Former CIA Director John Brennan defended his strident criticism of President Trump Friday and said it's justified because Trump is a political aberration and "not in a good way."

"It is abnormal for us to speak out as critically and as vocally as we have, but these are abnormal times and he is an abnormal president. He's an aberration and not in a good way," Brennan, an MSNBC contributor, said during the cable news network's "Morning Joe" program.

"As former national security officials and nonpartisans, we are very, very concerned that what we're seeing here is something that we have seen in other countries around the globe, which really led to the degradation of democratic principles as well as the standards of governance. That should not be happening here, this is the United States of America," he said.





Brennan's comments followed the Friday publication of his first op-ed piece since leaving government, in which he wrote that he disapproves of Trump because Trump is "failing to live up to the standards that we should all expect of a president."

"As someone who had the rare privilege of directly serving four presidents, I will continue to speak out loudly and critically until integrity, decency, wisdom — and maybe even some humility — return to the White House," Brennan wrote in the Washington Post.

Brennan served as CIA director from March 2013 to January 2017 under former President Barack Obama, but was also acting director of the National Counterterrorism Center from 2004 to 2005 during the George W. Bush administration.

In addition, he worked as a CIA analyst under the George H.W. Bush presidency and gave former President Bill Clinton his daily intelligence briefing.