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TRUMP: I'm a 'smart person,' don't need intelligence briefings every single day

InTheLight

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Very good! So why is that a problem?

This has already been explained. It puts the CIA and NSA in a position to decide whether or not to have a DAILY briefing based on someone's interpretation of whether or not something has changed enough to warrant notifying the President. Better to give the daily briefing and let the President decide if it was worthwhile to hear it.
 

Revmitchell

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This has already been explained. It puts the CIA and NSA in a position to decide whether or not to have a DAILY briefing based on someone's interpretation of whether or not something has changed enough to warrant notifying the President.

Oh no! Such difficulties. This is not worth the criticism and I see it as wisdom on the part of Trump. In fact I would do the same thing. Comparing this to Obama has no value. Apples and refrigerators.
 

InTheLight

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Oh no! Such difficulties. This is not worth the criticism and I see it as wisdom on the part of Trump. In fact I would do the same thing. Comparing this to Obama has no value. Apples and refrigerators.

OK, how about comparing it to George W. Bush, Clinton, Bush Sr., Reagan, Carter, etc. All had PDB from the CIA. Now, here comes Trump, not even in office yet, and he's decided he doesn't need to do this.
 

Revmitchell

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OK, how about comparing it to George W. Bush, Clinton, Bush Sr., Reagan, Carter, etc. All had PDB from the CIA. Now, here comes Trump, not even in office yet, and he's decided he doesn't need to do this.

Wait doesn't need to do what? I am unaware he said he doesn't need to do something. I am aware he said he only wants intel briefings when there is new info.
 

steaver

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This has already been explained. It puts the CIA and NSA in a position to decide whether or not to have a DAILY briefing based on someone's interpretation of whether or not something has changed enough to warrant notifying the President. Better to give the daily briefing and let the President decide if it was worthwhile to hear it.
You are changing the circumstances and trying to then argue against your own interpretation of what Trump meant.

Trump said if anything changes. Are you suggesting the CIA and the NSA are not capable of deciding if something has changed?? Trump is obviously a smart man. If they tell him once, then he got it. If it changes (and I'm confident the CIA and NSA know what a change is) then schedule a meeting.

Someone said "may God help us". He already has, Clintons and Obama are gone!!!!!! Praise Jesus!!!!!
 

InTheLight

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Wait doesn't need to do what? I am unaware he said he doesn't need to do something. I am aware he said he only wants intel briefings when there is new info.

The President's DAILY Briefing. DAILY. Get it. DAILY.

All recent previous presidents have had DAILY briefings.Trump doesn't want to have DAILY briefings.

If you still don't get it, look at the thread title.
 

Revmitchell

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The President's DAILY Briefing. DAILY. Get it. DAILY.

All recent previous presidents have had DAILY briefings.Trump doesn't want to have DAILY briefings.

If you still don't get it, look at the thread title.

He wants them daily if....there is new info daily....get it. Its not about "daily" its about new info. Not sure why this needs to be explained.
 

Crabtownboy

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He wants them daily if....there is new info daily....get it. Its not about "daily" its about new info. Not sure why this needs to be explained.

Fellow, the intelligence services gets hundred of bits of intelligence daily. NSA filters millions of electronic signals a day. Briefings would have new information every day. Not sure why that needs to be explained.
 

Don

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While in Afghanistan, one of the things we had to do was a weekly briefing to our level general about the status of our areas. We'd list four or five things that were of "general officer" interest. S1 would do their bit; then S2; then S3; etc. If there were no changes, we'd put "NTR" (nothing to report). Sometimes a general would notice that "NTR" had been up there for an item two or more weeks in a row; so then he/she would ask if it needed to continue being on the weekly report.

Half the time, I was merely keeping in items that my predecessor(s) had provided, without any explanation as to why they were there in the first place ("we were told to put items on a slide, so we did"); and if I was ever asked if something needed to continue being on the weekly report, I usually said something along the lines of "I don't know why it was there in the first place." In fact, I seriously got in trouble with my immediate supervisor (an Air Force colonel) over this. He had us do a bi-weekly briefing for him; it was 24 slides, and he would typically make it last 3.5 hours or more, and we never got past slide 12. My guys had been in country a couple of weeks longer than me; I started asking them, "what's this slide about?" If they told me they didn't know, and that their predecessor hadn't explained the slide to them, and there were no notes anywhere about the slide, I'd hide it. I got the slide deck down to 12 slides this way, and the colonel didn't notice for the next two briefings (one month). Then one night, me and one of the guys were in talking to him about something else, and someone called him about the status of a TOC. He mentioned that he had the answer at his fingertips, because it was in the slide deck; I grimaced and said, "no, no you don't, because you hadn't noticed that we deleted that slide from your deck." So then he and I had a discussion--well, he discussed, and I said "yes sir" every so often--about deleting slides without telling him....

Sorry, but I'm seeing this as a "we've always done it that way" item; and Trump isn't planning on doing it that way any more.
 

Don

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Fellow, the intelligence services gets hundred of bits of intelligence daily. NSA filters millions of electronic signals a day. Briefings would have new information every day. Not sure why that needs to be explained.
You know as well as any of the other prior military people here: Not every single change gets briefed to POTUS. Only the things that are deemed as "POTUS level."
 

Revmitchell

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Sorry, but I'm seeing this as a "we've always done it that way" item; and Trump isn't planning on doing it that way any more.

Yea heaven forbid an experienced business man knows how to manage his time better. Wouldn't that be awful.
 

Crabtownboy

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You know as well as any of the other prior military people here: Not every single change gets briefed to POTUS. Only the things that are deemed as "POTUS level."

True and you and I know that changes daily. There is not a day that goes by that nothing new happens that is of that level. Just what we need, a president with attention deficit disorder.

Trump has a very short attention span. Bad trait in a president.

From: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/09/donald-trump-attention-span-214223

In the early ‘90s, Barbara Res, a project manager on Trump Tower who was a vice president in the Trump Organization, attempted to prepare him for a deposition for a court case pitting a Trump-led group against the Los Angeles school district in a battle for a coveted piece of property. “He said, ‘No, I don’t need to be prepared,’” Res said last week from her home in New Jersey. Finally, she persuaded him to give her, an associate and an attorney two hours in his office. “In the two hours, he kept taking phone calls,” Res said. Unprepared, he did “poorly” in the deposition, she said; his group lost the case, and the deal fell apart. “He was so distracted,” she said. “He really couldn’t stay focused.”

“I think he’s definitely got attention deficit disorder,” said Trump biographer Michael D’Antonio, who interviewed Trump five times for a total of eight hours and found himself frustrated trying to get him to concentrate on answers to questions about his parents, his childhood, just about anything. “That doesn’t mean he isn’t really smart—it just means he’s not at his best when he’s asked to dwell on a topic.”

The question of Trump’s attention span recently has leapt from a longtime employee complaint to a meaningful national issue. Res, O’Donnell and others like them have long collected stories of their exasperation over Trump’s impetuous nature as a boss. But this one personal attribute has become a subject of more widespread concern as voters consider how Trump’s habits and personality might translate to the presidency—a job that demands uncommon focus, with life in the West Wing often feeling like a control panel of perpetually blinking emergency lights.

“It is hard to fathom the scope of material a president has to handle on a daily basis or the velocity at which it comes until you see it firsthand,” said David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to President Obama, who described a work environment in which the demands are severe and ample attention span is a must.

“You have to be patient. You have to listen. You have to ask the right questions. All of those things require great discipline,” presidential historian Mark Updegrove said.
 

Earth Wind and Fire

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From the op:

"
In a rare post-election interview that aired Sunday, Trump argued for why he did not need to receive regular classified intelligence briefings on national security and foreign affairs, saying he told intelligence officials to only brief him when a situation the intelligence community is monitoring changes.

"I get it when I need it," Trump told "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace.

"I'm, like, a smart person. I don't have to be told the same thing in the same words every single day for the next eight years," the president-elect added. "I don't need that. But I do say, 'If something should change, let us know.'"

Sounds like a wise use of his time.
so he is assuming he has 8 years?
 

steaver

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The President's DAILY Briefing. DAILY. Get it. DAILY.

All recent previous presidents have had DAILY briefings.Trump doesn't want to have DAILY briefings.

If you still don't get it, look at the thread title.
And this is found where in the Constitution?? This really isn't an issue, Trump said they could call him on a minute's notice if there was a change he needed to know about. If they feel there are serious changes everyday then they will call him everyday and Trump will hear them "Daily".
 

blessedwife318

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Trump Supporters continue to convince me that not voting for him was the right thing to do. I was upset about the fact that a Democrat failed to go to daily intelligent briefings so I'm also upset that a Republican fails to go to daily intelligent briefings.
What it looks like to me is that Trump is setting up plausible deniablity for when something happens.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk
 

HankD

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Fellow, the intelligence services gets hundred of bits of intelligence daily. NSA filters millions of electronic signals a day. Briefings would have new information every day. Not sure why that needs to be explained.
As well as duplicate information.

BTW, there is no way you could know how many bits of information comes through the pipe unless you have the proper clearances and the need to know.

HankD
 

Revmitchell

Well-Known Member
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Trump Supporters continue to convince me that not voting for him was the right thing to do. I was upset about the fact that a Democrat failed to go to daily intelligent briefings so I'm also upset that a Republican fails to go to daily intelligent briefings.
What it looks like to me is that Trump is setting up plausible deniablity for when something happens.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

And what you are ignoring is the fact that he said he wants all briefings that include new information. Why should he spend time in a briefing that is exactly the same briefing as the day before? Who does that?
 

steaver

Well-Known Member
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Trump Supporters continue to convince me that not voting for him was the right thing to do. I was upset about the fact that a Democrat failed to go to daily intelligent briefings so I'm also upset that a Republican fails to go to daily intelligent briefings.
What it looks like to me is that Trump is setting up plausible deniablity for when something happens.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk
Sister, Trump said they can call him in a minutes notice if there is a change he needs to know about. Whats the problem??? If the agencies really believe there is a change every day then they will be calling him every day and there will be a briefing every day. So far, it appears Trump is right, they are not calling him every day.......
 
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