The former deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation says President Donald Trump’s latest comments encouraging foreign election interference “reaffirms” why the FBI began a counter-intelligence investigation.

Andrew McCabe was interviewed on Thursday on “Deadline: White House” by host Nicolle Wallace and warned Trump may be a current threat to United States national security.

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“Donald Trump spilled the beans saying you don’t call the FBI if a foreign government tries to aid your campaign. Calling his own hand-picked FBI director ‘wrong’ for saying any offered dirt from Russia should call the FBI and making clear to the entire world, that if Russia is still listening or anybody else for that matter the door to his office is wide open for 2020 and he’s ready to talk and listen to any foreign power willing to help the politically weakened and historically unpopular president,” Wallace reported.

The host played a clip of Trump’s comments.

“Your reaction, your thoughts?” she asked.

“It’s incredible,” McCabe replied.

“It lays bare what the president was likely thinking as a candidate,” he deduced.

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“I’m struck as to where to even start. His comments that you don’t call the FBI? Actually, you do,” he explained. “If you care about the safety and security of this country, if you care about the integrity of our electoral system you do call the FBI because that’s what the FBI does.”

McCabe reminded of the origins of the investigation.

“We knew Trump was upset about the fact we were investigating that activity. He specifically asked us to stop investigating that activity and when we didn’t follow his requests, he fired the director,” he reminded.

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“So at that point we had to consider the very real prospect that the president might be presenting a threat to national security,” he noted. “I have to tell you the comments I heard yesterday only reaffirm for me the concerns that we had in May of 2017.”

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