Former CIA and NSA Director Michael Hayden on Wednesday warned that reelecting President Donald Trump would be “very bad for America” while endorsing Democratic nominee Joe Biden for president.
“I’ve watched it very closely and now I’m afraid. I don’t think the President does things well at all. I’m very sad about that. I think he can’t do another term. It would be very, very bad for America,” Hayden, who served the three previous administrations, told CNN’s Jim Sciutto on Wednesday.
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“In intelligence, things are hard. Sometimes we’re right and sometimes we’re wrong. But we’re doing things to do something about it. But Trump doesn’t do that. For example, talking to the Russians, he doesn’t do the things Presidents should actually do.”
The retired four-star US Air Force general, who is a CNN national security analyst, argued that a second term of Trump would be detrimental to the US intelligence community and damage America’s alliances around the world.
“If it’s a second term, I think we will be alone. We will not have any friends at all,” he warned.
Hayden – who has largely stayed out of the public eye since his stroke in 2018 and struggles with aphasia as a result – was featured in a video released Tuesday night by Republican Voters Against Trump, endorsing Biden and condemning Trump.
“If there is another term for President Trump, I don’t know what happens to America,” he said in the video. “President Trump doesn’t care about facts. President Trump doesn’t care about the truth.”
Hayden specifically touched on the problem of white nationalism, and argued that Trump “doesn’t keep the country safe.”
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“I absolutely disagree with some of Biden’s policies, but that’s not important. What’s important is the United States,” he said. “Biden is a good man, Donald Trump is not.”
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Hayden served as the head of the NSA under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush from 1999 to 2005. He was director of the CIA from 2006 to 2009 under Bush and briefly for Barack Obama.
Hayden was among the more than 70 former national security officials from multiple Republican administrations who endorsed Biden the day he officially accepted the Democratic nomination.
He also spoke out against Trump during the 2016 presidential election and has criticized Trump throughout his presidency.
CNN’s Alex Marquardt contributed to this report.
