Trump Regime

Trump Stops Taking Intelligence Briefings

Written by SK Ashby

Remember when Trump downplayed the significance of Russia's bounty program on American troops by claiming he never heard of it? There was weeklong circus in which various members of the Trump regime could not even agree among themselves if Trump had been briefed or not.

In any case, that may be Trump's excuse for refusing to respond to anything else that happens between now and the end of his term.

Trump only accepted three "daily" intelligence briefings in all of July and only one so far this month.

Trump went from a high of 4.1 briefings per week on average in March 2017 to 0.7 per week since July 1, shortly after it became public that he had ignored intelligence reports about Russia offering bounties to the Taliban for each American soldier killed in Afghanistan.

Monday’s briefing, in fact, was the first in August and the first since July 22. That month had only three briefings scheduled. [...]

Both of Trump’s immediate predecessors took daily briefings in the White House. Republican George W. Bush typically had his shortly after his arrival in the Oval Office at 6:45 a.m. each day. Democrat Barack Obama had the written material, known as the “President’s Daily Brief,” loaded onto his iPad by 6 a.m. each day, when he would read it prior to the in-person session later in the morning.

Can we even call it the President's Daily Brief (PDB) if the president skips 27 out of 30 days?

It may be true that if you read the news on a daily basis -- if you read the World or Foreign Policy sections of virtually any outlet -- you are more informed than the goddamn President of the United States.

Actually, that may be true even if Trump received a briefing every single day. Absorbing or accurately recalling details is not really his thing.

For what it's worth, my own version of a daily brief usually comes from Reuters which does excellent, clear reporting; much better than the Associated Press (AP) in my opinion. The editorial direction of the AP is to avoid offensive wording whenever possible even if the contents or subjects of the report are actually offensive. This means their reporting does not always convey the seriousness or severity of a situation. Trying too hard to avoid offending a government or subject of investigation removes clarity.