GOP lawmaker stumbles on CNN when asked to defend Trump lying about intel chief's Senate testimony

On Tuesday, several top U.S. intelligence officers gave testimony to Congress in which they contradicted some of President Donald Trump's claims about Russia, ISIS and North Korea.

Trump later criticized his own top intelligence officers, suggesting they should go back to school if they didn't agree with him.

On Friday, CNN host Wolf Blitzer invited Rep. Chris Stewart (R-UT) on to discuss Trump's feuds with his intelligence chiefs.

"Are you worried this public feud it is damaging national security?" Blitzer asked.

"It is not helpful to the dialogue," Stewart said. "I don't think it's a big surprise to find out that some of our intelligence officials and the White House may have disagreements from time to time. It's happened in probably every previous administration... It is better if those disagreements are aired and talked about privately than in such a public manner. I do think one thing you said is absolutely true: When you take the entirety of their comments and entirety of their testimony before the Senate committee it didn't appear to be nearly as contradictory of what they stated previously."

"But when the president saw the clips, the actual video of what his intelligence chiefs said—whether about Russia, whether about ISIS, whether about North Korea," Blitzer said. "When he that he said maybe they should go back to school is that appropriate?"

"I don't know how much this the president saw—if he saw one or two clips that were on the news that day, which were very short, and didn't give context, or if he saw more broadly their testimony," he said.

"I've got to say, Congressman, and you and I know each other, I watched that entire two or three-hour hearing and those clips were not taken out of context," Blitzer said.

Watch below.