Ex-CIA Chief Brennan: ‘Mike Pompeo Should Be Ashamed’ of Comments in Cairo Speech

Former CIA director John Brennan criticized Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for the way he has portrayed former president Barack Obama during his trip to Cairo.

“Remember it was here, here in this city that another American stood before you,” Pompeo said in a speech, clearly alluding to Obama.

Pompeo described Obama’s handling of terrorism and foreign policies as causing “dire” outcomes, “self-inflicted American shame,” and a lot of “needless suffering.”

“I think Mike Pompeo should be ashamed of what he has said in Cairo and the way he has disparaged former presidents and policies, and the eyes of the Arab and Muslim world,” Brennan said to an MSNBC panel Friday afternoon. “It’s very unfortunate that Donald Trump is proceeding on the foreign policy front with the lack of coherence, the lack of strategic understanding of the different pieces here.”

Host Nicole Wallace said Pompeo’s suggestion, that sudden American retreat could cause chaos in the Middle East, sounded like he’d forgotten that his boss President Donald Trump had promised to pull troops out of Syria.

Brennan explained the inconsistency between Pompeo’s and Trump’s statements as the result of general confusion while Pompeo tries to stick up for his boss.

“Mike Pompeo, I think he is one of Trump’s biggest sycophants,” said Brennan. “So he’s trying to make sense out of what Trump is doing. So that’s why you see the inconsistencies between what Trump says, what Pompeo says, what Bolton says. I’m sure people in the region are confused, and so I don’t know what’s being said in the private meetings but certainly what is being said publicly is a source of great confusion for all.”

You can watch above, via MSNBC.

[image via screengrab]

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