The one thing that struck me right off the bat was what Donald Trump said about Benghazi.There is this view out there that [Hillary Clinton] lied about what caused the attack, that she said it was the video.

If you were watching CNN, they were saying the NSA is listening to your phone calls. It's reading your emails. When you call your grandma in Arkansas, the NSA knows. All total bulls - t. They made the public more concerned about the privacy issue than the legitimate facts should have done.

As the briefer, my job is to carry CIA`s best information and best analysis to the president of the United States and make sure he understands it.

One of the lessons we've learned from the last 25 years of terrorism is that groups that have safe havens are able to develop external attack capabilities in a way that groups that don't have safe havens are not. So we need to find a way to squeeze them significantly in their safe haven. Taking away territory that really matters to them is really, really important because it prevents them from focusing on external attacks.

The [Edward] Snowden disclosures created this perception that people's privacy was being put at significant risk.

What I want you to know is that 'Zero Dark Thirty' is a dramatization, not a realistic portrayal of the facts.

Look at it from [Vladimir] Putin's perspective, right. He's a trained intelligence officer, worked for the KGB, very talented, manipulated people much smarter than Donald Trump. He played this perfectly, right. He saw that Donald Trump wanted to be complimented.