Former CIA deputy Director Michael Morell challenged Donald Trump’s patriotism Thursday, and accused the GOP nominee of putting business interests before country.
“I spent … a third of a century at the agency. And in that time, it was my job to look at foreign leaders and to assess them, asses their intentions, their capabilities, their motivations, their interest in working with the U.S. or not, etcetera, etcetera,” the former director said in a call with reporters.
“And if I sort of turned that analytical spotlight on Donald Trump, I would tell you that his number one interest, the thing he cares about the most, is not the United States of America. It is Donald Trump. He cares more about himself than he does about anything else, including his nation,” he said.
Morell, who was joined on the call Thursday by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, made his remarks after being asked, “Can you say whether you think Donald Trump is a patriot and whether you believe that he has the county’s best interests in mind?”
Though Albright said it’s “hard to get inside [Trump’s] head,” she claimed that some of Trump’s past statements and actions suggest he really does care more about his personal interests than his county.
“He is a gift to Putin and now we can see that Putin is a gift to him,” she said.
“The definition of a patriot is somebody who puts … nation above anything else in their life. So in that regard, Donald Trump is not a patriot,” Morell said.
Morell and Albright’s call with reporters Thursday came moments after Hillary Clinton’s campaign went on the offensive against Trump for his reported financial ties to Russia.
ABC News reported Thursday that Trump’s business interests could pose a direct conflict of interest to U.S. sanctions on Russia. That report said its investigation of Trump’s businesses found that he has “numerous connections to Russian interests both in the U.S. and abroad.”
Hillary for America deputy communications director Christina Reynolds responded to the ABC report by calling on Trump to disclose all of his business dealings.
“Despite his effort to hide his business dealings, we now know that Donald Trump has profited from hundreds of millions of dollars from Russian interests,” she said in a statement.
“These alarming financial ties present a possible motive for his otherwise puzzling pro-Putin policies such as his openness to lifting sanctions against Russia that currently inhibit money making opportunities for corporations like the Trump Organization. This is precisely what more than fifty national security experts warned against when they called on Trump to disclose and divest his conflict-laden foreign assets that could endanger America’s national security,” she said. “Unless Donald Trump immediately details all his business connections with Russia and every other foreign nation, we will never know what is driving his decision making: the interests of the American people or his own bottom line.”
