11 February 2018

Dumbed Down

One of the most important functions of a President since World War II is the daily intelligence briefing where top administrative officials prepare and present a detailed document, known as the President’s Daily Brief, which they review with the Commander in Chief. These are all important, pressing matters dealing with everything from terrorism to national security issues to international crises and more.

Past Presidents were known to spend considerable time each day and week reading and meeting about this critically important document.

Except Donald Trump.

In a story the Washington Post broke on Friday (link here), Trump has skipped reading nearly every brief. "He rarely if ever reads" it, the article reveals.

The piece continues: "The arrangement underscores Trump’s impatience with exhaustive classified documents that go to the commander in chief -- material that he has said he prefers condensed as much as possible. But by not reading the daily briefing, the president could hamper his ability to respond to crises in the most effective manner, intelligence experts warned."

Instead, intelligence officials give him very brief oral reports. Think of it as the Cliff's Notes version of critically important information.

These are augmented with photos, videos, and graphics. Something like a children's book.

And these aren't delivered daily, as happened with all previous Presidents. Trump only gets his every two or three days.

As the article notes, these dumbed-down mini-briefings leave the country vulnerable. "Several intelligence experts said that the president’s aversion to diving deeper into written intelligence details -- the “homework” that past presidents have done to familiarize themselves with foreign policy and national security -- makes both him and the country more vulnerable."

A former CIA director noted: "if for some reason his instincts on what should be done are not backed up by the intelligence because he hasn’t taken the time to read that intel, it increases the risk that he will make a mistake."

1 comment:

  1. This isn't surprising and even more, very scaring too.
    What kind of education has that «moron»?

    When I saw what was going on in the Pyeongchang Olympic opening and further on, it's not surprising that the other «moron», Mike Pence, was there looking like an idiot not even showing something to take advantage of the situation.

    USA was out of reached here and North Korea scored here in bright way.

    Another effect of those amateurs in the White House to give USA the leadership it had in the past.

    Stepping out also of the Paris accord was the first step that this moron administration did to isolate USA more.

    Make USA first but standing out of the global influence is not the way to «Make America Great Again».
    It's only «Making America Weaker More».

    What I'm expecting is that with the hand offered by North Korea to the South Korea, those two will do better for the Peace in the peninsula and USA will be left out of it.
    USA, with all the bad things tweeted by this «45» moron against Kim Jung Hun, will have proven that it's no more the BIG power trying to rule the entire world.

    China, Russia, France, Germany are countries that are taking more place now.

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