Fox News cut away from President Donald Trump’s comments on Monday as he continued discussing former National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent and Kent’s late wife.
This happened during a conversation about Kent’s break with the administration over the Iran war. Raw Story reported that the network stopped its live coverage when Trump shifted from criticizing Kent’s national security views to talking about his personal life.
Trump made the remarks during a press gaggle after a reporter asked him about Kent, who resigned last week and later criticized the administration’s argument for military action against Iran. The President stated that he no longer supported Kent and accused him of seeking attention. He then shared details about Kent’s life following the 2019 death of his first wife, Shannon Kent, a Navy cryptologist killed in Syria.
“I’m not a fan of the guy,” Trump told reporters, according to Mediaite’s transcript. “He was all for everything. All of a sudden, he wasn’t.” Trump added, “His wife was killed. He remarried fairly quickly. His wife was killed and I felt badly for him.”
Trump on Joe Kent: “I’m not a fan of the guy … His wife was killed. He remarried fairly quickly.” pic.twitter.com/oim0YIbpjV
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 23, 2026
The President described Joe Kent as a failed congressional candidate whom he believed he had helped by bringing him into the administration. “I felt badly for him, so I told my people, ‘Reach out to him, give him a job at the White House.’ This is the thanks I get,” Trump said, according to the same report.
Kent resigned on March 17, stating that he could not support what he called an unnecessary war with Iran. In his resignation letter, he wrote that Iran “posed no imminent threat to our nation” and said the United States entered the conflict due to pressure from Israel and its allies. This put him at odds with Trump, who has claimed Iran posed a real and immediate danger.
Fox News had already reported on Trump’s split with Kent last week. In coverage published on March 17, the network quoted the president calling Kent “very weak on security” and stating, “It’s a good thing that he’s out.” Fox also later reported that Kent was under FBI investigation for alleged classified leaks, though Kent’s resignation publicly focused on his objections to the Iran war.
Step 1 in deescalation must be restraining the Israelis, otherwise all efforts to negotiate will follow this pattern:
POTUS publicly announces deescalation.
Israel takes major strikes to destroy the negotiations & in turn weaken our ability to negotiate.
The war accelerates. https://t.co/hbX4VRu3dV pic.twitter.com/zwBTHlgYRZ
— Joe Kent (@joekent16jan19) March 23, 2026
The personal turn in Trump’s remarks on Monday gained attention because Kent’s first wife, Shannon Smith Kent, was killed in January 2019 in a suicide bombing in Manbij, Syria. AP reported that her death became a significant part of Kent’s public life and influenced his later criticism of U.S. military intervention abroad. People also reported that Kent remarried in 2023 after meeting Heather Kaiser about four years after Shannon Kent’s death.
Kent, a former Green Beret and CIA paramilitary officer, had been one of Trump’s more loyal supporters in national security circles before the fallout over Iran. AP reported that he backed the president throughout the 2020 election aftermath and the events of January 6, but he broke with him over the current war.
This made Trump’s latest remarks part of a growing public split between the President and a former ally who had once been one of his most reliable defenders.
