Former CIA Official Blasts Trump Moves on Ukraine, Syria: Vladimir Putin Must Think ‘This Is Absolutely Fabulous’

Former CIA head of Russian operations Steve Hall blasted President Donald Trump’s recent moves on Ukraine and Syria, saying his foreign policy decisions have undermined the United States’ standing and benefited Russia’s: “Vladimir Putin wakes up in the middle of the night and thinks I must be dreaming. This is absolutely fabulous.”

Speaking with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Hall offered his assessment of what he called a “veritable buffet of horribleness,” to describe Trump’s recent actions on a number of foreign policy fronts. Hall was also reacting, in part, to a new Washington Post story that reportedly details how Russian President Vladimir Putin and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban have significantly influenced the Trump White House’s diplomatic relations in Ukraine.

“Even before the conversations, TV lawyer Rudy Giuliani was already pushing conspiracy theories to the president and the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine had already been recalled,” Cooper noted. “You ran CIA’s Russia operations division, does President Trump seeking advice from Putin and the Hungarian prime minister in a private one on one conversation jeopardize national security?”

“That is certainly a terrible, terrible thing when you’ve got the President of the United States of America reaching out to a foreign leader and asking for that help, regardless of whether there’s a quid pro quo,” Hall responded. “You’ve got the president consulting with Vladimir Putin and guys like two-bit dictators, autocrats like Viktor Orban. You’ve got the State Department. You’ve got all sorts of people in your own government you can consult with. The amount of things that have gone wrong here, it’s just befudding and amazing to me.”

Cooper then summed up Giuliani’s central role in the Trump White House’s policy in Ukraine, adding: “I mean, it sounds almost like a joke, but the idea that it’s actually real is extraordinary.”

“It’s horrific,” Hall said, agreeing. “Guys like Giuliani and Putin of course, and of course Orban telling [Trump], ‘Look, Ukraine is a very corrupt place, not to be trusted, don’t help them’ because, of course, that would be bad for Russia, and he buys it. The president says ‘Yeah, I believe what Vladimir Putin tells me about this, and so I’ll hold the money that they need so badly.’ Why? To thwart Russian invasions and further annexation of Crimea. How is this good for U.S. Security? I do not understand.”

Hall then noted the administration’s bumbling and broadly condemned pullback from northern Syria as yet another foreign policy win for Russia.

“If you look just over the past couple of weeks, who has benefitted out of this president’s decision-making, especially vis-a-vis foreign policy?” Hall asked. “It’s got to be none other than Vladimir Putin. I mean, Vladimir Putin is now, you know, running up and down the Syrian border with his military forces opposite Turkey, you know, with Russian flags going in to abandoned U.S. bases there and making a big propaganda deal of it. [Trump] is holding back funding or was holding back funding, not empowering Ukraine to fight back against Russia, fighting within NATO allies like Turkey. Vladimir Putin wakes up in the middle of the night and thinks ‘I must be dreaming. This is absolutely fabulous.’ It benefits nobody more than Vladimir Putin in my view.”

Watch the video above, via CNN.