House Speaker Mike Johnson Blasts Joe Kent Over Iran War Resignation | WATCH
Following Joe Kent's public resignation and claims of Israeli "pressure," Speaker Mike Johnson defends the administration’s decision to strike Iran. Johnson claims the move prevented "mass casualties" and was backed by the Joint Chiefs.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson sharply criticized National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent after Kent resigned in protest over the U.S. war with Iran.Kent announced his resignation earlier today, becoming the first senior official in the Trump administration to step down publicly over the conflict. In his statement, Kent said he could not support the war because “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation” and claimed it was started due to pressure from Israel and its American lobby.
In a video response posted on X today, Speaker Johnson pushed back directly:
“I don’t know where Joe Kent is getting this information, but he wasn’t in those briefings, clearly! Had the president waited, we would have had mass casualties.That proposition at the end is clearly wrong. I’m on the Gang of 8. I got all the briefings. We all understood there was clearly an imminent threat — that Iran was very close to the enrichment of nuclear capability and they were building missiles at a pace that no one in the region could keep up with.
They were far outpacing our allies and friends and us in our defense capability because we had personnel installations, members of the armed services, and civilians in the region.Iran was building up ballistic missiles at such a rapid pace and we knew that their plan was to fire them upon Americans.The Commander-in-Chief and his administration had a very difficult decision to make.
The Secretary of State, the Secretary of War, and everyone, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Kane, they had exquisite intelligence and we understood that this was a serious moment for us.We had to — the President felt that he had to strike first to prevent those mass casualties.”
Johnson emphasized that he received classified Gang of Eight briefings and that the administration acted on intelligence showing an imminent threat.
No immediate response from Kent or the White House to Johnson’s comments.