Gen. Michael Hayden, the former director of the NSA and CIA, makes the case for having former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush win the presidential election during an interview on
Newsmax TV.
Hayden, who signed on as an adviser to Bush weeks ago, tells J.D. Hayworth on
Newsmax TV's "Newsmax Prime" he thinks Bush would be more involved in foreign policy matters than President Barack Obama has been.
"President Obama has been very inward-turning. That's a powerful American tradition, some scholars have called it the Jeffersonian tradition," Hayden says.
"But our lack of involvement overseas has actually allowed a lot of problems we're seeing today to fester. Gov. Bush brings to the job, brings to the race a background in which I think I can predict with some confidence he will be more involved personally in foreign and security affairs."
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Hayden says Bush's family, which includes two former presidents in his father and brother, has a history of being involved in foreign affairs. Bush was also an international businessman before entering politics and lived and worked in Venezuela.
"We'll see a higher degree of involvement in these kinds of questions in the Oval Office with a President Jeb Bush," Hayden says.
Hayden also comments on
news reports that say China and Russia have the top secret documents stolen by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who is now living in Russia under asylum.
As a result, England has reportedly pulled back some of its spies from the field over fears they could either be publicly outed, captured, or killed.
Hayden says if the story is true, it would deal a major blow to the western intelligence world.
"I don't know that that story is true. All I've seen are press accounts," Hayden says. "I will tell you, though, that story is plausible and it's the kind of thing that would be incredibly, incredibly disruptive of British and American intelligence."
As for the
claim that Snowden has "blood on his hands," Hayden says Snowden has already "been incredibly disruptive."
"I don't need these reports to say what Edward Snowden has done has been incredibly disruptive of American and British security and I should add liberty as well," Hayden says.
"Now if this additional story is true, that the Russians and the Chinese have gathered the files, it's even more disruptive. But it's already the greatest hemorrhaging of legitimate American secrets in the history of this nation."
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