Briefings would help Trump get up to speed
Another thing Trump is failing to do: receive intelligence briefings.
President-elect Donald Trump has received two classified intelligence briefings since his surprise election victory earlier this month, a frequency that is notably lower — at least so far — than that of his predecessors, current and former U.S. officials said.
A team of intelligence analysts has been prepared to deliver daily briefings on global developments and security threats to Trump in the two weeks since he won. Vice President-elect Mike Pence, by contrast, has set aside time for intelligence briefings almost every day since the election, officials said.
I guess Trump thinks he’s too important to waste time on global developments and security threats.
A senior U.S. official who receives the same briefing delivered to President Obama each day said that devoting time to such sessions would help Trump get up to speed on world events.
Which, given the job he has taken on of his own volition, he really ought to do.
“Trump has a lot of catching up to do,” the official said.
Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and a senior member of Trump’s transition team, dismissed the issue, saying that Trump has devoted significant attention to security matters even while meeting with world leaders and assembling his administration.
“National security is Donald Trump’s No. 1 priority and I think he’s taking it very seriously,” Nunes said in an interview. “Look how many leaders he’s met with, how many phone calls he’s done, positions he’s filled. People who are being critical need to get a life.”
Jesus h christ – people who are being critical need to get a life. Right, it’s only the presidency, it’s only foreign affairs, it’s only security threats and global developments – it’s complete trivia, and people should ignore it and watch football instead. According to the chair of the House Intelligence Committee! The lunatics are running the asylum.
Trump was given an initial briefing within days of his election victory, and took part in a second session with senior U.S. intelligence analysts Tuesday in New York before he departed to Florida for the Thanksgiving holiday, officials said. Trump turned other briefing opportunities away.
He turned them away. He had time to call in tv reporters so that he could yell at them for not flattering him enough, but he didn’t have time for intelligence briefings.
“The last three presidents-elect used the intelligence briefings offered during the transition to literally study the national security issues that they would be facing and the world leaders with whom they would be interacting as president,” said Michael Morell, former deputy CIA director, who supported Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton during the campaign.
“The president-elect is missing out on a golden opportunity to learn about the national security threats and challenges facing our nation,” Morell said, “knowledge that would be extremely valuable to have when he takes the oath of office and when he steps into the Situation Room for the first time.”
Terrifying.
Trump has yet to meet with Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. or other top intelligence officials — aside from an unofficial meeting with embattled Adm. Mike Rogers, the director of the National Security Agency, who is rumored to be a top candidate to replace Clapper. Trump has greeted a parade of other officials auditioning for Cabinet positions, but also met with Indian business partners, television news anchors and figures in the entertainment industry.
That’s what happens when you elect Howdy Doody president.
Why should Trump attend briefings? He believes the government is so corrupt, and doing so much wrong, he probably thinks they don’t know as much as he does, or that they will deliberately lie to him. Remember, he’s got a very good brain. He is the only one that can fix things, so why would he listen to what other people tell him?
He knows what to do: Nuke Muslims, tear up trade agreements, and build walls. What could intelligence briefings possibly add to that?
We are doomed.
And briefings need to be REALLY brief, considering the attention span of the subj
He should be briefing the generals, the economists, and all the other so-called experts!
God, he’s like our own Kim Jong-un.
Kim Yong-deux
I find it, again, completely unsurprising.
He’s not a curious guy. Figures he already knows all he needs to. And dismisses evidence that doesn’t fit the narrative he’s currently selling with little apparent anxiety (I wonder if his filters are so thick he might barely being aware of ever having heard it). And the same organisations were noticing plenty during the election that just doesn’t fit with the story he wants to believe. He hardly wants to sit across the table from them again and have them tell him again a buncha complicated things he just wants to ignore.
It’s _mostly_ bad, opens up all kinds of risks, absolutely. But as a tiny, slim consolation: I begin to think Trump is _so_ far up his own ass this way, he probably goes slightly past the worst he could be, and begins to blunt again the dangers he poses. Not only doesn’t even know what he doesn’t know, but doesn’t even want to. So, at least, there can be relatively little sophistication to the havoc he wreaks. He cannot so much _systematically_ destroy programs and efforts he takes a petulant dislike to (practically: I think ‘systematic’ and ‘Trump’ are pretty much antipodes) as bluntly attempt to sweep them into oblivion… So, sure, he’ll do damage. But witness that vast incuriosity… He’ll miss things. He misses things all the time…
… so, sure, he’s probably never gonna really get what’s going on. Kleptocracy will be the rule of the day under him, as is already turning up before he’s even taken office… But it will be a particularly lazy, haphazard, embarrassingly disorganised one. He will regularly undermine himself, much as he did through the election. The real hazard will be those around him who may be savvy enough to take advantage of this; if they’re sufficiently craven and clever, _they’ll_ be the larger trouble.
He must be a security nightmare to manage. He lives in a huge, glazed tower in one of the busiest spots on earth. He brags constantly about which floors he lives and works on. He shows off his apartment to the press so often he may as well provide a floor plan of it. It’s only a matter of time before he needs the ultimate in dictator security accessories – a team of Trump doppelgangers.
How do you find a body double for that lump of orange plastic and fake fur?
Piece a kook, just set up a beauty contest. He’s done it any number of times, tremendously.
Oh, that’s just the body double. The mental clowning part may prove to be harder.
Give some of Milo’s hair products to Chris Christie
Rrr @4
Very punny.
Trump seems to be more like the Bourbons, he’s ‘learned nothing and forgotten nothing’.
AJ – the problem with that assessment is that he isn’t actually, like, king. The Congress and the Vice president will be able to do so much damage, and they really do want to wreck the joint.
To wit, Paul Ryan.
How much do you want to bet that the top military brass are right now figuring out how to give Trump fake nuclear codes and everything, and generally devising protocols to make sure he can’t do anything catastrophically stupid like start WWIII on a whim? Because I’ve gotta believe real soldiers aren’t anxious to do the equivalent of handing a very large loaded gun to a toddler with no impulse control.
(Further bet: They’ve had such plans filed away in the basement of the Pentagon for years, just in case. Because those guys try to anticipate every eventuality.)
Taking a bow, RJW. But I’m not quite sure I came up with that one originally. Might be a stolen little gem.
Steve – I certainly hope so.
iknklast
I wasn’t referring to Trump’s constitutional position, but his (apparent) inability to change his ways.
If, and when, progessive politicians ever gain control of Congress, my advice is to get rid of that bizarre Electoral College, if they can.
Steve Watson,
I wonder if the generals gave Kennedy fake launch codes. That urbane conviction patrician nearly got us all incinerated in 1962.
Actually, RJW, that comment was to follow up AJ Milne, but my stupid tablet decided to change the AJ to A.
Bad tablet. No.
Doesn’t work. That tablet is unable to learn.
Understood.
My generation was actually taught to spell so I wish my tablet would leave me alone and stop making ‘helpful’ suggestions.
It’s not the “helpful suggestions” that bother me most…it’s the inability to get the tablet to let me put certain words in that are not words it knows. I received a message one day about Eugene Ionesco, and the person sending it could not get the phone to put in anything but Io Ones Co. It took me a bit to realize what it meant; fortunately, the context of the message could only fit Ionesco, so I eventually figured it out.
My devices won’t even spell “autocorrupt” right. ;-)
iknklast, re Congress’ (also probably very significant) danger, yeah, this, too. In my defense: very slim consolation. And I’d say it may hold some grim entertainment watching these now several very nasty groups squaring off, and occasionally fighting over what to wreck first, and how, but, yeah, _very_ grim.
On autocorrect: I’m typing this on a folding aluminum bluetooth keyboard thing I wound up importing from Dzhaina (I’m told this is now the correct spelling and pronunciation, as established by fiat) as I find it difficult to get them more locally… Sign of the times on its own, that importing, come to think of it. I really do make more mistakes when Swype or the Google equivalent are just trying to help. Find I write very differently using them, too; just can’t get the same flow…
I’m not sure if it’s related to this general frustration, or it’s just, okay, not even that funny anyway, but I stopped finding Fuck You Autocorrect funny after, I dunno, not long…
I have longer essays somewhere on my general anxiety about the tablet and smartphone age, and how the general difficulty of inputting anything halfway complicated may be pushing what had been more peer to peer networks toward few producers, mass of consumers, again, as people connecting via devices that don’t allow us to express ourselves with any precision or complexity will find ourselves pushed toward just watching video more. Heard somewhere, probably here, that Trump doesn’t even have a computer, and, somehow, this seems to fit, to me. A tweet is about as complicated a thought as the man’s ever likely to have.
If the subject has now come full circle: don Don doesn’t even have that excuse, though, being “brought up” and “educated” long before the advent of such sophisticated aids. He seems to have self-learned to non-learn. Or it could be some congenital deficiency, or effects of age. In any case it does not make him qualified for much of anything; quite the contrary.
(Smiling at ‘He seems to have self-learned to non-learn…’)
So… Sorta like an autodidact… Only not.
(Autoignoramus?)
So now the secret service and NYPD may end up renting two floors in the ‘glass phallus’ at tax payers’ expense: http://edition.cnn.com/2016/11/25/politics/secret-service-trump-tower/
Additionally to the rent, the indirect costs of protecting the tower:
If NATO members have to pay to protect themselves, shouldn’t the hypocrite-elect?
I saw that yesterday, but also saw that Biden’s habit of going to and from Wilmington several times a week also causes big extra expenses, so decided to call it a draw.