Watch: Johnson refutes outgoing counter-terrorism chief’s claim that Iran poses no imminent threat

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson disagreed with Joe Kent, the top US counterterrorism official, who resigned on Tuesday, and said Iran poses no imminent threat to the United States.

Watch the clip in the video player above.

Johnson, who was asked about Kent’s resignation at a news conference on Tuesday morning, said: “I received all the briefings. We all understood that there was clearly an imminent threat that Iran was very close to nuclear enrichment capability and that they were building missiles at a pace that no one in the region could keep up with.”

Read more: Joe Kent, the top counterterrorism official, said Iran poses no imminent threat as he resigns over Trump’s war

Johnson said he was convinced that if the president had waited “we would have had significant casualties of Americans, service members and others, and our facilities would have sustained significant damage.”

Days after launching the war, Trump administration officials told congressional staff in private briefings that US intelligence did not indicate that Iran was preparing to launch a pre-emptive strike against the United States.