Washingtons most exclusive meeting may lose its luster under Trump
For eight years, it has been the most exclusive, and arguably most important, daily meeting in Washington. Each morning, President Obama gathers his inner circle for the Presidential Daily Briefing, a run-through of the most important intelligence from around the world.
The rules under Obama have been strict and unyielding: No substitutes are permitted if one of the six regular attendees is out sick or traveling. No straphangers are allowed to linger in the Oval Office and watch.
Unlike just about every other meeting involving Washington officialdom, this one rarely, if ever, leaks.
Now it looks as if the PDB’s status as Washington’s most indispensable briefing could be coming to an end. “I get it when I need it,” said President-elect Donald Trump, who so far is taking the PDB only a few times a week. “I’m, like, a smart person. I don’t need to be told the same thing and the same words every single day for the next eight years.”
Those remarks have set off fears that Trump could miss a critical piece of intelligence and raised bigger questions about the president-elect’s attention span and interest in foreign policy. Some Democrats have expressed alarm at Trump’s decision not to sit through the PDB each morning with his staff members. “I think it is totally irresponsible in a post-9/11 world,” said Derek Chollet, a former senior official in the Obama administration. “It is a kind of malpractice.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/washingtons-most-exclusive-meeting-may-lose-its-luster-under-trump/2016/12/18/b3dd7d24-c236-11e6-9a51-cd56ea1c2bb7_story.html?utm_term=.c1339336462d&wpisrc=nl_rainbow&wpmm=1#comments
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