The Trump White House is scrambling to contain fallout after Tuesday’s sudden, very public, and high-profile resignation of its top counterterrorism official — the first senior departure linked to the Iran war.

Joe Kent, who served as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, resigned in a letter to President Trump that he posted to social media.

“I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation,” wrote Kent, whose wife was killed by ISIS. “Until June of 2025, you understood that the wars in the Middle East were a trap that robbed America of the precious lives of our patriots and depleted the wealth and prosperity of our nation.”

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt quickly pushed back on Kent’s resignation, declaring that there are “many false claims” in his letter, including, she said, that “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation.”

Leavitt charged that this claim “is the same false claim that Democrats and some in the liberal media have been repeating over and over.”

READ MORE: ‘Clear All Along’: Backlash Grows as Trump Aide Shrugs Off Consumer Pain From Iran War

“As President Trump has clearly and explicitly stated, he had strong and compelling evidence that Iran was going to attack the United States first.”

Just five days ago, Leavitt reportedly “declared that Iran poses no threat to the United States,” as The Daily Beast reported.

“TO BE CLEAR: No such threat from Iran to our homeland exists, and it never did,” she wrote.

On Tuesday, multiple high-profile social media accounts mocked the Press Secretary over those very remarks.

According to a New York Times report two weeks ago, Trump’s “decision to order the attack on Iran, he said, was mostly a matter of gut instinct about Iranian intentions.”

“We were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was my opinion that they were going to attack first,” he said. “I think they were going to attack first, and I didn’t want that to happen.”

The Times added that Secretary of State Marco Rubio “had offered the opposite explanation the previous day, telling reporters that because Israel was going to act, Mr. Trump had no choice but to join what he called a ‘pre-emptive’ strike before Iran counterattacked U.S. bases and allies.”

But according to Leavitt on Tuesday, Trump’s decision to go to war against Iran was based on evidence that “was compiled from many sources and factors. President Trump would never make the decision to deploy military assets against a foreign adversary in a vacuum.”

Leavitt appeared to dismiss any other interpretations of what constitutes a threat to the nation.

READ MORE: ‘Sick, Demented, or Deranged’: Trump Issues Harshest Threat Yet Over Voter ID Bill

“The Commander-in-Chief determines what does and does not constitute a threat, because he is the one constitutionally empowered to do so – and because the American people went to the ballot box and entrusted him and him alone to make such final judgments,” she wrote.

Leavitt denounced what she called the “absurd allegation that President Trump made this decision based on the influence of others, even foreign countries,” calling it “both insulting and laughable,” despite what Secretary Rubio had said earlier.

She lashed out at Kent’s allegation that “it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby,” remarks that have been derided by both sides of the aisle.

Heath Mayo, founder of the pro-democracy center-right group Principles First, on social media on Tuesday warned his followers to not hold Kent up “as some paragon of principle.” He urged them to “recall this is the same man who flunked his congressional bid for his outspoken anti-Semitism, his ties to Nick Fuentes, and his insistence that the 2020 election was rigged.”

READ MORE: ‘He Was the Only One’: Trump Mocked for Declaring Iran’s Moves ‘Shocked’ Him

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A top Trump economic adviser is under fire after declaring that consumers hurt by an extended Iran war are the “last of our concerns right now.”

Despite some expert predictions of possible recession or even stagflation, Kevin Hassett, the Director of the National Economic Council (NEC), on Tuesday called the U.S. economy “very sound,” and insisted that the  Iran war “wouldn’t really disrupt the U.S. economy very much at all” if it were to continue for an extended period of time, MS NOW reported. The war is in its 18th day.

“It would hurt consumers, and we’d have to think about, if that continued, what we’d have to do about that, but that’s really the last of our concerns right now,” he said, claiming that the war is “ahead of schedule.”

Consumers are feeling the pain, especially at the pump.

As of Monday, five states were hovering near $4 a gallon and several others were seeing sharp increases. “The national average is up 80.0 cents from a month ago and is 66.1 cents per gallon higher than a year ago,” WANE reported on Monday, citing data from GasBuddy.

Critics rushed to denounce Hassett’s remarks.

“In any normal administration, a senior advisor to the President (basically) saying they don’t care that Americans are being harmed financially by something the President has done would resign before 5 pm today b/c the media outrage would be THAT extreme,” wrote one social media political commentator.

“This is what this Administration of billionaires for billionaires really thinks. The consumer is an inconvenience,” said Democratic congressional candidate Fred Wellman.

“It has been clear all along that consumers, aka the American public, are the least of this administration’s concerns,” observed Jared Ryan Sears, who writes at The Progressive Capitalist. “Fits right in with claiming that affordability is a hoax, as Americans are draining their 401ks and savings trying to stay afloat. Pretending the economy is good is a joke. Instead of creating jobs, the US has been losing jobs over the past 10 months, and GDP growth was just 0.7% last quarter. Trump has ruined the economy.”

The New Republic’s Greg Sargent called Hassett’s comment “an extremely serious political blunder” that “will end up in a lot of Dem ads.”

“If Republicans were trying to lose the midterms on purpose, they wouldn’t need to change a thing,” wrote podcaster Hemant Mehta.

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As the U.S. Senate prepares to take up President Donald Trump’s SAVE Act, which critics charge is a voter suppression bill, he has issued his harshest threat yet against any lawmaker who votes against it.

The SAVE Act would require documentary proof of citizenship, typically a passport or certified birth certificate, to register to vote. Voting rights groups say it would effectively disenfranchise millions of Americans who do not have the time or funds to obtain the necessary documents. It could make voting difficult for married people who changed their names but not their voter registration records. Some estimates say more than 140 million Americans do not have a valid passport and millions do not have access to a certified copy of their birth certificates.

Trump declared on Tuesday that anyone who votes against the bill is “sick, demented, or deranged.” He threatened that any “no” vote would be the end of any endorsement he might make on their behalf going forward.

If they vote no, “each one of these points, separately, will be used against the user in his/her political campaign for office – A guaranteed loss!”

READ MORE: ‘He Was the Only One’: Trump Mocked for Declaring Iran’s Moves ‘Shocked’ Him

Calling the bill “one of the most IMPORTANT & CONSEQUENTIAL pieces of legislation in the history of Congress, and America itself,” Trump wrote: “NO MORE RIGGED ELECTIONS! Voter I.D., Proof of Citizenship, No Rigged Mail-In Voting (We are the only Country in the World that allows this!), No Men in Women’s Sports, No Transgender MUTILIZATION of our Children. 90% to 99% ISSUES ALL!”

Numerous nations around the world allow mail-in voting. Courts have found no evidence that the 2020 presidential election, which Trump lost, was “rigged.”

Trump has repeatedly stated that if the SAVE Act is signed into law, Republicans will never lose another race in the next 50 years.

According to Politico, the SAVE Act “is likely doomed thanks to bipartisan opposition and the GOP conference’s desire to protect the filibuster.”

But a Trump Super PAC is sitting on a $300 million war chest, which could be deployed to primary Republicans who oppose the president’s top agenda item.

READ MORE: Kristi Noem at Center of Push for DOJ Perjury Probe: Report

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