Former CIA agent John Sipher told MSNBC on Saturday that President Donald Trump and his Fox News enablers are functioning like Iranian government propagandists in their desire to create straw man enemies against which to pitch their base.

Regarding Trump’s attacks on the FBI, Sipher said, “I find those kind of statements shameful, frankly. Our public servants, they take an oath to the Constitution and they work for Democratic and Republican presidential administrations.”

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“People like the president and members of Congress and Senators, when they speak, they’re speaking to numerous audiences. They’re speaking to foreign audiences who are listening closely,” Sipher said. “They’re speaking as the head of the government to all the people who work for them.”

However, he said, Trump and people like Rep. Francis Rooney (R-FL) — who called for a “purge” of personnel from the FBI last week — are “speaking to a small base of people who want, just like the Iranians do, to create a straw man enemy.”

“They’ve tried to suggest that the FBI, CIA and the Justice Department somehow are an enemy of the administration and therefore need to be taken down,” he said. “That’s just nonsense, is what that is.”

Watch the video, embedded below: