The former director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Joe Kent, announced his resignation publicly on Tuesday, March 17th, by posting a letter on X addressed to President Donald Trump. In this letter, Kent criticized the war between Iran and the joint operation between the United States and Israel, writing “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.”
The resignation quickly triggered a wave of reaction online. Some people framed his resignation as principled, calling it a move by an “American hero” and spurring on theories of an “occupied US government”. Others pointed to his prior warnings about an Iranian threat and questioned the timing and rationale behind his departure, with some arguing that his framing reflects a broader pattern in which support for Israel is recast as illegitimate or malignant.
Kent’s resignation, and the explanation he offered for it, quickly became a trigger for antisemitic rhetoric online. By attributing the war to Israeli pressure, his comments were taken up in posts claiming that Jews manipulate U.S. politics or operate behind the scenes with mentions of these themes rising 18% since the start of the week.
Conspiracies that frame Jews as controlling US policy aren’t new, having seen a spike earlier this month following the start of the war with Iran. This antisemitic rhetoric is fanned even further due to a recently announced FBI investigation into Joe Kent over alleged leaks of classified information. Some online users claim is proof of the “Jewish controlled government” trying to silence him for speaking out. Sources familiar with the case say the investigation pre-dates his resignation.
Following Joe Kent’s resignation, former FOX News host Tucker Carlson hosted an exclusive interview with the former director, amplifying many of the themes that had already begun circulating online. In recent months, Carlson has been taking a strong anti-Israel stance on his platform and constantly hosting personalities who have espoused antisemitic rhetoric, most notable his interview of alt-right commentator Nick Fuentes in October 2025.
In the interview, Kent argued that U.S. involvement in the war was driven in part by pressure from Israeli leadership and pro-Israel lobbying groups, a framing that mirrors and reinforces narratives portraying U.S. policy as externally controlled. Those claims align with longstanding antisemitic tropes that depict Jews as exerting hidden influence over government decision-making.
Our data showed that outside of his initial resignation, the most amount of exposure for Kent came from this interview on Tucker Carlson’s show, which also shows the amount of exposure his claims will have gotten as well.
Mentions of “Joe Kent” in conversations about Antisemitism, Jewish Culture, and Israel since the start of this week
The interview also introduced additional conspiracy claims. Kent suggested that Israel played a part in both the assassination of political commentator Charlie Kirk in September 2025 and the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in 2024. Kent said that Kirk was beginning to voice opinions critical of Israel, and the FBI was barred from investigating foreign entities following his assassination, which according to Kent is “a data point.”
The reaction to Kent’s resignation highlights a broader dynamic in how information is adopted in today’s environment: moments of political disruption are rapidly co-opted to validate pre-existing beliefs. Narratives of foreign involvement in US politics, perpetrated by individuals such as Tucker Carlson, are ideas that are easy to latch on to, and are open-ended enough that can fit into any space it needs to spread that agenda. As these narratives move from the margins to more mainstream channels, the line between valid political critique and conspiratorial framing continues to erode.
