Washington (CNN) President Donald Trump's level of presidential concern for military families mourning loved ones has proven "inconsistent" with previous presidents in the same position, former CIA Director John Brennan said Wednesday.

Brennan reflected during a question-and-answer session at Fordham University law school on his experiences observing Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama "at times of great pain and anguish" after US citizens' lives had been lost.

"The solemnity with which they treated those situations and interacted with families and loved ones and just how important that responsibility was ... I was very impressed that all of them acted so presidential in those cases," Brennan said.

Trump has been flooded with criticism after it took the White House nearly two weeks to openly comment on the deaths four US service members killed in Niger during an ambush. Some of Trump's actions -- suggesting falsely that Obama had not contacted Gold Star families and, according to Democratic Rep. Frederica Wilson, telling a grieving widow that her husband "knew what he signed up for" -- did not show that "type of respect" to military families, Brennan suggested.

"Mr. Trump has his own ways of dealing with things that I see as inconsistent with what some of his predecessors have done and how they've treated it," Brennan said. "I'm not going to dignify in any way some of the comments that have been made, which I think does not underscore the importance, the significance the sacrifice of these individuals."

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