Retired Gen. Michael Hayden, who directed the CIA and the NSA during his career but has since become a partisan clown, CNN talking head, and member of the advisory board for establishment media watchdog NewsGuard, recently agreed that even compared to other movements around the world, Republicans are the most “nihilistic, dangerous, and contemptible.”

This allegation means that in Hayden’s worldview, Republicans outrank Al Qaeda, ISIS, and the Chinese Communist Party among others in terms of their danger to the world.

Hayden made his comment in response to Financial Times associate editor Michael Luce, who said “I’ve covered extremism and violent ideologies around the world over my career. Have never come across a political force more nihilistic, dangerous & contemptible than today’s Republicans. Nothing close.”

Steven Brill and Gordon Crovitz, co-CEOs of NewsGuard (D Dipasupil and Stephen Chernin /Getty)

“I agree,” responded Hayden. “And I was the CIA director.”

Hayden’s comments reinforce the picture of a national security deep state that has become overwhelmingly partisan, viewing half of the country as a threat.

It will also add to evidence that NewsGuard, the establishment media watchdog that purports to fairly rate the trustworthiness of news sources but consistently trashes conservative media, is also a partisan outfit intended to quash and delegitimize dissent.

Hayden, who is a member of NewsGuard’s advisory board, is a spreader of false news narratives himself, having failed to retract his claim that the infamous Hunter Biden laptop story is “Russian disinformation.”

In a comment to Breitbart News, NewsGuard general manager Matt Skibinski emphasized that Hayden plays no rule in determining its ranking of news sources.

“As we disclose on our website, we have advisors across the political spectrum,” said Skibinski. “NewsGuard’s advisors, which include a former Secretary General of NATO and the first Direct of Homeland Security, under President George W. Bush, “provide advice and subject-matter expertise to NewsGuard. They play no role in the determinations of ratings or the Nutrition Label write ups of websites unless otherwise noted and have no role in the governance or management of the organization.”

Hayden is also a principal for strategic advisory services at the Chertoff Group, a consulting firm headed by another stalwart of the national security state, former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff.

Chertoff was the man the Biden administration tapped to “review and assess” the future of the DHS “disinformation governance board,” a project of Biden’s DHS that quickly became farcical after its appointed head, Nina Jankowicz, was exposed as a far-left loon who made pro-censorship sing-song TikTok videos.

In a comment to Breitbart News, a spokeswoman for the Chertoff Group distanced the company from Hayden’s remarks.

“General Hayden’s tweets are his own and do not reflect the firm,” said the Chertoff Group.

Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. He is the author of #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election.