Clapper says American 'institutions are under assault' by Trump

published 14 May 2017

Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper on Sunday cast President Trump as a threat to the United States' system of constitutional governance while speaking with CNN's Jake Tapper.

"I think in many ways our institutions are under assault both externally — and that's the big news here is the Russian interference in our election system — and I think as well our institutions are under assault internally," Clapper said in a State of the Union interview. When Tapper sought to clarify if the president is the internal threat to which Clapper was referring, he replied, "Exactly."

"The founding fathers, in their genius, created a system of three co-equal branches of government and a built-in system of checks and balances," Clapper explained. "I feel as though that is under assault and is eroding." Watch an excerpt of his comments below. Bonnie Kristian

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.