President Donald Trump asks intelligence officials to give him oral presentations of the President’s Daily Briefing rather than reading the brief himself, as most previous presidents have done, The Washington Post reported on Friday.
Trump prefers to rely on oral presentations — featuring graphics, videos and maps —rather than reading the report because that’s his “style of learning,” the Washington Post reported, citing an unnamed source with knowledge of the situation.
He asks “edge” questions during the oral presentations, an unnamed senior administration official told the Washington Post, and has complained that briefers are “talking down to him.”
Other unnamed officials told the Washington Post that Trump asks direct questions of his briefers such as, “Why can’t I just pull out of Afghanistan?”
The daily briefing — which is a highly classified roundup of important intelligence, compiled before dawn — is typically delivered first thing in the morning. According to the Washington Post, Trump reportedly receives the in-person briefing he prefers once every two or three days. The last president who may not have regularly read the intelligence briefing was Richard Nixon.
During his presidential transition in 2016, Trump turned away opportunities to be briefed on classified intelligence.
“You know, I’m, like, a smart person,” he said in December 2016.“I don’t have to be told the same thing in the same words every single day for the next eight years.”
A month later, Trump said that his briefings on global threats made him realize that he has “got to get it right,” but indicated that he preferred to see those global issues summed up in one-page briefings in listicle form.
“I like bullets or I like as little as possible,” he said. “I don’t need, you know, 200-page reports on something that can be handled on a page. That I can tell you.”
And gets “edge” answers in return. G-d is he dumber than shit. My apologies to shit.
“…talking down to him”?
What, too many multi-syllable words? Overuse of the phrase “as every simpleton knows…”?
Resentment about pop quizzes in the form of international crisis?
What a chump. We’re doomed.
The Post is still overstating what really happens.
The intelligence officials don’t actually tell him anything … they just make sure the TV is tuned to Fox.
Donnie’s chief advisor’s are apparently Punch and Judy from FUX News
The only way to get Trump to really pay attention to the daily intel briefing is to broadcast it on Fox & Friends.