Page 18 - General Clapper News Today

You think of general clapper. he served under 10 american presidents, all sorts of the most essential intelligence positions out there, and hes raising this question about the current president of the united states. when you heard that, what was your reaction? >> well, it was stunning because i overlapped briefly with jim clapper in government. i know him to be a sober, serious, committed public servant, someone who is not partisan in any way and someone who isnt given to throwing around incendi...

This ever, but he wants the attention on him and the way he eat going to do this, is fighting this large culture war against the media, against political correctness, as we saw in the 2016 campaign. >> i think were overthinking, i think what last night was about was about making himself feel good. i think he needs that kind of reaffirmation and that kind of love. when he faced a backlash from his charlottesville reaction, that just gets under his skin, he cant let go of it. thats why he relitiga...

When he says theyre taking away our history? whos they? whos our? what history? what hes doing is dog whistles in front of that base. i said it last night and ill say it again, the only defensible explanation is that hes not well. because if he is completely sane, then hes the biggest jerk we have seen in the world. >> let me just play a clip. because perhaps with the exception of annas statement, the strongest condemnation of what we heard from president trump came from the former director of n...

Even though hes president of -- >> when you have an infant thats called self-soothing. joining by phone is former chief of staff for the cia and the department of defense, jeremy bash. thank you for jumping on the phone for us, i know youre far away. i had to get you on the record from james clappers comments that kept me awake last night. after watching the presidents performance last night he was concerned about this man having access to the nuclear codes. your thoughts? >> theater, nicolle. g...

Come back early? will there be some sort of effort by congress to bring the rhetoric and the situation down? >> i think it is a little early to think about what congress could do at this particular moment. the most important thing is to see what president trump does next after he made those very stark warnings yesterday. that was followed by a north korean response. i think we need to see what he and his administration does right now. congress is really more of an advisory role here right now. i...

To be other things that the north koreans would have to do before we get into a shooting match with the north koreans. >> most definitely. one of the key things we have to see is either a direct action on the part of the north koreans or the intent, the clear intent to act in a specific way and to target a certain area, such as seoul, such as tokyo, such as the west coast of the united states. if any of those happened, then it would clearly be game on. the other area we have been talking about i...

States from any kind of provocation. that should not only be heard by the united states but by japan and korea and china as well. t >> general clark, james clapper said this about the north korean threat. listen to this. >> what is bothersome is we have heard this rhetoric coming out of north korea. we ignore it. certainly at the president yat lea level we ignore it. the rhetoric is not helpful. >> if that is the case, why do you think the president did it? >> i think the president is playing to...

Who possessed raw intelligence data in any one of the governments 17 agencies that it recognizes publicly as being intelligence agencies to share it with anybody else. that was extremely novel and it probably triggered the unmasking of then president-elect trump and general flynn. we now learned just last night that back in 2013, general clapper, the director of national intelligence secretly authorized members of congress to be unmasked by administrative officials who needed to know who was par...

Ainsley: is there is a chance they were listening to president trump during the campaign listening to every word? and is there a point where they will release his transcripts from the phone conversation. >> there is not a chance that they were listening. it is certain that they were listening. steve: right. >> who knows if they will release the transcripts. but the intelligent community has them. and the people in the obama administration whom jim clapper authorized to do the unmasking who are n...

Green light to attack our democracy again. we were talking about john mccain and we all wish him a very speedy recovery. hes been one of the people leading this bipartisan effort, united states senate, to pass the russian sanctions bill, which we did. its in the house now and the trump administration is trying to deep six it. theyre trying to undermine it. and when president trump essentially winks at the russians about their interference in our elections, its a very dangerous signal. and it jus...