Growing number of officials in Washington are seeing Trump as a security risk, says former CIA operative

Republican Senator Bob Corker says the President's comments about other countries could put the US 'on the path to World War III'

Former US Independent presidential candidate Evan McMullin (Getty Images)

A former CIA operative has said there is a “growing consensus” in Washington that Donald Trump is a security risk.

Evan McMullin, who ran as an independent candidate in the 2016 general election, has been a fierce critic of the President.

“It took far too long, but the remarkable, growing consensus in Washington now seems to be that the president’s unfitness is a security risk,” Mr McMullin said on Twitter.

About an hour before, Mr McMullin had also tweeted a story reporting that Mr Trump told America’s national security leaders in July that he wanted a nearly tenfold increase of the US’s nuclear weapons arsenal.

The President’s comments had reportedly surprised and rattled some of his officials, according to NBC News.

Also this week, Republican Senator Bob Corker told the New York Times that some of the President’s remarks about other nations could put the US “on the path to World War III.”

Since Mr Trump took office in January, tensions between the US and North Korea, in particular, have escalated as the latter has continued to develop its ballistic and nuclear weapons programme.

The President has continuously attacked North Korea on Twitter and during speeches and comments to the press.

Along with labelling leader Kim Jong-un “little rocket man”, the President claimed in August that any threat from North Korea would be met with “fire and fury like the world has never seen”.

On Tuesday, the President dismissed Mr Corker’s warning against his brash rhetoric style, saying: “We were on the wrong path before.”

“All you have to do is take a look,” Mr Trump told reporters. “If you look over the last 25 years, through numerous administrations, we were on a path to a very big problem – a problem like this world has never seen. We’re on the right path right now, believe me.”