Israel First GOP Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina falsely claimed that Joe Kent, who quit his post as national counterterrorism director this week, denounced “Jews” in his resignation letter and that the former Green Beret is an “antisemite.”
The bizarre claim from Graham, who has declared that “I’m with Israel” and says he expects South Carolinians to send their sons and daughters to die in the Middle East, delivered the bizarre claims to podcaster Bill O’Reilly.
The senator also claimed, without saying it, that Kent is a boob, and repeated his mantra that Iranian religious leaders are “Nazis.”
Bad Kent
Graham has been on a hate-Kent tear since the 45-year-old Special Forces veteran, who deployed 11 times to combat, resigned over President Trump’s starting a war on Iran on Israel’s behalf.
Kent claimed that “high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media deployed a misinformation campaign that wholly undermined your America First platform and sowed pro-war sentiments to encourage a war with Iran.”
That “echo chamber was used to deceive” Trump “into believing that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States, and that should you strike now, there was a clear path to a swift victory.”
Kent called those claims from the pro-war lobby a “lie” and “the same tactic the Israelis used to draw us into the disastrous Iraq war that cost our nation the lives of thousands of our best men and women.”
“We cannot make this mistake again,” Kent wrote.
Known as “Lady G” in Washington, D.C.’s Lavender community, Graham wrote on X that Kent was “echoing the Democratic talking points, which are devoid of fact or evidence. Hopefully, the person replacing Mr. Kent will have a better understanding of the threats presented by the Iranian regime.”
“Mr. Kent said that Iran posed no imminent threat to the United States,” Graham wrote:
Clearly, he did not go to work enough.
O’Reilly Interview
Speaking to podcaster O’Reilly, Graham sallied forth with the kooky claim that Kent is an “antisemite.” He backed it up with a lie about Kent’s resignation letter.
“The head of counterterrorism says [a threat from Iran] wasn’t imminent,” O’Reilly said of Kent. “And he’s got the same info you have.”
“No, he doesn’t,” Graham replied. “He’s lying.”
O’Reilly: Why? Why would he lie?
Graham: Well, why did he say the Jews [dragged] us into it?
O’Reilly: He doesn’t like Israel having influence over …
Graham: He’s saying, you know, “if the Jews weren’t around, we’d all be safe.” This letter of resignation was full of misinformation and anti-Semitism.
Nowhere does Kent’s letter mention “the Jews,” and nowhere does it say “if the Jews weren’t around, we’d all be safe.”
Graham didn’t bother disclosing the “misinformation” in the letter.
Graham also repeated to O’Reilly what he wrote on X after Kent resigned: That Iran was “two weeks” away from developing a nuclear weapon, but that Trump destroyed the nation’s enrichment capability in Operation Midnight Hammer.
“During negotiations between Iran, [Middle East envoy] Steve Witkoff and [Trump advisor] Jared Kushner, the regime rejected the U.S. offer to provide a peaceful nuclear power program for free,” Graham wrote:
Also during these negotiations, the Iranians made a stunning statement. They boasted to Witkoff and Kushner that they had 460 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium. There is no commercial purpose for enriching uranium to 60%.
The time to go from 60% to 90% enrichment, which is weapons-grade, is weeks, not months. 460 kilograms of uranium enriched to 90% is enough for 10 bombs.
Instead of panicking, begging the Iranians not to go forward and throwing money at them like Obama and Biden did, @POTUS chose a different path.
When informed of the imminent possibility of a nuclear breakout by Iran, President Trump authorized Operation Epic Fury, which obliterated the Iranian enrichment program. He acted in the nick of time before this terrorist regime would have had enough weapons-grade uranium to make 10 nuclear bombs.
But again, Graham told O’Reilly that the Midnight Hammer bombing in June 2025 destroyed that capability.
“When they told us we can, we’re at 60, we can go to 90” Graham said:
What Trump did was Midnight Hammer. He blew the crap out of their enrichment capability so they couldn’t go to 90. That’s imminent.
As well, when Kent wrote that a threat from Iran was not “imminent,” he was speaking of Iran’s nuclear capabilities post-Midnight Hammer.
Gabbard’s Claims
That aside, Graham did what Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard did when she testified before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence early this week. Both admitted that Iran’s nuclear capability was destroyed a year ago.
“As a result of Operation Midnight Hammer, Iran’s nuclear enrichment program was obliterated,” Gabbard told the committee in her written statement:
There has been no efforts [sic] since then to try to rebuild their enrichment capability. The entrances to the underground facilities that were bombed have been buried and shuttered with cement. We continue to monitor for any early indicators on what position the current or any new leadership in Iran will take with regard to authorizing a nuclear weapons program.
The admission invited a farago of questions from far-left Democratic Senator Joel Ossoff of Georgia. He pressed Gabbard on the question of whether Iran was an “imminent threat” given that its nuclear capability was, as she and Trump said, “obliterated.”
Now, Graham has been caught admitting the same truth — even as he lied about a combat veteran who was fighting in the Middle East while Graham was prancing around the U.S. Capitol advocating war.
