Hagel says Trump 'an embarrassment'

DON WALTON Lincoln Journal Star Jan 13, 2018 Updated 21 hrs ago

Chuck Hagel believes we have entered "a defining year, a year of volatility and uncertainty and great danger" for the United States and the world.

A year that will determine whether America continues to "walk away from its indispensable leadership position" in the world. A year when Republicans in Congress may be called upon to choose country over party.

A "rather significant political year" when voters will shape the next Congress.

"We have not really seen these kind of times since Watergate and Vietnam," Nebraska's former U.S. senator and former U.S. secretary of defense said during a wide-ranging telephone interview from Washington.

While President Donald Trump is at the heart of all of this, "intentionally dividing the country and the world," pulling away from alliances that have benefited America and abandoning trade agreements that have been in U.S. interests, he is not the only catalyst in play, Hagel said.

"Globally, you see the same political dysfunction in virtually every democracy in the world," Hagel said, with England abandoning the European Union, German Chancellor Angela Merkel struggling to form a coalition government and Emmanuel Macron bringing a new face to the government of France.

"Nationalism, populism everywhere," Hagel said.

As for Trump himself, Hagel emailed a blunt assessment one day following the interview after the president asked congressional leaders why the United States should be open and welcoming to immigrants from "shithole countries" like Haiti and in Africa.

"Donald Trump is doing great damage to our country internationally," Hagel said. "He's an embarrassment."

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