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<\/a><\/p>\nJoe Kent (l) sits for an interview with Tucker Carlson a day after resigning as director of President Trump’s National Counterterrorism Center, March 18, 2026. (Screenshot via YouTube)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Kent made the comments on a Wednesday evening appearance on Tucker Carlson\u2019s podcast, as the FBI launched an investigation into whether Kent shared classified material. He is also scheduled to appear Thursday evening at a \u201cCatholics for Catholics\u201d gala featuring podcaster Candace Owens, who has promulgated antisemitic conspiracy theories and praised Kent.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen one of President Trump\u2019s closest advisers, who is vocally advocating for us to not go to war with Iran and for us to rethink, at least, our relationship with the Israelis, and then he\u2019s suddenly publicly assassinated and we\u2019re not allowed to ask any questions about that, it\u2019s a data point,\u201d Kent told Carlson about the 2025 murder of the right-wing pundit. \u201cIt\u2019s a data point that we need to look into.\u201d<\/p>\n
He did not provide specifics to what he described as \u201cunanswered questions,\u201d beyond referencing texts between Kirk and pro-Israel donors that have already been made public. Yet Kent\u2019s comments, which also insinuated a potential link between Israel and the 2024 attempted assassination of Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, provided further grist for figures like Carlson and Owens. <\/p>\n
And they came on the heels of his accusations, in his resignation letter, that Israel had also \u201cmanufactured\u201d the war in Iraq and the Syrian civil war \u2014 claims he defended further in his Carlson interview. Kent\u2019s remarks have fueled further concern among American Jews across the aisle who fear that such comments will drive antisemitism. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe had already dug up a decent amount of leads,\u201d Kent told Carlson, saying it was his center\u2019s job to investigate \u201cforeign ties\u201d in cases like Kirk\u2019s murder, before higher authorities ordered him to stop. \u201cThere was more work for us to do on the potential of a foreign nexus.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kent\u2019s alignment with Carlson, who was close with Kirk and has used his podcast to promote various conspiracy theories about Israel and Jewish movements including Chabad, as well as with Owens, point to a growing divide within the Trump administration and its supporters over support for Israel and tolerance for antisemitism. That divide has been exacerbated by war with Iran.<\/p>\n
Semafor reported that the FBI\u2019s investigation of Kent, a former congressman with past ties to avowed antisemitic streamer Nick Fuentes, relates to alleged improper sharing of classified information, and that it predated his resignation.<\/p>\n
Vice President JD Vance, speaking in Michigan on Wednesday, offered guarded praise of Kent while saying he agreed with his resignation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know Joe Kent a little bit. I like Joe Kent,\u201d Vance said at a manufacturing facility in Auburn Hills. But, he added, \u201cWhen the president of the United States makes a decision, it\u2019s your job to help make that decision as effective and successful as possible\u2026 If you\u2019re on the team and you can\u2019t help implement the decisions of his administration, he has the right to make those decisions, then it\u2019s a good thing for you to resign.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vance, who has been criticized in the past for declining to forcefully condemn antisemitism on the right, did not address Kent\u2019s contentions that Israel manipulated Trump into war. The vice president took time from his address to praise Temple Israel, the nearby West Bloomfield synagogue whose security guards fended off a terrorist attack last week.<\/p>\n