Trump's weekly intelligence briefings: How unusual for a president-elect?

The president-elect's decision breaks from the tradition set by recent predecessors, but is not out of step with his broader, unorthodox run-up to the presidency.

|
Charlie Neibergall/AP
President-elect Donald Trump speaks to supporters during a rally in Des Moines, Iowa, on Thursday.

President-elect Donald Trump is only taking around one presidential intelligence briefing per week, according to intelligence officials, despite most recent former presidents opting to receive them regularly.

The Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) is the nation’s most heavily classified and tightly circulated document. Although they are not compulsory, recent presidents-elect have generally welcomed them.

A Trump transition staffer said Mr. Trump has received “routine” PDBs and a few other special briefings, while Vice-President-elect Mike Pence, who is also entitled to receive the PDB, has been doing so about six days a week, according to Reuters.

The PDB is the same one President Obama gets and contains secrets including information about US espionage sources and covert offshore operations.

While unorthodox, Trump’s break with tradition is not out of step with many other aspects of his run-up to the presidency, which has included a very frequent and public revolving door of potential cabinet appointments, and his use of Twitter to stay in control of his message by bypassing the traditional media.

“He tweets with abandon, going over the heads of the mainstream media and straight to his public; and he says he’ll keep doing so after taking office,” The Christian Science Monitor’s Linda Feldmann wrote recently. “He has conducted his Cabinet search out in the open, like a casting call for ‘The Apprentice,’ as applicants (and well-wishers) come and go through the lobby of Trump Tower.”

Ms. Feldmann added that while Trump has tempered his unusual approach with high-level appointments pleasing to the Republican establishment, such as national party chairman Reince Priebus as his chief of staff and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley as United Nations ambassador, his “maverick, populist side remains supremely important.”

Historically, Trump and Mr. Pence’s predecessors received "daily or near-daily intelligence briefings" between their election and Inauguration day, former Central Intelligence Agency briefer David Priess, the author of a book about PDBs, told Reuters.

But Mr. Priess added that some presidents-elect made variations. Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan did not start getting their daily briefings until late November, while the delayed election result in the 2000 run-off between George W. Bush and Al Gore meant Mr. Bush did not start receiving his until December. After his first election, Richard Nixon turned down face-to-face briefings, instead having paper PDBs delivered to his office. A "stack" of them were later returned unopened to the CIA.

Representatives of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence deliver PDBs to presidents and their closest aides.

Trump's apparently casual approach to the briefings drew criticism from Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.

"It is deeply disturbing that the president-elect has time for rallies but not for regular intelligence briefings," Mr. Schiff said.

This report contains material from Reuters.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Trump's weekly intelligence briefings: How unusual for a president-elect?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2016/1209/Trump-s-weekly-intelligence-briefings-How-unusual-for-a-president-elect
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe