Former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told CNN on Friday that in a dangerous world he does not want to “gamble” on Donald Trump.
“The real challenge is to provide world leadership. And that’s the difference between Secretary (Hillary) Clinton and Trump,” Panetta, who served as the Director of the CIA from 2009-2011, told CNN’s Chris Cuomo on “New Day.” “Trump is talking about the world in a way that takes us back to the 1930’s.”
Trump, who is now the presumptive Republican nominee, outlined his foreign policy philosophy in an extensive speech last month, promising that “under a Trump administration, no American citizen will ever again feel that their needs come second to the citizens of foreign countries.”
“He’s talking all this isolationism, America first, he’s talking about distributing A-bombs around the world — those are crazy positions,” Panetta added, referencing Trump’s comments in March when he raised the possibility that Japan should arm itself with nuclear weapons to take on threats from North Korea.
Panetta said that Trump says things “almost as if he’s not even thinking” and added that he’s not sure what Trump stands for.
Meanwhile, former CIA Director David Petraeus penned an op-ed in the Washington Post Friday, cautioning that “anti-Muslim bigotry aides Islamist terrorists.”
While Petraeus does not mention Trump by name, he alludes to Trump’s proposal to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. temporarily, slamming “inflammatory political discourse … including proposals from various quarters for blanket discrimination against people on the basis of their religion.”
A day ahead of his meeting with GOP leaders, Trump said Wednesday that his Muslim ban proposal was “just a suggestion.”