If Donald Trump is serious about wanting to waterboard terrorists, he'd better bring his own bucket, former CIA director Michael Hayden says, because the CIA isn't going down that road again.

Hayden's pithy line, which he first uttered in a Showtime documentary and repeated to NBC News, underscores a serious issue: the GOP frontrunner has vowed to bring back torture if he becomes president, but current and former CIA officials say the agency feels so burned by what happened when its post 9/11 interrogation program was exposed that it would refuse any such orders.

"Multiple investigations, grand juries, presidential condemnations, and congressional star chambers have a way of doing that to you," Hayden, who was CIA director at the end of the George W. Bush administration, told NBC News.

He then offered an even stronger version of his Showtime quote. "Like the man said, if you want somebody waterboarded, bring your own damn bucket."

Trump said Wednesday he is convinced that "torture works," so he would bring back waterboarding and "much stronger" methods. Other Republican candidates haven't been as explicit, but some have called for bringing back the harsh interrogations that were repudiated by President Obama when he took office. Cont.

Story from - NBC News