President Obama’s former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said Wednesday that President Trump could be a great president if he listens to his advisers and rein in his “unhealthy impulses.”
Johnson said on MSNBC Wednesday Trump has the potential to create great moments like President Nixon visiting China or President Reagan visiting the Soviet Union. But in order to get to that point he needs to clean up some of his behavior.
“I actually believe that Donald Trump … has the potential to be a great president in sort of the Nixon goes to China or Reagan goes to the Soviet Union way, if he can find a way to rein in some of the more unhealthy impulses, listen to his staff, bring on a full complement of political employees who will help him govern,” Johnson said.
Johnson listed Trump’s impulsive tweets, which have led to international incidents and domestic embarrassments, as one of his big problems.
“I’m very concerned about the tweets and very concerned about the direction we’re taking in a lot of national security areas,” he said.
Johnson said the executive orders issued by the Trump administration limiting immigration from several Muslim-majority countries are not a great idea, and his new law firm has filed amicus briefs on behalf of clients against them.
He said Trump appears to still be responding to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks instead of worrying about the next one.
“We need to focus on home-grown, home-born violent extremism,” he said.
