Director of National Security Tulsi Gabbard wants to turn President Donald Trump’s daily intel briefings into Fox News-type broadcasts because he “doesn’t read.”
Gabbard is hoping to add animations and more dynamic multimedia elements to Trump’s President’s Daily Briefs, or PDBs, to fit his viewing habits and hold his attention, five people with knowledge of the discussions told NBC News.
Gabbard ralso eportedly consulted with current and former intelligence officials on bringing in a Fox News producer and host to reshape the PDBs—which are usually text and image-based for national security reasons—to deliver the intel in broadcast form. NBC News reported that the process could involve granting the Fox News team security clearance to access classified information.
“The problem with Trump is that he doesn’t read,” one source said. “He’s on broadcast all the time.”
However, in a statement to NBC, White House Spokesman Davis Ingle blasted the report as “libelous garbage from unnamed sources.” He added, “President Trump has assembled a world-class intelligence team who he is constantly communicating with and receiving real time updates on all pressing national security issues.”
Echoing Ingle’s remarks, Director of National Intelligence Press Secretary Olivia Coleman said, “This so-called ‘reporting’ is laughable, absurd, and flat-out false. In true fake news fashion, NBC is publishing yet another anonymously sourced false story.”
PDBs are crucial decision-making tools for sitting presidents, but Trump has only taken the briefings 14 times as of May, less than once a week on average, NBC News reported. The average is less than that of predecessors Joe Biden and Barack Obama, who took 90 and 63 PDBs, respectively, in the same timeframe. In his first term, Trump took 55 PDBs by May.
In Trump’s first term, his PDB also changed to a one-page outline that was presented verbally by an intelligence official twice a week, according to former CIA officer John Helgerson’s book, Getting to Know the President: Intelligence Briefings of Presidential Candidates and Presidents-Elect 1952-2016.
At one point, then-Vice President Mike Pence reportedly told intelligence briefers to “lean forward on maps” to help Trump engage, according to Helgerson’s book.
Unclassified information released by the CIA’s in-house academic center in 2021 found that intelligence officials had “struggled” to brief Trump in his first term in 2016, with “only limited success” in educating the president, CNN reported.
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