Donald Trump, who’s spent the past several weeks trashing U.S. intelligence on Twitter, visited the CIA headquarters on Saturday. White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus told Fox News’ Chris Wallace that “a lovefest” happened behind closed doors. However, former CIA Director John Brennan is pretty steamed over Trump’s disrespectful performance while lashing out at the press after the meeting. Nick Shapiro, who acted as Brennan’s deputy chief of staff, issued the following statement:
“Former CIA Director Brennan is deeply saddened and angered at Donald Trump’s despicable display of self-aggrandizement in front of CIA’s Memorial Wall of Agency heroes. Brennan says that Trump should be ashamed of himself.”
The “self-aggrandizement” part undoubtedly references how Trump stood up in front of that wall of heroes and whined about unfair press treatment. In doing so, Trump falsely stated that 1.5 million people showed up for his swearing-in ceremony. Back at his new home, Trump then trotted out White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer to further gaslight with a shameless lie: “This was the largest audience to witness an inauguration. Period!”
As far as what Trump said to the CIA, Vanity Fair reports that Trump kissed CIA tushie to the 300 employees in attendance:
“There is nobody that feels stronger about the Intelligence Community and the CIA than Donald Trump. I am so behind you. You’re going to get so much backing. Maybe you’ll say, ‘Don’t give us so much backing, Mr. President, please. We don’t need that much backing.’ But you’re going to have that, and I think everybody in this room knows it.”
To Trump, it doesn’t matter that he publicly slammed the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies, all in an effort to convince his Twitter followers that he has nothing to do with Russia. Truth is hard to find right now, especially with Reince Priebus and Kellyanne Conway following Spicer’s Saturday lead. The latter even excused Spicer’s lies as “alternative facts,” and although the Internet mocked her, she’s planting the seeds for the Trump administration’s future games with the truth.
(Via CNN & Vanity Fair)