Joe Kent, now under investigation, insinuates to Tucker Carlson that Israel might have killed Charlie Kirk to stoke Iran war

Joe Kent, then-director of the National Counterterrorism Center, testifies during a House Homeland Security Committee hearing in Dec. 2025. Photo by Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

(JTA) — After resigning this week over what he said was Israel’s manipulation of President Donald Trump into war with Iran, former national counterterrorism director Joe Kent is now insinuating Israel may have also killed Charlie Kirk as part of its pressure campaign.

Kent made the comments on a Wednesday evening appearance on Tucker Carlson’s podcast, as the FBI launched an investigation into whether Kent shared classified material. He is also scheduled to appear Thursday evening at a “Catholics for Catholics” gala featuring podcaster Candace Owens, who has promulgated antisemitic conspiracy theories and praised Kent.

“When one of President Trump’s closest advisers, who is vocally advocating for us to not go to war with Iran and for us to rethink, at least, our relationship with the Israelis, and then he’s suddenly publicly assassinated and we’re not allowed to ask any questions about that, it’s a data point,” Kent told Carlson about the 2025 murder of the right-wing pundit. “It’s a data point that we need to look into.”

He did not provide specifics to what he described as “unanswered questions,” beyond referencing texts between Kirk and pro-Israel donors that have already been made public. Yet Kent’s comments, which also insinuated a potential link between Israel and the 2024 attempted assassination of Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, provided further grist for figures like Carlson and Owens.

And they came on the heels of his accusations, in his resignation letter, that Israel had also “manufactured” the war in Iraq and the Syrian civil war — claims he defended further in his Carlson interview. Kent’s remarks have fueled further concern among American Jews across the aisle who fear that such comments will drive antisemitism.

“We had already dug up a decent amount of leads,” Kent told Carlson, saying it was his center’s job to investigate “foreign ties” in cases like Kirk’s murder, before higher authorities ordered him to stop. “There was more work for us to do on the potential of a foreign nexus.”

Kent’s alignment with Carlson, who was close with Kirk and has used his podcast to promote various conspiracy theories about Israel and Jewish movements including Chabad, as well as with Owens, point to a growing divide within the Trump administration and its supporters over support for Israel and tolerance for antisemitism. That divide has been exacerbated by war with Iran.

Semafor reported that the FBI’s investigation of Kent, a former congressman with past ties to avowed antisemitic streamer Nick Fuentes, relates to alleged improper sharing of classified information, and that it predated his resignation.

Vice President JD Vance, speaking in Michigan on Wednesday, offered guarded praise of Kent while saying he agreed with his resignation.

“I know Joe Kent a little bit. I like Joe Kent,” Vance said at a manufacturing facility in Auburn Hills. But, he added, “When the president of the United States makes a decision, it’s your job to help make that decision as effective and successful as possible… If you’re on the team and you can’t help implement the decisions of his administration, he has the right to make those decisions, then it’s a good thing for you to resign.”

Vance, who has been criticized in the past for declining to forcefully condemn antisemitism on the right, did not address Kent’s contentions that Israel manipulated Trump into war. The vice president took time from his address to praise Temple Israel, the nearby West Bloomfield synagogue whose security guards fended off a terrorist attack last week.

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.