CNN’s Republicans Endorse Clapper’s Claim Trump Is Dangerous

CNN on Wednesday trotted out an all-Republican panel to lend credibility to claims made the night before by former President Barack Obama’s director of national intelligence that President Donald Trump could pose a national security risk.

The former intelligence chief, James Clapper, appeared on “CNN Tonight” following Trump’s speech in Phoenix and fretted about the president’s fitness for office.

“I worry about, frankly, his access to nuclear codes,” he said.

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Liberal warnings of a Trump-induced nuclear holocaust are nothing new. From time to time during last year’s presidential campaign, liberal commentators or surrogates of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton would insinuate that Trump might start a nuclear war in a pique of anger.

But on Wednesday, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer turned to three conservative-leaning commentators. All three are longtime Trump critics.

“This is very disturbing to hear someone of his stature say that about our president,” said Amanda Carpenter, a CNN commentator who previously worked as a speechwriter and communications adviser for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).

Matt Lewis, a conservative columnist for The Daily Beast, said it was “obviously very scary,” given Clapper’s 50 years of government service.

“Donald Trump does seem to lack impulse control,” he said. “He does seem to sometimes fly off the handle and, as I said earlier, be reactive. He also seems to be vengeful.”

“We know it’s true in the modern era, the president could — not to alarm people out there — but the president could start a nuclear war.”

Lewis noted that the president has little check on his power to launch a first-strike nuclear attack.

“We know it’s true in the modern era, the president could — not to alarm people out there — but the president could start a nuclear war,” he said. “Any president could, without congressional approval. Like, this is the way it works in the modern era.”

He added: “So, I don’t want to stoke fear, but this is DNI, you know, Clapper, not me saying this.”

GOP strategist Ana Navarro, one of the nation’s most strident Never-Trump Republicans, insisted that many GOP politicians are expressing similar concerns in private.

“They need to start saying it in public because they have a duty to the country,” she said.

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While the panelists were putting Clapper on a pedestal — and Blitzer made sure to point out that he has worked for Republican and Democratic administrations — no one mentioned the former director’s own credibility problems.

Clapper got caught in a massive untruth when former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden made public documents showing that the agency was collecting bulk domestic call records, along with various internet communications. Clapper had denied the existence of such a program during congressional testimony in 2013.

“No, sir,” he said, when asked point-blank if the government was collecting such information. “Not wittingly.”

Clapper faced calls for impeachment at the time, and the outrage did not just come from Republicans.

“During Director Clapper’s tenure, senior intelligence officials engaged in a deception spree regarding mass surveillance,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said in a statement after Clapper announced his resignation November 17. “Top officials, officials who reported to Director Clapper, repeatedly misled the American people and even lied to them.”

(photo credit, homepage image: Gage Skidmore, Flickr; photo credit, article image: Michael Vadon, Wikimedia)