Former Vice President Dick Cheney accused President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder of "playing the race card" to deflect criticism.
"I think they're playing the race card, in my view," Cheney said in an interview with Playboy magazine, reported The Washington Times. "Certainly we haven't given up - nor should we give up - the right to criticize an administration and public officials."
Cheney, who has been one of the president's most aggressive antagonists, emphasized that his criticism of Obama and Holder has nothing to do with race.
"To say that we criticize, or that I criticize, Barack Obama or Eric Holder because of race, I just think it's obviously not true. My view of it is the criticism is merited because of performance - or lack of performance, because of incompetence. It hasn't got anything to do with race," he said.
Holder recently suggested in an interview with Politico that he felt some congressional Republicans' disapproval may have partially been motivated by race.
Obama echoed similar sentiments last year, telling The New Yorker, "There's no doubt that there's some folks who just really dislike me because they don't like the idea of a black president."
In the Playboy interview, Cheney also called Obama "the worst president in my lifetime, without question - and that's saying something."
"I used to have significant criticism of Jimmy Carter, but compared to Barack Obama and the damage he is doing to the nation - it's a tragedy, a real tragedy, and we are going to pay a hell of a price just trying to dig out from under his presidency," he said.
Cheney was especially critical of what he sees as a rollback of Bush administration policies when it comes to foreign policy, particularly the war in Iraq, reported Bloomberg.
"Our friends no longer trust us, and our adversaries no longer fear us," he said. "We've created a huge vacuum in that part of the world, and ISIS has moved in big time."
Cheney said that withdrawing from Iran "was a huge mistake; we are paying a price for it now," adding that Obama treats the war on terrorism as a "law-enforcement problem."
"He's having to go back in now, and the guy who campaigned on the basis of bring the boys home and get out of Iraq is now redeploying forces to Iraq ... He's crippling the capacity of future presidents to deal with future crises," Cheney said.
