Chertoff on Trump's ability to handle a crisis: 'I'd be guessing'
The former DHS secretary isn't sure whether this White House is prepared to deal with a terror attack.
By EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE 03/06/17 05:22 AM EST
When I ask Michael Chertoff, the secretary of Homeland Security during President George W. Bush’s second term, whether he wakes up in the morning feeling safe, given what he’s seeing out of the White House, he talks about a lot of people: John Kelly, the man doing Chertoff’s old job as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security; Defense Secretary James Mattis; and what Chertoff calls the “strong architecture of security.”
He does not, however, cite President Donald Trump, a man whom he called “hysterical” during the campaign. Chertoff said during the transition that he’d been somewhat reassured, and now clearly has a tense mix of feelings.
It’s critical in a crisis for the White House to get out of the way of security professionals, Chertoff said. Bush and his aides were good at that, he explained. He doesn’t know if Trump and his team would be.
“You know, I’d be guessing,” he said.
“I draw comfort from the fact that the leaders of the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security have military experience, they’ve been in combat, they’re not going to get flustered, they understand how to make things work operationally,” Chertoff said in a conversation for the “Off Message” podcast at his firm’s offices, a few blocks from the White House. “And that’s cause for optimism, provided that, you know, you don’t get young kids in the White House trying to get in the way and play cowboy.”
Sometimes, though, it’s the president who seems to be leading the administration’s off-the-cuff approach to policy-making and messaging—as he did this weekend with his tweets alleging, without citing evidence, that President Barack Obama wiretapped Trump Tower.
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http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/trump-chertoff-security-off-message-235702