Former CIA and NSA Director Michael Hayden told CNN on Tuesday that President Donald Trump's executive order suspending travel from would make Americans "less safe."
Appearing on "The Lead with Jake Tapper," Hayden said Trump's executive order temporarily banning travelers from seven countries with ties to Islamic terrorism is based on two "very twisted pictures of reality" — that immigrants, visa holders and refugees are an imminent threat to the United States, and that the United States had no procedures for vetting them.
Taking such a dramatic step, Hayden said, would be justified only in emergency circumstance, and has the potential to throw fire on the civil war with Islam.
"It's not yet a war between civilizations. It's a war within this great monotheism," he said. "And when we do the kinds of things we did this last weekend, we strengthen the forces within Islam who want this to be a war between Islam and the West, between Islam and modernity."
Trump's order serves to make the narrative pushed by America's enemies within Islam (such as the Islamic State or ISIS) seem to be true, he said.
"That's going to motivate more people to oppose us and our friends," he said. "Might even motivate some people to take up arms against us there, and, I deeply fear, here."
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