Former CIA chief says he is ‘increasingly embarrassed’ to be a white man

John Brennan says ‘there are so few Republicans in Congress who value truth, honesty, and integrity’

Former CIA boss John Brennan said on MSNBC that he's "increasingly embarrassed" to be a white man considering the actions he saw during CPAC.

The topic being discussed on Monday was last weekend's Conservative Political Action Conference, its focus on "cancel culture" and the conspiratorial lens through which the Capitol riot on 6 January was handled.

MSNBC anchor Nicole Wallace said that the Republican Party was hypocritical when claiming that they are the party of law enforcement after the events of 6 January, considering how some Republicans have been speaking about the event in its aftermath.

Mr Brennan said: “I’m increasingly embarrassed to be a white male these days with what I see other white males say."

He added: “With very few exceptions, like Mitt Romney, Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, there are so few Republicans in Congress who value truth, honesty, and integrity."

Former Missouri Senator Democrat Claire McKaskill said earlier in the exchange: “I have never seen so many whiny white men calling themselves victims as I saw over the weekend at CPAC. These are all people that think they have a huge grievance from a position of significant privilege."

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Mr Brennan said that Republicans will "continue to gaslight the country the way that Donald Trump did".

He continued: "This has security and safety implications for the American public and members of Congress ... it is just a disgusting display of craven politics that really should have no place in the United States in 2021."

New York Times justice correspondent Katie Benner said: "I think what we're seeing right now is a trade-off between national security and power, the amassing of power. I don't actually think that what is happening right now at places like CPAC is irrational or illogical if all you care about is amassing power and continuing to control the future of the country.

"Republicans all over the country are putting forward new voting laws to try to disenfranchise more voters, to try to really control who can win, there's more gerrymandering than ever. They're using this idea of the big lie in many cases to support that new legislation," she said referring to Republicans claiming that President Donald Trump only lost the election because of widespread voter fraud despite a complete lack of evidence for this assertion.

She added: "Republicans are harming our own national security by not being truthful about what happened on January 6 in order to push forward a bigger and in their view more important goal which is control of the country."

The New York Times reported that state Republicans are using the lie that the election was stolen from Mr Trump to push for new voting laws and enhance their own power. A number of bills are being proposed, many targeting mail-in balloting, the voting method blasted by Mr Trump for months before and after the election, and as a result, was mostly used by Democrats.