ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel is a man who wears accusations of having Trump Derangement Syndrome as a badge of honor, but on Tuesday, Kimmel’s TDS led him to applaud Joe Kent’s resigning from the Trump administration over the Iran War. According to Kimmel, Kent is just some disillusioned MAGA follower, not a foreign policy radical who has flip-flopped on the very issue he resigned over.
Kimmel began, “One of Trump’s top intelligence officials caused him some tumult by resigning today in opposition to the war. Joe Kent, Trump’s director of the National Counterterrorism Center, wrote, “I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation.”
Jimmy Kimmel hypes flip-flopping Joe Kent’s resignation, “this is not some radical deep-state operative left over from the Biden administration. Kent was a big MAGA guy Trump appointed. You get the sense every one of these Republicans has their ass cheeks clenched tightly right… pic.twitter.com/fsYt3exrjm
— Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) March 18, 2026
Kent previously claimed he was a big supporter of wiping out Iran’s ballistic missile program, and now he’s resigning because Trump is doing precisely that.
Nevertheless, Kimmel also claimed, “And this is not some radical deep-state operative left over from the Biden administration. Kent was a big MAGA guy Trump appointed. You get the sense every one of these Republicans has their ass cheeks clenched tightly right now, hoping he puts an end to this war as soon as possible.
New media post from Donald J. Trump
(TS: 17 Mar 21:13 ET) pic.twitter.com/KcRO3YOvIB
— Commentary: Trump Truth Social Posts On X (@TrumpTruthOnX) March 18, 2026
In his letter, Kent also made the wild claim that he lost his first wife in a war “manufactured by Israel.” In reality, she was killed by ISIS in Syria. Israel did not manufacture the Syrian Civil War.
If Joe Kent took a job in the Trump administration knowing that his views were not aligned with the White House, then that is on him. The fact that he has fallen to conspiracy theorizing about his own wife’s death is an indictment of him, and the fact that Jimmy Kimmel and his band of writers roll him out as the voice of reason is an indictment of them.
Here is a transcript for the March 17 show:
ABC Jimmy Kimmel Live!
3/17/2026
11:41 PM ET
JIMMY KIMMEL: One of Trump’s top intelligence officials caused him some tumult by resigning today in opposition to the war. Joe Kent, Trump’s director of the National Counterterrorism Center, wrote, “I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation.” And this is not some radical deep-state operative left over from the Biden administration. Kent was a big MAGA guy Trump appointed. You get the sense every one of these Republicans has their ass cheeks clenched tightly right now, hoping he puts an end to this war as soon as possible.
