“Right now, that's dysfunctional, and that's what worries me a great deal," Leon Panetta said. Panetta warns Trump's National Security Council is 'dysfunctional'

Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta says he's concerned about the fractured national security structure and lack of preparedness within the new Trump administration to handle a crisis.

“The thing that you worry about a great deal, particularly now with the loss of a national security adviser, you don't have somebody in that place,” Panetta said in an interview Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press."


“The National Security Council hasn't even met formally,” Panetta said.

Panetta cautioned that the system in place to inform President Donald Trump about national security issues is currently “dysfunctional,” suggesting the critical White House apparatus to handle the nation's security is broken.

“What happens if there's a major crisis that faces this country? If Russia engages in a provocation, if Iran does something stupid, if North Korea does something stupid and we have to respond, where is the structure to be able to evaluate that threat, consider it and provide options to the president?"

“Right now, that's dysfunctional, and that's what worries me a great deal.”

Panetta, who was also director of the CIA under President Barack Obama, doubled down on his concerns about Trump’s sustained praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“It’s a concern when the president continues to kind of apologize for the Russians and what they're doing,” Panetta said.

Asked whether Russia should be considered a chief U.S. adversary, Panetta responded bluntly “without question.”

“If he listens to the people that are closest to him now, and that are responsible for our foreign policy and our defense policy, he'll understand that Russia is an adversary, it's not a friend," Panetta said. "Their main purpose is to destabilize the United States and Western democracies. And they've shown that in everything they've done.”