Piers Morgan Inquires Joe Kent About Trump's 'Nasty Dig' Regarding His Wife: 'Did That Upset You?'

During a recent episode of Piers Morgan Uncensored, Joe Kent, a former counterterrorism official under the Trump administration, confronted President Donald Trump’s pointed remarks about his personal life. The interview aired Thursday, where Morgan pressed Kent on the president's comments made earlier in the week following Kent's resignation over the ongoing conflict in Iran.

“You say it’s not personal, but he has got quite personal with you,” Morgan remarked, referencing the tragic loss of Kent's first wife, Shannon, a U.S. Navy technician who died in a suicide bombing in Syria in 2019, leaving behind two children. Kent married his current wife, Heather, in August 2023, more than four years after Shannon's death. Morgan then played a clip of Trump stating, “Look, I’m not a fan of the guy… His wife was killed. He remarried fairly quickly.”

“I mean, that was a nasty dig,” Morgan added. “You married ‘fairly quickly,’ you know, whatever he was trying to infer, it wasn’t pleasant. That is personal, isn’t it? Did that offend you? That hurt you?”

Kent replied candidly, “Of course it’s personal. It’s not pleasant to hear the president speak in that manner. But look, again, the stakes are really high, Piers. My late wife was killed in one of these Middle Eastern wars that we shouldn’t have been in in the first place. Hundreds of my friends were killed in these wars as well. My entire generation, basically after 9/11, spent our adult lives in war. I did multiple combat deployments.”

He continued, “The stakes couldn’t be higher, and so really, I frankly don’t care what the president says about me personally. I understand because I went out the way that I did that this is inevitable. What I want all the focus to be on is how we got here and how we get out of this situation that we’re in, and how we must restrain the Israelis and how we must use diplomacy with the Iranians to get out of the situation before it spirals further out of control.”

Kent emphasized the critical nature of the current geopolitical climate, stating, “I think we’re at a huge inflection point with the potential of putting boots on the ground, deploying forces into Kharg Island, or just having more violence and more of the energy flow coming out of the Strait of Hormuz being disrupted.”

Interestingly, just an hour after Trump’s comments about his marriage on Monday, Kent took to social media to commend the president. “President Trump is working to get peace with Iran. If he can make this happen, it will be a very good thing for our nation & our allies in the Gulf,” he wrote. “The Israelis will be against this, but POTUS is strong & can get them on board.” Watch above via Piers Morgan Uncensored on YouTube.