President Donald Trump, through his frequent use of Twitter to attack people he deems are against him, is creating states of crisis nationally through causing chaos, and that is undermining his presidency, former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Thursday.
"I think the responsibility of the president is to deal with the crises facing this country and right now, what he does by virtue of these tweets is to generate crisis, to generate chaos," Panetta, who served under former President Barack Obama, told MSNBC's "Morning Joe."
Further, Panetta told the program, the United States must "operate by the rule of law," including with special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation.
"The president of the United States ought to be an individual that reflects that he and his administration are going to abide by the rule of law."
However, rather than dealing with the "significant" problems he's facing, "whether it's the economy or Syria or trade or all of these other issues, that's what he ought to be focusing on."
Instead, Trump is focusing on Mueller and his investigation, and on "tearing people apart," said Panetta, and that is a problem for his presidency.
"[It] undermines his ability as president to serve this country properly," Panetta, also a former CIA Director under Obama and White House chief of staff for former President Bill Clinton, added.
Meanwhile, Panetta said he hold a "tremendous regard" for White House chief of staff John Kelly, a now-retired general who served as his military aide at the Defense Department.
"I found him to be somebody truly dedicated to this country, and with a tremendous amount of respect for commanders in chief," said Panetta.
However, Kelly is trying to put a chain of command and a discipline in place at the White House, but with Trump, "he's dealing with a principal that doesn't want to abide by any of that discipline," and that's a serious problem, Panetta said.
"How can you be effective at developing policies for this country if you have a president that wakes up early in the morning and starts tweeting about different issues?" said Panetta.
"How can you possibly respond effectively to setting some kind of strategy for this country when a president doesn't want to abide by any strategy or process? It makes it almost impossible."
Panetta added that he has to believe Kelly is a "very frustrated guy," but if he knows him, he'll keep fighting, because "he wants to do what's best for the country and he will keep doing that as long as he can."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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