Trump suggests that the venerable commander of SEAL Navy should have found bin Laden more quickly

President Trump has mocked retired Admiral William H. McRaven as a "Hillary Clinton fan" and "Obama supporter" and has suggested that he should not go out of his way. former revered chief of the US Special Operations Command should have apprehended Osama bin Laden more quickly.

The comments of the president in an interview with Chris Wallace in "Fox News Sunday" represent the latest point of tension between Trump and a group of retired general officers who have publicly criticized the commander-in-chief for his management of the national security. military issues.

McRaven, a retired Navy SEAL, oversaw the 2011 operation that killed bin Laden at a complex in Abbottabad, Pakistan. After the revocation of the security clearance of former CIA director John Brennan this summer, McRaven wrote an article in the Washington Post in which he defends Brennan as a man of a unparalleled integrity. He also asked the president to revoke his authorization by solidarity. McRaven also criticized Trump more broadly.

"Like most Americans, I had hoped that when you became president, you would be up to the situation and become the leader this great nation needs," wrote McRaven. "A good leader tries to embody the best qualities of his organization. A good leader gives the example to others. A good leader always puts the well-being of others before himself. "

"Your leadership, however, has shown few of these qualities," added McRaven. "By your actions, you have embarrassed us in the eyes of our children, we have been humiliated on the world stage and, even worse, we have divided as a nation."

The comment was a rare public reprimand by a former senior officer, most of whom tend to remain silent on political issues after retiring, and incessant appeals to McRaven to run for office.

On Sunday, about three months later, Trump fought back against the retired admiral when Wallace spoke about it during the interview.

"Bill McRaven, retired admiral, Navy SEAL, 37, former chief of US special operations, who led the operations, commanded operations that killed Saddam Hussein and killed Osama Bin Laden. This feeling is the biggest threat to democracy. in his life, "said Wallace, while Trump interrupted him to call the former commander-in-chief a" Hillary Clinton fan. "

Trump then accused McRaven of not finding Bin Laden fast enough.

"Would not it have been nice if we had Osama bin Laden much earlier than that, would not it have been nice?" Said the president. "You know, living – think about this – living in Pakistan, admirably in Pakistan, in what I suppose, they considered a beautiful mansion, I do not know, I saw more beautiful.But living in Pakistan right next to the military academy, everyone knew that he was there. "

McRaven did not immediately respond to requests for comments on Sunday.

This is not the first time that the tension between Trump and retired army officers is spreading in public.

Earlier this month, Martin Dempsey, former president of the Joint Staff, joined with other retired officers to participate in the deployment of thousands of Trump soldiers to the United States. Mexican border week of mid-term elections. Dempsey called the operation a show of force against the caravans of Central American migrants traveling from the north to the US border, a "useless deployment of soldiers and oversized marines".

During the 2016 campaign, Trump attacked retired Marine Corps general John Allen for his support of Clinton, describing the former commander of the NATO-led Afghanistan mission as "A bankrupt general".

McRaven was chancellor of the University of Texas after leaving the military, but resigned this year for health reasons. He suffers from chronic lymphocytic leukemia, a type of slow-growing blood cancer diagnosed in 2010 while he was in Afghanistan. .