One of the most terrifying aspects of having Donald Trump as President of the United States was the news that he preferred pictures, graphs, and symbols over written briefs or memos. “The President is not a big reader,” we were told. Great, just what this nation needed was a second helping of a guy that many perceive as too lazy to read and-or simply has trouble with his attention span, such that he prefers, well – pictures. So do kids.
Yes, that is mean, but imagine the avalanche of bullsh*t we would have endured had it become known that the intelligence community wanted to convert President Biden’s Daily Brief into a television production with pictures and graphs. And yet that is exactly what is coming to Trump, as told by the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard. According to a report in the Daily Beast:
Director of National Security Tulsi Gabbard wants to turn President Donald Trump’s daily intel briefings into Fox News-type broadcasts because he “doesn’t read.” Gabbard is hoping to add animations and more dynamic multimedia elements to Trump’s President’s Daily Briefs, or PDBs, to fit his viewing habits and hold his attention.
It cannot be reiterated enough how disturbing it is to hear that “the president doesn’t read.” I recall that President Obama had his staff print 10 letters every day from citizens for him to read at night. That’s after a day of looking through memos and asking about footnotes. Does the “multimedia” thing mean they’ll style it like the WFC or pro-wrestling? Do not put it past them.
Gabbard also reportedly consulted with current and former intelligence officials on bringing in a Fox News producer and host to reshape the PDBs—which are usually text and image-based for national security reasons—to deliver the intel in broadcast form. NBC News reported that the process could involve granting the Fox News team security clearance to access classified information.
They better be former Fox News employees and not current ones doing this on the side. The temptation to leak intelligence to reporters would be nearly overwhelming. We also know that Trump has no problem with leaks so long as they make him look good. And here we go again, below:
“The problem with Trump is that he doesn’t read,” one source said. “He’s on broadcast all the time.” However, in a statement to NBC, White House Spokesman Davis Ingle blasted the report as “libelous garbage from unnamed sources.”
Garbage from anonymous sources? How could one possibly make this up? And why would someone make this up? It is not like it will somehow turn the electorate against Trump. Even an attempted coup couldn’t sufficiently do so. Furthermore, if one were to simply “guess” – given Trump’s immediacy in tweeting out responses to television coverage – it is everyone’s presumption that Trump simply watches Fox News all day, like any 79-year-old white Florida man. So why deny this so vehemently?
If Donald Trump is the type who cannot pay attention – or doesn’t care enough, to read the daily briefs (And the article linked above states that Trump has only attended a “handful” of the 100 daily briefs already prepared), and they need to make it “sexy” and “exciting” like breaking Fox News, then simply own it. That’s the guy you put in the White House and you knew him inside and out. That’s what you get.
It is hard to trust someone who “doesn’t read” to do important work. Reading demonstrates commitment, attention, concern, and intellectual curiosity. The last one is important because one would like to think that a president concentrates on various problems, analyzing them, asking questions, and only then deciding on a course of action. It sounds as though Trump prefers to make decisions on the fly – which may be why there are reported fights to be the last one to speak to Trump. Unfortunately, there are many indications that Trump’s decisions ultimately come down to what is best for him that day, nothing more.
Perhaps the people at Fox News should be proud of themselves. They have found a way to dispense information in a way that an uncurious, attention-challenged, and singularly self-centered older man can appreciate and consider. They found the secret sauce in reaching their target audience, such that he wants everything delivered “like TV.”
How embarrassing.
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If he treats his job as President this way, then how the hell did he manage to be such a “success” in his “business life?”
I mean, real estate “moguls”–if they want to be successful–have to deal with tons of paperwork on a daily basis. Even if they have tons of researchers doing all the real “grunt’ work, they still have to review the paperwork to know what they’re signing unless they want their hundreds of millions of dollars going towards a wretched garbage dump instead of a couple of blocks of valuable real estate.
Funny how none of Trump’s current “habits” have been discussed by former employees (probably because they think the NDAs they signed prevent it but those NDAs typically cover actual business details, not the boss’s “work habits”–and usually don’t last decades).