Trump ‘should be ashamed’ says former CIA director

Following his private meeting with top Central Intelligence Agency leaders, Trump said the USA had been “restrained” in its efforts to combat terrorism, calling the threat “a level of evil we haven’t seen”.

After the inauguration ceremony and the celebratory balls, Donald Trump will begin his first official full day as America’s 45th president today.

It was a odd juxtaposition: a President, standing before the memorial wall at the CIA that honors the lives lost by agency officers as he talked about crowd size and his intelligence. What Donald Trump did next is not so traditional. People like him, but much more importantly to me, everybody respects him…

But Trump’s message was eclipsed by his campaign-style rhetoric and exaggerations about the crowd at yesterday’s inauguration.

While entrenched intelligence-sharing agreements like the one with Britain won’t be easily undermined, the United States depends on many agencies around the world to increase its reach.

SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: Yes.

Trump recently slammed the intelligence community for their investigation into the Russian hacking scandal.

He argues that no president can succeed without a capable and confident intelligence community.

Director John Brennan participates in a session at the third annual Intelligence and National Security Summit in Washington, DC, U.S. on September 8, 2016.

Earlier in the day, Mr. Trump had received an intelligence briefing from senior CIA officials.

“It would have a huge impact on what we try to do in the world, who is going to be willing to help us and who is not, and the power we can project in the world”. But he has repeatedly refused to accept those conclusions as anything more than a partisan attempt to harm him with “fake news”.

In reality, presidents have limited power over procurement. Another is that media-blaming is actually Trump’s way of saying, “I’m sorry for my childish behavior”. Radical Islamic terrorism has to be eradicated off the face of the earth.

He was introduced by Vice President Pence, but was soon delivering a meandering address where he attacked the media and insisted the attendance at his inauguration was undercounted. “We had 250,000 people, literally, in the around in the little bowl that we constructed”.

Then Trump listed out another incident.

Though Trump will have a new security and intelligence team as president, his disparaging remarks, it is feared, will have a lasting and demoralising effect on the U.S. intelligence community that might adversely affect their work. I get up this morning.

Trump’s tweet about Brennan came after the then-CIA chief said in Fox News interview on January 15 that Trump “does not fully” understand the threat of Russian Federation and cautioned Trump to be “very disciplined” in what he posts to his Twitter.

The EU’s Commissioner for Economic Affairs Pierre Moscovici said he would wait and see what Mr Trump actually does, but noted that his programme was more aimed at business than helping the poor. I made a speech I looked out. “When I looked, it looked like a million, a million and a half people”.

MARTIN: Now, Scott, it is always hard and politically fraught to estimate crowd sizes for large, public events. It’s probably safe to say that Trump’s brain truly thinks it saw 1.5 million people out there.

It was a rambling speech that was reminiscent of many of his campaign rallies. It’s also something he’s done throughout his business career – exaggerating the height of his buildings and the size of his profits.

On Friday, Trump signed legislation granting James Mattis, his pick for defense secretary, an exemption from a federal law barring former USA service members who have been out of uniform for less than seven years from holding the top Pentagon job.

The visit to the agency’s Langley, Virginia, headquarters seemed created to smooth over growing tensions between the new commander in chief and the nation’s spy agencies.