Trump lectured: Departing CIA chief calls president-elect naive.
NEW YORK — The outgoing CIA director charged Sunday that Donald Trump lacks a full understanding of the threat Moscow poses to the United States, delivering a public lecture to the president-elect that further highlighted the bitter state of Trump’s relations with American intelligence agencies.
John Brennan’s pointed message on national television came just five days before Trump becomes the nation’s 45th president amid lingering questions about Russia’s role in the 2016 election even as the focus shifts to the challenges of governing.
“Now that he’s going to have an opportunity to do something for our national security as opposed to talking and tweeting, he’s going to have tremendous responsibility to make sure that U.S. and national security interests are protected,” Brennan said on “Fox News Sunday,” warning that the president-elect’s impulsiveness could be dangerous.
“Spontaneity is not something that protects national security interests,” Brennan declared.
Trump, who has unleashed a series of aggressive tweets against the U.S. intelligence community and his political rivals in recent weeks, responded aggressively on Twitter several hours later.
“Was this the leaker of Fake News?” Trump tweeted Sunday evening, referring to a recent document that contains unverified financial and personal information that could be damaging to the president-elect. The Associated Press has not been able to verify the contents of the document.
Civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., is among several Democrats in Congress who pledged to skip Trump’s inauguration, charging that Russian interference in the 2016 election delegitimizes his presidency.
“There will be many more members who join us in this decision,” Rep. Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, wrote Saturday on his Facebook page.
Trump’s lieutenants pushed back hard Sunday in a round of television interviews.
“I think it’s incredibly disappointing, and I think it’s irresponsible for people like himself to question the legitimacy of the next United States president,” incoming White House chief of staff Reince Priebus said of Lewis on ABC’s “This Week,” insisting that Republicans did not question the legitimacy of President Obama’s victory eight years ago. Vice President-elect Mike Pence said on “Fox News Sunday” that he hopes Lewis will change his mind and attend.
Priebus later acknowledged that conservatives — led by Trump himself — spent years questioning Obama’s eligibility to serve as president, suggesting he was not born in the United States.
Lewis suffered a fractured skull when he led a march in Selma, Ala., more than a half century ago and has devoted his life to civil rights.