Kent, the Islamic Republic never posed an “imminent” threat. His past has been whitewashed, and he has now been made into a hero by those members of the media who are consumed with anti-Israel animus and welcome any stick with which to beat the Jewish state. As for Kent, I would not be surprised if his next job will be with Al Jazeera’s Washington bureau.