In a disturbing declaration during Monday’s CNN Newsroom following President Trump’s controversial press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin, CNN analyst and former CIA/FBI official Philip Mudd called for a self-appointed “shadow government” to step forward and counter the democratically elected one. He then had the audacity to complain about “Trumpianism” fighting Americanism.

Fresh off of declaring the Trump-Putin press conference “one of the most disgraceful performances” by an American president, AC360 host Anderson Cooper completed the CNN’s feedback loop by touting Arizona Republican Senator John McCain saying the same thing. He then turned to Mudd and asked if he agreed.

Of course, Mudd did but his next concern was in regards to who was going to step up to oppose the President. “You have seen senators come out. In the past, we have seen the senator who is in the midst of a painful illness, Senator McCain. Senators like Jeff Flake who are leaving the Senate. Now you see Marco Rubio still, obviously, in the fight speaking out,” he boasted.

He spoke glowingly about how there were many people at different levels of government who were saying and doing things contrary to the President. “Curious point in American government. When do we see almost a shadow government come out and say, ‘We cannot side with the government, whether its cabinet or the Senate.’ I think that's the big question,” he opined.

A short time later, Cooper started spouting off about how Trump didn’t really know what he was doing because he never reads his briefings and dubbed him an embarrassment to the country:

Nobody around the President knows what he is going to do. They give him briefing papers. He doesn't read them. He goes exactly what he thinks. He goes with his gut. His gut might have gotten him elected president but it certainly embarrasses the country on the world stage.

Cooper would go on to suggest that President Trump had sullied President Reagan’s “shining city on a hill.” and proclaimed that the world could no longer count on America to “speak truth to power, to raise human rights, to stand tall in the face of tyranny. You don’t hear that from the United States now.”

Playing off of Cooper, Mudd argued that President Trump had more in common with foreign despots than American values. “What's the message to you in that pattern? ‘I trust people who think like I do. I don't like CNN and I don't like Democrats. These people can operate like I want to operate. The EU, the Canadians, the Mexicans can't. Let me side with people who don’t represent American principles. But represent Trumpian principles,’” he said citing Trump’s comments about such leaders.

“It's Trumpianism versus Americanism,” Mudd bitterly spat. For all his whining about Trump being un-American, what about pushing for a “shadow government” is American?

The transcript is below, click "expand" to read: