Conversations with some officials who have briefed Trump and others who are aware of how he absorbs information portray a president with a short attention span.He likes single-page memos and visual aids like maps, charts, graphs and photos.National Security Council officials have strategically included Trump’s name in “as many paragraphs as we can because he keeps reading if he’s mentioned,” according to one source, who relayed conversations he had with NSC officials.
I mean, really. What are we even supposed to say at this point? Nearly four months into this presidency, National Security Council officials have apparently learned that Trump is likely to stop reading important materials unless he sees his name, so they write “Trump” more than they’d like to in the hopes of keeping the president’s attention.Have I mentioned that we’re talking about a grown man with the world’s most difficult job?This comes on the heels of a report from Foreign Policy magazine on our NATO allies “scrambling” to tailor their upcoming meeting “to avoid taxing President Donald Trump’s notoriously short attention span.”A source briefed extensively on the meeting’s preparations explained, “It’s kind of ridiculous how they are preparing to deal with Trump. It’s like they’re preparing to deal with a child – someone with a short attention span and mood who has no knowledge of NATO, no interest in in-depth policy issues, nothing…. They’re freaking out.”Apparently, there’s a lot of this sentiment going around.
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Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."