Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) bashed former National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent’s abrupt resignation, made in protest of President Donald Trump’s war with Iran.
“To my friend Joe Kent, who’s a decorated war veteran who lost his wife in Syria, what are you doing? You’re giving aid and comfort to a lie. There was an imminent threat,” the senator said Tuesday on Fox News.
Graham’s comments referenced Kent’s first wife, a Navy cryptologic technician who was killed in 2019 during a suicide bombing in Syria.
Trump called the ex-counterterrorism director “weak” earlier this week for opposing the war, which Kent — a conspiracy theorist with longstanding ties to far-right extremist groups — stated was started “due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.”
Graham, who has become one of Trump’s most outspoken supporters, tried to justify the military operations, telling viewers Tuesday that the country and its slain Ayatollah Ali Khamenei were an imminent threat to the United States.
“The liberals literally do want Trump to fail. They fear him more than they fear the ayatollah with a nuclear weapon,” Graham said. “This is a sick time in which we live. We have to push through this. Mr. President, finish the job.”
He went on to compare the ayatollah to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler twice, once stating that “if you believed Hitler would have killed all the Jews, you were right. If you believed he would not, you were wrong. If you believe the ayatollah would use a nuclear weapon if he had it, you’re right.”
He said a few moments later, “If they had weapons-grade material, they would turn it into a bomb, and if they had a bomb, they would use it because they’re religious Nazis. Those who got Hitler wrong, you’re doing the same thing in 2026. Your head-in-the-sand approach to who the ayatollah is and who this regime is could kill millions of people.”
