Former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) urged President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday to take daily intelligence briefings, a practice he’s so far mostly avoided.
“I would recommend that Donald Trump take his security briefs. I don’t know why he’s not. I didn’t talk to him about it,” Santorum told CNN’s John Berman.
“I haven’t talked to him about it, but this is a very important part of being the President of the United States, and hopefully at some point he’ll begin to get into that routine and understand how important it is for him to understand all of the threats that are confronting this country and understand the nuances that come with a daily brief, and to get the, the inside, you know, information as to what these organizations and individuals are doing around the world that threaten the United States,” he continued. “I very much encourage him to take those briefs and take them very seriously.”
Last week, RNC communications director Sean Spicer told reporters that Trump is receiving official intelligence briefings three times a week. Meanwhile, Vice President-elect Mike Pence is receiving daily briefings, and Trump receives second-hand briefings from incoming national security adviser and retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Spicer said.
Trump’s minimal information diet has shown itself in recent days. On Saturday night, he wrote on Twitter: “We should tell China that we don’t want the drone they stole back.- let them keep it!” hours after China promised to return an underwater drone it had stolen to the United States.
And Monday, Trump tweeted: “Today there were terror attacks in Turkey, Switzerland and Germany – and it is only getting worse. The civilized world must change thinking!” despite little evidence at the time establishing a motive behind each attack.
On that question, though, Santorum was bullish on Tuesday. Asked about Trump’s tweet in the specific circumstance of a truck attack on a German Christmas market, he said: “An attack on Christians at a Christmas celebration; if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it’s probably a duck.”
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