Former President Bill Clinton said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that he understands why the Tea Party is popular with many Americans, but some parts of the ideology of the party could prove to be detrimental to America as a whole, according to AOL Politics Daily.

“I think that, first of all, the tea party insurrection…that you see in these Republican primaries, reflects the feeling of a lot of Americans that they’re getting the shaft,” he said. Because of the bank meltdown and the fall of the economy, “there is a general revolt against bigness which in the case of the Republicans is always directed more against the government than the private sector. It’s totally understandable,” he said.

But, he is also worried that the party movement is “being bankrolled by people who want to weaken the government so that there will be even more unaccounted for private concentration of power. And that’s what got us in the mess we’re in [in] the first place.”

When responding to a question about President Obama’s low approval numbers, Clinton said that in a better political climate, accomplishments in legislation Obama would have achieved would be better received by the public. But, he said, the problem is that it takes a while for people to actually the feel the results of legislation when the country is in such a deep hole.

You can read the whole report from AOL’s Politics Daily here.