Former CIA chief Hayden: Trump will have to bring own bucket to waterboard

When it comes to Donald Trump's repeated calls for waterboarding and other forms of enhanced interrogation, Michael Hayden, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency, has been clear: The military would likely ignore his orders. But the retired four-star general who served as CIA director under both President George W. Bush and Barack Obama said Thursday that if Trump wants to waterboard suspected terrorists, he will have to bring his own bucket.

In an interview with “CBS This Morning,” Hayden criticized Trump's language following terrorist attacks by the Islamic State that “in essence” represented a “tactical success for our enemy” but that Trump “elevated ... to this realm where they can claim strategic success.”


When co-anchor Norah O'Donnell referred to Hayden’s past comment that the next president or next CIA director would have to bring his own bucket to interrogate in such a situation, Hayden affirmed that Trump would have to do as much if he wanted to bring back the tactic.

“Yeah. Look, this is one of those instances coming out of the [National Security Council] meeting, you’d say, look, we are kind of changing the game plan. We got the attorney general to agree to an interpretation of the one law that does make it illegal, and we want you guys to go do this,” Hayden explained. “At that point, the director is going to have to man up and simply say, for the protection of my officers, I'm afraid, Mr. President, I cannot direct that.”

Trump reiterated his call for waterboarding Tuesday while campaigning in Ohio in the aftermath of the latest terrorist attack in Istanbul that killed more than 40 people and injured hundreds.

“I have said we are not going to do that, and that is not disowning what the agency did before, but the law has changed,” Hayden said. "And frankly, the agency feels betrayed by the broader political structure, having done something they thought the broader political structure wanted done and then found out back here that, well, not so much. So I don't think when [current CIA Director] John Brennan says they are not going to do it, Mike Hayden says, you ask [former Director of Central Intelligence] George Tenet, if the agency’s ever going to do this again? We all go, not it's not, but that is not a disowning of what happened before."

Hayden added that he could not support Trump for president, remarking that his thinking has suggested "courses of action that I think would be destructive for our country and our allies and the world. And I see no tacking back after securing the nomination, no learning curve coming back with that was this, this is now.

"It represents the majority of opinion in that part of the field that I communicate with," the former CIA director said.

As far as Hillary Clinton is concerned, Hayden said the former secretary of state "might be a little stronger than the current president" with respect to national security and preventing terrorism.

"On the other hand, I got a whole bunch of stuff over here and a whole bunch of stuff over here that still has to legitimately influence my vote," Hayden said, referencing his concern about the Supreme Court.

Asked about Republican national security figures who have fallen in line behind Clinton, Hayden indicated that he believed even more would step forward after the conventions and make clear their feelings about who is better qualified to handle national security.

"I don't know that you get to the Hank Paulson, Brent Scowcroft, I'm voting for the Democrat," he said, referring to two Republicans in past administrations publicly backing Clinton, while adding, "but I do think you'll get an awful lot of folks, [who’ll say] I can't work over here."