President Trump has refrained from reading the President's Daily Brief during his first year in office, breaking with practice enshrined by his past seven predecessors, according to a report.
The top-secret document, known as PDB, lays out the most pressing issues of the day collected by U.S. intelligence officials across the globe. The document is classified and only seen by the commander-in-chief and a select few advisers with top security clearances.
But an administration insider with knowledge of the situation told the Washington Post that Trump doesn't read the daily intel memo because it's not his preferred "style of learning." Instead, the source said, Trump has opted for oral briefings, augmented with photos, videos and colorful graphics.
The revelation that Trump doesn't read the classified brief underscores his well-documented short attention span and unusual approach to the presidency.
Trump has admitted that he barely reads, telling reporters during the campaign that he doesn't have the time to because he's "always busy." Instead, Trump is known to carve plenty of "Executive Time" into his schedule, during which he distills the news of the day through cable TV — much of it from the conservative Fox News Channel, as evident from his tweets.
Earlier this week, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly told reporters that Trump hadn't read a 10-page intelligence document because "it's quite lengthy."
The White House maintains that Trump gets all the sensitive intelligence information he needs from his daily oral briefs, but intelligence experts beg to differ.
Joshua Rovner, an intelligence and foreign policy expert at American University, noted that Trump might miss out on crucial context that is hard to divulge in an oral briefings.
"You're definitely going to miss out on details if that's your approach," Rovner told the Daily News. "I think a president should read. The alternative is akin to a student going to class without doing the homework."While he found Friday's revelation concerning, Rovner said he wasn't all that surprised.
"Some presidents have been voracious readers — President Johnson for instance was a huge reader — but Trump has shown that he's not interested at all," Rovner said, referencing widespread reporting that the President doesn't like to read.
The PDB in its current form dates back to the Johnson administration. The document typically comprises individual "articles" penned by career intelligence analysts, first and foremost from the CIA. The articles are known to foreshadow imminent threats and security concerns on a global level.
While Trump doesn't bother reading the brief, White House officials say the top-secret document is also scanned by national security adviser H.R. McMaster, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
But Colin Kahl, a national security adviser to former Vice President Biden, argued that it doesn't matter how many people around Trump might read the document.
"The world is complicated," Kahl tweeted. "As someone who participated in the Presidential Daily Brief for more than 2 years, the PDB is especially important. Even if Trump is orally briefed, his understanding & attention span is notoriously poor."
President Obama became known for scrupulously reading the daily brief on his iPad, as photos have revealed.
But, in a stunning turn of hypocrisy, Trump once accused Obama of not reading the intel brief.
"Fact — Obama does not read his intelligence briefings nor does he get briefed in person by the CIA or DOD. Too busy I guess!" Trump tweeted on Sept. 30.
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