08 July 2020

"Unbriefable"

From an op-ed at the Washington Post:
How does Trump absorb information? For decades, the president’s daily briefs (PDBs) have sounded early warnings on everything from enemy troop movements to pandemics to terrorist attacks. Yet under Trump, the president’s intelligence briefings have almost completely broken down. His oral briefings, given daily to most presidents, now take place as rarely as once or twice a week. These sessions often turn into monologues in which the president spitballs woolly conspiracy theories from Breitbart, Fox News and hangers-on at Mar-a-Lago, say intelligence officials who are familiar with his briefings. Convinced that the intelligence community is a “deep state,” honeycombed with traitors, the president rarely believes anything the CIA tells him... 
Trump’s current briefer, Beth Sanner, a highly regarded, 30-year CIA veteran, has endured a bumpier ride than Gistaro. When news broke that the alleged Russian bounties were included in the PDB, the Trump administration issued its usual denials and obfuscations. First, the president claimed the so-called reports were fake news. Then, he told Fox News that the intelligence was not credible enough to be in the PDB. Then the story changed again: If the intelligence was in the PDB, the White House said, his briefer didn’t bring it to Trump’s attention... 
The president is unbriefable. He will not listen to anything he does not want to hear.

1 comment:

  1. From what I have read from other former members of the administration, his briefings have to be kept down to one page, per his order, and they have to say his name in the briefing every two sentences or he stops reading. If there was any doubts as to what is important to Trump, this would answer it. The only thing that matters to Trump is Trump. If you believe he cares about you or this country, you are deluding yourself.

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