Former NSA Director Michael Hayden said Wednesday that President Donald Trump "wasn't acting presidential or presidentially" when he accused former President Barack Obama of wire-tapping his Trump Tower telephones during the campaign last year.
"It seems as if the president woke up Saturday morning and forgot that he was the president of the United States," Hayden, 71, who also served as CIA director, told Jake Tapper on CNN. "There's been a lot of speculation about it, but he wasn't acting as president or presidentially."
Trump has not backed down from his accusations nor has offered any proof — and he has called for a congressional investigation.
Hayden said that his greatest fear that Trump was now challenging the "truth-tellers" in America, whether it's the intelligence community, the media or the judicial branch of the United States.
"There seems to be an attempt to invalidate, de-legitimatize folks coming to the president or within the president's sphere with information that cuts across his pre-assumed narrative of the world.
"That's a bad thing if you don't have that kind of Dutch uncle kind of guy — who, maybe after everyone else leaves, says: 'Mr. President, a word' to bring up a concern."
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