The Rise and Fall of Joe Kent
By Joel Connelly
Joe Kent, who made headlines by resigning from the Trump administration this week, saw the 2O21 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol as a left wing, F.B.I-fueled uprising. Such views helped to qualify him for a top counterterrorism posting in the topsy turbulent territory of Trumpland. But this week he walked away, reasoning that we are buying oil from people we are bombing.
A “ghost fleet” of tankers has been peddling Iranian and Russian oil on the world market, keeping the economies of both countries afloat. Trump is now tapping this reservoir of 50 or so tankers to hold down oil prices. And these are the President’s recent’s recent words spoken of his predecessor Joe Biden: “I always thought he was weak on security. It’s a good thing he’s out because he said Iran was not a threat.”
The MAGA movement is showing signs of implosion. A faction led by Tucker Carlson, who served up softball questions for Vladimir Putin to swat away, opposes air strikes on Persian Gulf officials and refineries. Trump bombs away, possibly spurred on by bone spurs. Now, however, Kent says he cannot “in good conscience “support the bombing raids” while Trump says it is “a good thing Kent is out. Why? Because Kent was “very weak on security.”
Kent was, of course, the guy who let a Republican-leaning Washington State's Third Congressional District slip into the hands of “blue dog” Democrat U.S. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp-Perez, hitherto co-owner (with her husband) of a Portland auto repair shop. MGP is now seeking her third term in the Peoples’ House and reconnecting her party with its working class roots.
https://www.postalley.org/2026/03/19/the-rise-and-fall-of-joe-kent/
Time to Say Something Nice (and Difficult) About Joe Kent
By Bruce Ramsey
Let’s say something nice about Joe Kent. I know, it’s difficult. Kent is a Make-America-Great-Again Republican. He agreed with Trump that the Democrats stole the 2020 presidential election, a statement not in Kent’s favor. But in politics, if someone makes a public stand for an issue important to you, and sacrifices his big, important job to say it, you should praise him.
It doesn’t mean you endorse everything about the guy. And what I see with the resignation of Joe Kent is a bleacher full of people who agree with him about this war, but will not stand up to cheer him because he is not on their team.
Joe Kent ran for Congress twice from the 3rd district of Washington and was twice defeated by Marie Gluesenkamp-Perez, a moderate Democrat, because he was too Trumpy. He had an air of soreness and defiance about him. Kent served as an Army Ranger and Green Beret. He was deployed 11 times and was decorated many times for bravery.
In 2019 he lost his wife, Shannon, to a suicide bomber in Syria, which gives him a perspective on the Middle East that most of us don’t have. Kent was loudly against unnecessary wars — a position also taken by Donald Trump. And early in his second term, Trump appointed Joe Kent to be the federal head of counterterrorism.
https://www.postalley.org/2026/03/19/time-to-say-something-nice-and-difficult-about-joe-kent/
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