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CHUCK TODD: One of the things I used to do, when I had to travel overseas, professionally, is read those CIA -- the public fact sheets and CIA descriptions of the politics and what's happening in that country. How would the CIA assess the stability of the American government right now?... If it were assessing America as if it was another country?
JOHN BRENNAN: We would look at it as a very corrupt government that is under the sway, right now, of this powerful individual who has been able to just corrupt the institutions and the laws of that country.
CHUCK TODD: What would you say about the stability of the democracy?
JOHN BRENNAN: I think it's no longer, you know, a democracy, if an autocrat is -- has it in his hands. And people like Johnson and others are putty in his hands, which means that the democratic principles upon which this country are founded are, are eroding right now.