Trump has
sat for only 12 ‘daily’ intelligence briefings since taking office
The scarcity
of the President’s Daily Briefings comes as he pursues high-stakes diplomacy
with America’s friends and foes.
The low
number of briefings this time around is troubling to many in and around the
intelligence community, who were already concerned about Trump’s
act-first-evaluate-after approach to governing. |
By Amy
Mackinnon
05/09/2025
06:00 PM EDT
Updated:
05/10/2025 09:08 AM EDT
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/09/trump-intelligence-briefing-frequency-00338946
Since
President Donald Trump was sworn into office in January, he has sat for just 12
presentations from intelligence officials of the President’s Daily Brief.
That’s a
significant drop compared with Trump’s first term in office, according to a
POLITICO analysis of his public schedule.
In much of
his first term, Trump met with intel officials twice a week for the briefing,
which provides the intelligence community’s summary of the most pressing
national security challenges facing the nation.
The low
number of briefings this time around is troubling to many in and around the
intelligence community, who were already concerned about Trump’s
act-first-evaluate-after approach to governing.
“It’s sadly
clear that President Trump doesn’t value the expertise of and dangerous work
performed by our intelligence professionals each and every day, and
unfortunately, it leaves the American people increasingly vulnerable to threats
we ought to see coming,” Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the top Democrat on the
Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a statement to POLITICO.
The sporadic
pace of briefings comes as Trump has been working to broker an end to the wars
in Gaza and Ukraine and to jump-start nuclear talks with Iran — all while
navigating increasing potential threats from adversaries such as Russia and
China.
Each
president is different in the manner and pace at which they receive their
briefings, and Trump is not entirely out of step with some of his predecessors.
But with
Trump, there is added concern as he is known not to read the accompanying
briefing document, referred to as “the book,” that is put together by
intelligence analysts in a highly labor-intensive process. This document is
delivered in hard copy or on a tablet device to the president and his key
advisers five days a week.
The
briefings from senior intelligence officials are often a chance for the
president to hear detailed assessments on global crises and to receive updates
on highly classified covert operations overseas — along with blunt facts about
the state of the world, regardless of policy implications or the president’s
own views.
Trump
received just two in-person PDB briefings per month in January, February and
March, before settling into a more regular rhythm of once per week in April and
May, according to the president’s daily schedule maintained by Faceba.se, a
website that collates the president’s statements as well as his public
calendar.
PDB
presentations are typically tailored toward informing the president as he
conducts high-stakes diplomacy, detailing what a foreign government may be
thinking and what its intentions are, former intelligence officials said.
“The point
of having an $80 billion intelligence service is to inform the president to
avert a strategic surprise,” said a former CIA analyst who, like others in this
story, was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence matters.
Trump’s top
national security aides and Cabinet officials receive similar intelligence
briefings and can ensure that critical information reaches the president’s
ears.
Senior
administration officials said Trump gets the information he needs through
frequent communication with his intelligence chiefs.
“The
president is constantly apprised of classified briefings and is regularly in
touch with his national security team,” said Davis Ingle, a White House
spokesperson. “The entire intelligence community actively informs President
Trump in real time about critical national security developments.”
Ingle
declined to comment on why Trump has received fewer daily PDB presentations
compared to his first term..
Former
intelligence officials argued that the PDB sessions are an opportunity for the
president to hear from career intelligence officials who are skilled in
imparting information regardless of whether it complements or contradicts the
president’s foreign policy strategies.
They
questioned whether other top advisers or Cabinet officials would be able — or
willing — to relay these stark realities to the president.
And the
circle of officials receiving the PDB may also be smaller than in Trump’s first
term. CNN reported last month that the Trump administration has tightly
restricted the number of people who have access to the intelligence report.
Trump’s
first term in office was marked by a high turnover in his national security
team, a trend that looks set to continue. Last week, Trump ousted his national
security adviser Mike Waltz, who had long been on thin ice with other
administration officials.
“The
advantage of an IC briefer is its somebody who is trained to tell the hard
truths to the president,” said Larry Pfeiffer, who served as chief of staff to
CIA Director Michael Hayden.
“They are
going to be more inclined to provide him with more nuanced information —
information that’s not been parsed through a policy perspective,” Pfeiffer
said.
Presidents
vary in how often they have received in-person briefings. George W. Bush saw
briefers from the intelligence community almost every day and preferred hearing
directly from analysts, while Obama was a studious reader of the PDB book
itself.
Obama
received in-person briefings 44 percent of the days he was in office during his
first term, according to a 2012 analysis by the conservative research group the
Government Accountability Institute, which would equate to multiple briefings a
week. He was attacked by the conservative media and former Vice President Dick
Cheney for not attending more.
Biden
received one to two briefings a week, according to a former U.S. intelligence
official familiar with the matter and a former Biden White House official.
But Biden
was known to regularly read the PDB briefing book, the former intelligence
official said. A former official who served in Biden’s National Security
Council said that the president would use the delivery of the book as an
opportunity to gather his top national security aides and Cabinet officials to
discuss its contents and foreign policy implications.
During his
first term, Trump read little of his daily intelligence briefings, according to
accounts from his former briefers and reports in the New York Times.
At the time,
intelligence officials found Trump to be more responsive to graphics, maps and
a more storified approach to recounting the intelligence, according to
interviews with his briefers published in “Getting To Know The President,” a
history of intelligence briefings of candidates and presidents-elect, authored
by John Helgerson, a former senior CIA official.
Trump had a
fraught relationship with the intelligence community during his first term. But
the cadence of briefings almost three months into his second term represents a
stark drop when compared to his first four years in office, and offers insight
into how Trump might prioritize these briefings throughout the next four years.
In the first
five weeks following his inauguration in 2017, Trump received an average of 2.5
briefings a week before settling into an average of two briefings a week in the
latter half of his presidency, according to a detailed historical account
published by the CIA’s own in-house academic research center.
Trump’s
briefings during his first term were substantive, the former U.S. intelligence
official said, noting that the president listened and was interactive during
the presentations.
And during
Trump’s first term, Vice President Mike Pence was an “assiduous, six-day-a-week
reader,” of the PDB, Helgerson noted in his book.
A second
former senior U.S intelligence official stressed that there are other avenues
for Trump’s spy chiefs to get information to him, beyond his daily briefing,
including standalone memos and articles based on the latest intelligence
findings.
“It’s not
the be all and end all,” they said, speaking of the PDB. The person also noted,
as the White House did, that the president’s top advisers can also serve as a
conduit for relaying information to the president.
A person
familiar with how Trump takes his PDB briefings said that the president has
received standalone briefings on global flashpoints on an ongoing basis
separate from the PDB and that it would be incorrect to imply he wasn’t fully
briefed. They were granted anonymity to discuss how Trump receives his
intelligence.
“He’s
calling people all day. If he wants an update on some of these things, he’ll
call Ratcliffe, Rubio, Witkoff, Waltz, kind of in an ad-hoc fashion throughout
the day, receiving this stuff,” said the person, who spoke before Waltz was
removed from his position as national security adviser last week.
Asked for
comment about the president’s briefing schedule, National Security Council
spokesperson Brian Hughes said “President Trump has multiple high-level,
national security briefings every day. While the scope can range from a
comprehensive presentation of global intelligence, to meeting with senior
national security officials on an issue of immediate importance, the daily
engagement of President Trump is prolific.”
Former
intelligence officials argue that the in-person presentations from experienced
briefers offer a further opportunity for the president to receive important
context on the intelligence delivered, ask questions and relay any requests for
additional information back to the intelligence agencies.
That
feedback gives the country’s spy agencies an opportunity to learn more about
the president’s needs and interests. “We learn too,” said a third former senior
U.S. intelligence official.
Daniel
Lippman contributed to this report.
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