Joe Biden is offering a clear sign that he wants to know what’s what if he’s elected by receiving intelligence briefings while President Donald Trump has significantly slowed down the number of daily intelligence briefings that he receives, The Week [1] reports.
It’s not clear how many briefings Biden is receiving, but even if it’s only once per week it means he’ll be filled in more often than Trump is, HuffPost [2] reports. Biden wants to know [3] what’s going on so that he’ll be prepared if he wins the election, whereas Trump dislikes the daily briefings. The Huffington Post analyzed just how often Trump receives these briefings and it turns out he’s never held more than 20 per month. And that’s “remarkable” said Ned Price, a former CIA analyst, and a former National Security spokesman.
At the highest point, in March 2017 Trump averaged 4.1 briefings per week but that number has dropped significantly — to a mere 0.7 per week since July 1. The worst part in all of this is that briefing he received Monday is the first one since July 22. Pathetic.
“It’s remarkable that even at their peak, they never exceeded 20 per month,” Price said. “And now that they are arguably more important than ever, as foreign actors are interfering in our democracy, tensions with Beijing are swirling, and America’s adversaries and competitors are becoming more emboldened, the president can’t seem to find the time to be briefed.”
This inexcusable. It’s no wonder Trump is regularly upbraided when he speaks. He really doesn’t know what’s going on. However, I’m going to toss out one brief bone here: America has long interfered [4] in foreign elections, and perhaps this is the biggest reason why Trump should know what’s going on. It’s something worth considering because perhaps some foreign officials believe turn about is fair play. I’m just gonna leave it at that.
But Price is right to contend Trump’s indifference is cause for concern because there are ongoing reports of foreign interference in elections and the situation with China is growing increasingly worrisome.
So hopefully Joe Biden will have our backs here because Trump clearly doesn’t.