President Donald Trump has taken a swipe of James Clapper, the former director of National Intelligence, who has questioned the commander in chief's ability to lead the nation and compared him to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
In a Twitter message posted on Thursday, Trump raged:
Trump's left hook at Clapper referred to the ex-intelligence chief's denial under oath to Congress that the National Security Agency had wittingly collected any type of data on millions of Americans. It was not clear what Trump meant by Clapper's "beautiful letter."
It came following Clapper's criticism of Trump's recent speeches, some of which were scripted and soberly delivered and others in which he speaks totally off-the-cuff.
"What caused concern is this ... Jekyll-Hyde business," Clapper told Jim Sciutto in an interview on CNN's "Erin Burnett OutFront" on Wednesday.
"Where he'll make a scripted teleprompter speech, which is good, and then turn around and negate it by sort of, unbridled, unleashed, unchaperoned Trump. And that to me — that pattern — is very disturbing."
Clapper's "Jekyll-Hyde" remark was a nod to Robert Louis Stevenson's 1886 classic about a handsome and respected doctor who transforms himself into an evil monster.
Earlier on Wednesday, Clapper, 76, who served under former President Barack Obama, told CNN's Don Lemon, "I really question his ability to be — his fitness to be — in this office, and I also am beginning to wonder about his motivation for it."
He said he also found Trump's raucous rally in Phoenix, Arizona, to be "downright scary and disturbing."
Trump's left hook at Clapper referred to the ex-intelligence chief's denial under oath to Congress that the National Security Agency had wittingly collected any type of data on millions of Americans.