President-elect Donald Trump is receiving an average of one presidential intelligence briefing a week, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter, far fewer than most of his recent predecessors.Although they are not required to, presidents-elect have in the past generally welcomed the opportunity to receive the President’s Daily Brief (PDB), the most highly classified and closely held document in the government, on a regular basis.It was not immediately clear why Trump has decided not to receive the intelligence briefings available to President Barack Obama more frequently, or whether that has made any difference in his presidential preparations.
This hasn’t gone unnoticed. In a USA Today op-ed yesterday, Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Ben Cardin (D-Md.), the ranking members on the Senate Intelligence and Foreign Relations Committees, respectively, noted they find it “particularly troubling” that the president-elect “has mostly declined to take the daily intelligence briefing” — breaking with what other presidents-elect have done for decades.Former CIA Director Leon Panetta added this week that “one of the concerns I have right now is that this president is not getting his intelligence briefings.”He’s right to be concerned. Trump has no experience or background in government, foreign policy, national security, or counter-terrorism. If intelligence agencies stand ready, every day, to provide him with access to classified information — walking him through international developments, answering any questions he may have, etc. — it’s to his (and our) benefit that he take the time to learn.If Trump has time to complain about “Saturday Night Live” and attend self-indulgent rallies celebrating himself, he has time to attend intelligence briefings.But they just don’t seem to interest the president-elect as much as they should, which leads to speculation about why. Is Trump just lazy? Does he find the briefings too boring? If officials made them more entertaining — including more pictures, playing music in the background, reading materials in funny voices — would he be more inclined to sit and listen for a while?Or is this simply a matter of Trump not trusting U.S. intelligence agencies? And if so, who exactly will the president-elect turn to for daily security information once he’s in the Oval Office?As we discussed a couple of weeks ago, it’s hard not to feel uncomfortable with these circumstances. The least experienced, least knowledgeable presidential candidate in American history — prone to believe weird conspiracy theories and disregard facts he finds inconvenient — is preparing to take office soon, and at this point, he seems passively indifferent towards security information.The fact that Trump has no idea what he’s doing is alarming. The fact that Trump doesn’t seem eager to learn is almost certainly worse.
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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."