WASHINGTON - A senior US counterterrorism official who resigned to protest the Iran war was "very weak on security" and it's a "good thing" that he stepped down, President Donald Trump said.
Joseph Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), resigned on Tuesday, saying he "cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran".
Kent -- a former member of the Green Beret special forces who served multiple combat tours -- said "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".
Trump said that when he saw Kent's resignation statement, "I realised that it's a good thing that he's out."
READ: Senior US counterterrorism official resigns to protest Iran war
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt pushed back against what she called "false claims" in Kent's resignation letter, calling "insulting and laughable" the suggestion that the decision to go to war was made "based on the influence of others."
"As President Trump has clearly and explicitly stated, he had strong and compelling evidence that Iran was going to attack the United States first," Leavitt said.
"President Trump ultimately made the determination that a joint attack with Israel would greatly reduce the risk to American lives that would come from a first strike by the terrorist Iranian regime and address this imminent threat to America's national security interests," she said.