It also made our partners incredibly nervous. So much of our intelligence is derived from partners that it’s hard to ensure that any information passed to the Russians would not violate agreements with those partners about the way the information would be used. I can only imagine how intelligence services across the globe are now re-thinking how and what to share with the Americans. Can any Republican stand in front of a television and argue to the American people that this keeps them safer at night?

Second, this completely undermines the relationship between the president and his intelligence community, which had recovered over the past few months from the low point—and I can’t believe this was just a few months ago—when the president compared the Central Intelligence Agency to Nazis and then used its memorial wall as the background to a political speech.

I asked a friend at the CIA how things were going with the new president in January. He replied sarcastically that since the CIA basically needs the president to do only two things—safeguard its secrets and clandestine programs and read his President’s Daily Brief—things were going swimmingly. The CIA had already resigned itself to the incurious nature of this president but now has to contend with a president who also demolishes its most valuable intelligence-sharing relationships by chatting about sensitive intelligence with—of all people, come on man—the Russians.

I was heartened to see my fellow Chattanoogan Bob Corker offer some of the more critical comments from a Republican in response to this latest scandal, worrying the White House was in a “downward spiral” and adding that “the White House has got to do something soon to bring itself under control and in order.”

But even those comments misdiagnose the problem: The problem is not “the White House.” There is no executive branch process or structure you can erect around this president to prevent his type of stuff from happening. The problem is neither the process nor the staff. It’s the president himself.

We, as citizens, live under the constitution written by our forefathers, and unless the president gets bored and quits, we’re likely going to have to endure the damage this man will do for another three-and-a-half years.

But I hope the American people never forget this moment when one of our great political parties hitched its fortunes to a man whose temperament and disposition threatens the very security of our nation. If this reporting is accurate, the president’s actions amount to egregious, dangerous behavior, and any Republican who doesn’t speak up loudly against it forfeits his or her right to be taken seriously on issues of national security.

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