UGH: Trump is now calling out his own intelligence officials!

President Trump begins the day publicly chastising his own intelligence officials, calling them “extremely passive and naive” and telling them they need to go back to school:

The Intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran. They are wrong! When I became President Iran was making trouble all over the Middle East, and beyond. Since ending the terrible Iran Nuclear Deal, they are MUCH different, but….

….a source of potential danger and conflict. They are testing Rockets (last week) and more, and are coming very close to the edge. There economy is now crashing, which is the only thing holding them back. Be careful of Iran. Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!

I do not like this at all. It’s fine if Trump wants to disagree with his intelligence officials, but to criticize them this way is very juvenile and unpresidential. He’d be better to call them to his office and tell them this face to face instead of publicly excoriating them like this.

What Trump is upset about is the assessment DNI Dan Coats brought to Congress yesterday on Iran:

Now let me discuss Iran. The Iranian regime will continue pursuing regional ambitions and improved military capabilities, even while its own economy is weakening by the day. Domestically, regime hardliners will be more emboldened to challenge rivals’ interests and we expect more unrest in Iran in recent months. Tehran continues to sponsor terrorism as the recent European arrests of Iranian operatives plotting attacks in Europe demonstrate. We expect Iran will continue supporting the Houthis in Yemen and Shia militants in Iraq while developing indigenous military capabilities that threaten U.S. forces and allies in the region.

Iran maintains the largest inventory of ballistic missiles in the Middle East. And while we do not believe Iran is currently undertaking activities we judge necessary to produce a nuclear device, Iranian officials have publicly threatened to push the boundaries of JCPOA restrictions if Iran does not gain the tangible financial benefits it expected from the deal. Iran’s efforts to consolidate its influence in Syria and arm Hezbollah have prompted Israeli airstrikes. These actions underscore our concerns for a long-term trajectory of Iranian influence in the region and the risk of conflict escalation.

This is their factual assessment. They aren’t saying that Iran isn’t dangerous. And they even admit that Iran is threatening to go back to their nuclear activity.

As soon as DNI Coats gave his assessment on Iran and N. Korea (which we wrote about yesterday), the media immediately blasted out headlines saying that Trump’s own intelligence officials contradicted him. That’s really what Trump is upset about. But instead of handling it maturely, he lashes out on Twitter at his intelligence officials.

The funny thing is that it sounds like Trump kinda agrees with DNI Coats. He admits they are “much different” since he nixed the Iran deal, even saying they are being held back by their crashing economy.