Top Trump counterterror adviser resigns over Iran war: ‘No imminent threat’
Joe Kent, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, testifies during the House Homeland Security Committee hearing titled “Worldwide Threats to the Homeland,” in Cannon building on Wednesday, December 11, 2025. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The Trump administration’s top counterterrorism official Joe Kent announced his resignation Tuesday over opposition to the Iran war, becoming the highest-profile administration official to step down publicly over the conflict.
In a resignation letter posted publicly on social media, Kent said he could not “in good conscience” support the war, which is now in its third week.
“Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby,” Kent, who served as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, wrote in his resignation letter.
The National Counterterrorism Center is housed within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. ABC News has reached out to ODNI for comment.
ODNI says Kent oversaw the U.S. counterterrorism and counternarcotics enterprise and, according to his biography, he served as the principal counterterrorism adviser to the president.
ABC News has reached out to the White House for comment.
Kent is a combat veteran who served more than 20 years in the U.S. Army and completed 11 combat deployments in the Middle East.
Kent also invoked a deeply personal loss in explaining his decision to step down: he is a Gold Star husband whose late wife, Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer Shannon Kent, was killed in action during a suicide bombing while serving in Syria in 2019.
In his resignation letter, Kent wrote, “As a veteran who deployed to combat 11 times and as a Gold Star husband who lost my beloved wife Shannon in a war manufactured by Israel, I cannot support sending the next generation off to fight and die in a war that serves no benefit to the American people nor justifies the cost of American lives.”
Demolition of the East Wing of the White House, during construction on the new ballroom extension of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025. (Aaron Schwartz/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Senate Republicans are aiming to secure $1 billion in funding for security-related aspects of the White House ballroom project as part of a broader, roughly $70 billion funding package for immigration enforcement, which they aim to pass with little-to-no support from Democrats.
Republicans began unveiling aspects of their reconciliation package late Monday night. Included within the bill is a $1 billion allocation to the Secret Service for “the purposes of security adjustments and upgrades … relating to the East Wing Modernization Project, including above-ground and below-ground security features.”
The funding can only be used for security-related aspects of the project, according to the bill text.
The Trump administration has previously said it aims to raise $400 million in private donations to pay for the ballroom, and has said it will cost the taxpayer nothing.
President Donald Trump said in October that the ballroom would be “paid for 100% by me and some friends of mine,” referencing donors.
“The government is paying absolutely nothing,” Trump said.
Democratic lawmakers have introduced legislation that they have titled “The Stop Ballroom Bribery Act” to regulate the project and impose restrictions on donations.
A group of GOP senators led by Sen. Lindsey Graham introduced separate legislation that would provide $400 million in funding. The senators on that bill say their proposal is to offset the cost of the ballroom by using customs fees. Because it is not in a reconciliation bill, it will almost certainly fail to pass if it even gets a vote on the Senate floor.
Republican Sen. Rand Paul put forward a separate bill that would authorize the ballroom but not fund it. He attempted to pass that by unanimous consent last week and it failed.
This bill text comes as Republicans have increasingly called for the construction of the ballroom following the shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner last month. They say a secure facility is necessary for the president and Cabinet members to gather with large groups on the White House grounds.
The White House said Tuesday that “Congress has rightly recognized the need for these funds.”
“Due in part to the recent assassination attempt on President Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, the proposal would provide the United States Secret Service with the resources they need to fully and completely harden the White House complex, in addition to the many other critical missions for the USSS,” White House spokesman Davis Ingle said in a statement. “As President Trump has repeatedly said, the White House must be a safe and secure complex that generations of future presidents and visitors to the People’s house can enjoy.”
In a statement to ABC News on Tuesday, a spokesperson for Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley said the bill does “does not fund ballroom construction,” but “provides funds for Secret Service enhancements that will ensure all presidents, their families and their staffs are adequately protected.”
The ballroom has been the target of a lawsuit filed late last year by historic preservationists, with a federal judge finding it to be illegal without the approval of lawmakers.
In a filing in the case last month, the Trump administration said that the security enhancements to the East Wing project would include “missile resistant steel columns, Military-grade venting, drone-proof ceilings and bullet, ballistic, and blast proof glass,” all aimed at forming a “fortified structural buffer” to protect not only the ballroom, but also the main White House residence and the offices in the West Wing.
That April 27 Justice Department filing, which read in part like a social media post written in the president’s own voice, also said the upgrades would include “bomb shelters, a state of the art hospital and medical facilities, Top Secret military installations, structures, and equipment, protective partitioning, and other features.”
District Judge Richard Leon ruled in late March that building the ballroom without congressional authorization violated the law. While Leon carved out an exception for work that would be necessary to ensure the “safety and security of the White House,” he later clarified his decision to allow for “below-ground construction” on the project, as well as anything above ground that would be “strictly necessary” to secure and protect that work.
Leon’s injunction has been administratively stayed by a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, pending oral argument at a hearing set for next month. The appeals court’s order means that, for now, work on both the ballroom and the project’s security-related features can continue.
For weeks, Republicans have been working to put forward a funding package in response to political gridlock that left Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Border Patrol without their regular annual appropriations. Though these agencies received funding through the previously passed One Big Beautiful Bill, Republicans say more funding is needed, and they’re looking to secure $26 billion for U.S. Customs and Border Protection and $38 billion for ICE in this just-released bill.
Republicans are aiming to pass the funding using a budgeting tool called reconciliation, which, if successful, would allow Republicans to send this funding to Trump’s desk without the support of a single Democrat and without the possibility of a filibuster. But there are rules governing this process, and it’s not yet clear whether the Senate parliamentarian, who must determine whether items in a reconciliation package are “substantive to the budget,” will green light the ballroom security funding or other items in the bill.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Tuesday that Republicans are “on a different planet” than American families with their spending priorities.
“Republicans looked at families drowning in bills and decided what they really needed was more raids and a Trump ballroom,” Schumer wrote in a post on X Tuesday.
Kevin Warsh, former governor of the US Federal Reserve, walks to lunch during the Allen & Co. Media and Technology Conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, US, on Wednesday, July 9, 2025. The annual event has been a historic breeding ground for media deals and is usually a forum for tech and media elites to discuss the future of their industry. (Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump announced conservative policymaker and former Fed governor Kevin Warsh as his pick to be the new Federal Reserve chairman.
In a post on Truth Social early Friday morning, Trump said that he has “known Kevin for a long period of time, and have no doubt that he will go down as one of the GREAT Fed Chairmen, maybe the best.”
“He will never let you down,” Trump continued.
Warsh previously served on the Fed’s board of governors from 2006 to 2011. He was a top adviser to then-Fed chairman Ben Bernanke during the 2008 financial crisis, serving as a liaison between the central bank and Wall Street. During that time, he was an inflation “hawk” — skeptical of the Fed’s ultra-low interest rate policy. But in more recent interviews, Warsh has heaped praise on Trump and called for “regime change” at the Fed, while also supporting lower interest rates.
On Thursday, Trump said that he had “chosen a very good person” while walking the carpet at the Kennedy Center ahead of the premiere of the documentary about first lady Melania Trump.
Trump said his pick to replace current Chairman Jerome Powell is an “outstanding person and a person that won’t be too surprising to people.”
“A lot of people think that this is somebody that could have been there a few years ago,” Trump went on. “It’s going to be somebody that is very respected, somebody that’s known to everybody in the financial world. And I think it’s going to be a very good choice.”
Trump has repeatedly attacked Powell over the past year for his cautious approach to lowering interest rates.
Powell’s term as chairman expires in May.
Earlier this month, in an extraordinary escalation of the months-long attack on the independence of the Federal Reserve, Powell announced that federal prosecutors had launched a criminal investigation related to a multi-year renovation of the Fed’s headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Earlier this week, at its first meeting since news of the investigation surfaced, the Federal Reserve voted to hold interest rates steady.
Trump said that the Fed governors who voted earlier this week to pause interest rates will change their minds once there is a new chair.
“If they respect the Fed chairman, they’ll be with us all the way,” Trump said. “They want to see the country be great.”
Protesters gather in front of the The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts after President Donald Trump’s name was added to the facade on Dec.20, 2025 in Washington, DC. Photo by Maxine Wallace/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge in Washington, D.C., ruled Saturday mostly in favor of Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, in her effort to obtain more details about the planned closure and renovation of the Kennedy Center, which is set for a board vote at the White House on Monday.
Judge Christopher Cooper also ruled that as a trustee, Beatty must be afforded a “meaningful opportunity to provide input” and not be “categorically barred” from speaking at the meeting, which President Donald Trump is set to chair.
But Cooper stopped short of requiring at this stage that Beatty be permitted to cast a vote as a trustee, saying that is a “trickier question” with no clearcut answers.
“As the foregoing facts suggest, a project of this salience and magnitude—which threatens to involve at least some demolition and reconstruction of a major national memorial and active performing arts theater—does not happen overnight,” Cooper said in his ruling.
The judge directed the government to provide Beatty with materials on the project ahead of the Monday meeting.
“The government’s assertion, both in its briefing and at the hearing, that such information is ‘preliminary’ and not yet sufficiently ‘finalized’ to share with the full slate of decisionmakers—just four days before the Board is set to vote on a complete, two-year closure of the Center they are statutorily charged with overseeing—borders on preposterous,” Cooper said.
Beatty’s pending lawsuit challenges the renaming of the Kennedy Center to the Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, as well as the pending closure and renovations. Cooper said the court will address those issues at a later date.
“No president has the authority to shut Congress out of the governance of the Kennedy Center, much less unilaterally rename or demolish it,” Beatty said in a statement Saturday. “We will not stand by while an important part of our national heritage is jeopardized, and I intend to make that clear at next week’s board meeting.”
The White House didn’t immediately have a comment about the ruling.
Asked for comment on the lawsuit previously, White House spokesperson Liz Huston told ABC News in a statement that the Kennedy Center’s board voted to rename it after Trump “stepped up and saved the old Kennedy Center.”
As for whether a sitting member of the House who serves on the Kennedy Center board as a function of her office can vote, Judge Cooper said that the legal argument in Beatty’s favor is strong, but how the board has operated in practice in that respect is not clear.
Some veterans of the Kennedy Center recalled ex-officio members of the board voting, while others say they never observed that.
The board approved a bylaws change last May to delineate presidentially-appointed general trustees from “nonvoting” ex-officio members.
“Though the Court thinks that Beatty has the better statutory argument as to both participation and the right to vote, her battle for emergency relief on these fronts is not yet won,” Cooper ruled.
