In response to Donald Trump tapping Joe Kent as head of National Counterterrorism Center, DNC Rapid Response Director Alex Floyd released the following statement: 

“Donald Trump is playing politics with America’s national security, picking a far-right conspiracy theorist to lead the national counterterrorism center. Joe Kent has aligned himself with white nationalists and compared abortion to slavery. Trump chose Kent because he will put his loyalty to Trump over the safety and security of the American people.”

Donald Trump’s pick to lead the National Counterterrorism Center, Joe Kent, is a MAGA loyalist with ties to white nationalists – including participating in an interview with a Nazi sympathizer.

CNN: “Despite disavowing White nationalism last spring when one of its adherents endorsed him, a US House candidate in Washington subsequently gave a previously unreported interview in June to a Nazi sympathizer and White nationalist.

“While Republican Joe Kent touted his support for prominent far-right figures like Reps. Marjorie Taylor Green and Paul Gosar and supported MAGA policies, he was speaking with Greyson Arnold, a Nazi sympathizer. …

“Arnold has a well-documented history of making White nationalist, racist, antisemitic and pro-Nazi statements, including once calling Adolf Hitler ‘a complicated historical figure which many people misunderstand.’ …

“Arnold was pictured in multiple photographs with Kent at a fundraiser in April and has been canvassing for Republican candidates with Washington State Young Republicans, with one recent photo showing Arnold in a Joe Kent shirt according to photos on their public Instagram. …

“Kent’s website also features an endorsement from Arizona state Sen. Wendy Rogers who was censured by the Republican-controlled Arizona senate after she gave a speech to the white nationalist conference calling for public hangings.”

Kent has spread baseless conspiracy theories about January 6, insisting the election was  “stolen”  and that the FBI orchestrated the Capitol riot. 

Joe Kent: “The 2020 election was rigged & stolen.”

The Chronicle: “Kent called President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris ‘not legitimate,’ saying he wants to prove the 2020 election a fraud and impeach the duo.”

HuffPost: “Two federally convicted participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol contributed to the congressional campaigns of Republican Joe Kent, a Donald Trump loyalist who has indulged in conspiracy theories about the attack that day and suggested most of the imprisoned rioters deserve pardons. …

“Kent has endorsed many of the election-denying conspiracy theories promoted by Trump. He has insisted that the 2020 election was ‘rigged’ and ‘stolen,’ embraced the unfounded notion that the FBI orchestrated the Capitol riot, and promoted Trump’s 2024 presidential run as a way to ensure pardons for an untold number of Jan. 6 defendants he sees as unfairly accused.”

Just like Trump, Kent supports a national abortion ban, calling reproductive freedom “a stain on humanity.”

Joe Kent: “I 100% support Roe vs. Wade being overturned. I would move to have a national ban on abortions.”

Rolling Stone: “I am totally against abortion. I think it’s a stain on our humanity that it’s legal right now,” Kent told 21 Studios podcast, in an interview on the floor at CPAC in 2021. 

“From there, he went on to compare legal abortion to American slavery: ‘I remember learning about slavery and learning about segregation and being amazed that there was a time in my parents’ life, who aren’t that much older, that segregation was a very real thing. I was like, ‘Man, that’s crazy that that happened in their lifetime.’ And then looking back two lifetimes from that, we had slavery. And I’m like, ‘Man, that’s insane — that my grandparents, their great grandparents, they grew up then.’ I think there’s going to be a time in our lives when we’re in our 60s or 70s where our kids come up to us, and they’re gonna be like, ‘So, it was okay with everybody that you could just go kill babies?’ I think that that’s coming very soon. I think abortion is absolutely evil in the way that it’s gone on.”

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